More motherhood reflections
Apr. 10th, 2006 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I've had these lyrics from Children of Eden running through my head a lot lately:
I used to think it was
The spark of creation
Or was it just a defect in me?
A flaw in my nature?
And now look what I've done
I've passed it to my son...
I always used to say, "Well, my child's bound to be smart, because his parents are both brilliant and we'll read to him and let him develop his natural intelligence so that he'll be reading at age 4" and so on and so on. :P And here he is, three years old and not even talking much...not much chance of reading any time soon. And I'm dealing with it; I'm not a total wreck over it. But I'm beginning to realize that his autism could be just as much something he inherited from me as any intelligence. I'm not trying to blame myself, because after all I couldn't very well alter my DNA before passing it on to him, and wanting to mess around with that sort of stuff leads down dangerous paths (as anyone from a science fiction movie could tell you). No, all I'm really doing is realizing that my extreme introvertedness and the little compulsions I have, combined with my husband's quirks, could very easily add up to autism. And I want to feel a connection between my son and me; I don't want to feel like I'm raising an alien.
So I'm looking very seriously at the weird things I do and thinking "Is my son thinking like this, only more so?" For example, I like folding clothes. I really, really enjoy it. I like making sure everything is perfectly neat, and if it's not, part of me just writhes and has to fix it or try to find some way to distract myself from it. And I count my steps sometimes. Just count them, for no reason, and try to start with my left foot and finish with my right. Pretty bizarre. Not debilitating; I've always been perfectly functional. But I can see how something like that, in a more extreme form, could result in Luke's fixations. Now here's something that struck me yesterday, harder than it ever has before - I've always been a bit embarrassed by my weird thoughts. The ones that try to make order out of the chaos of the world, to make everything neat and fitted in a perfect slot, or just totally random ideas that I couldn't possiby try to express to anyone without getting raised eyebrows. Why the heck are you counting your steps? Stop that! It was a part of myself that made me squirm.
No wonder I've been having trouble dealing with Luke. It's kind of like looking in a funhouse mirror; seeing the parts of myself that I've tried to ignore or erase or deny. So I get far more frustrated with him than I ever would if he didn't remind me of those parts. Realizing, yesterday, that these things are a part of me, and it's okay, and it's okay that Luke has them, was somehow immensely comforting. Obviously Luke still needs his therapy, because he's not functional yet and these things are a significant problem for him. But I can have real empathy for what he's going through, because it's like a more extreme form of my own quirks.
Also, my husband sent me out on Saturday night because I had been going nuts taking care of the kids by myself for the past two weeks while he finished his thesis, and he knew I needed to just escape for a bit. I couldn't find a single movie worth seeing, so I went to the bookstore and just rambled around for a while. Eventually I ended up in the parent resources section, thumbing through books about autism and getting more depressed rather than less. I left the section gloomily, roamed to the sci-fi/fantasy section, and glanced through books by one of my favorite authors. Lo and behold, the first book to catch my eye was about an autistic man who is the subject of tests not unlike those in "Flowers for Algernon." And the author, it turns out, is the mother of an autistic son. It was the weirdest thing, but I just started crying. I bought the book. I don't know...it just felt more comforting to me than any of the "Parents' Flawless Guide for Autism" kind of stuff. I don't need a textbook; I need a story. Which is why I have song lyrics running through my head instead of scientific theories. This is why I want to be an author; stories give me hope and purpose.
Wow, this is a ponderous sort of post, but I feel better having written it. And I'm going to go give my son a big hug.
I used to think it was
The spark of creation
Or was it just a defect in me?
A flaw in my nature?
And now look what I've done
I've passed it to my son...
I always used to say, "Well, my child's bound to be smart, because his parents are both brilliant and we'll read to him and let him develop his natural intelligence so that he'll be reading at age 4" and so on and so on. :P And here he is, three years old and not even talking much...not much chance of reading any time soon. And I'm dealing with it; I'm not a total wreck over it. But I'm beginning to realize that his autism could be just as much something he inherited from me as any intelligence. I'm not trying to blame myself, because after all I couldn't very well alter my DNA before passing it on to him, and wanting to mess around with that sort of stuff leads down dangerous paths (as anyone from a science fiction movie could tell you). No, all I'm really doing is realizing that my extreme introvertedness and the little compulsions I have, combined with my husband's quirks, could very easily add up to autism. And I want to feel a connection between my son and me; I don't want to feel like I'm raising an alien.
So I'm looking very seriously at the weird things I do and thinking "Is my son thinking like this, only more so?" For example, I like folding clothes. I really, really enjoy it. I like making sure everything is perfectly neat, and if it's not, part of me just writhes and has to fix it or try to find some way to distract myself from it. And I count my steps sometimes. Just count them, for no reason, and try to start with my left foot and finish with my right. Pretty bizarre. Not debilitating; I've always been perfectly functional. But I can see how something like that, in a more extreme form, could result in Luke's fixations. Now here's something that struck me yesterday, harder than it ever has before - I've always been a bit embarrassed by my weird thoughts. The ones that try to make order out of the chaos of the world, to make everything neat and fitted in a perfect slot, or just totally random ideas that I couldn't possiby try to express to anyone without getting raised eyebrows. Why the heck are you counting your steps? Stop that! It was a part of myself that made me squirm.
No wonder I've been having trouble dealing with Luke. It's kind of like looking in a funhouse mirror; seeing the parts of myself that I've tried to ignore or erase or deny. So I get far more frustrated with him than I ever would if he didn't remind me of those parts. Realizing, yesterday, that these things are a part of me, and it's okay, and it's okay that Luke has them, was somehow immensely comforting. Obviously Luke still needs his therapy, because he's not functional yet and these things are a significant problem for him. But I can have real empathy for what he's going through, because it's like a more extreme form of my own quirks.
Also, my husband sent me out on Saturday night because I had been going nuts taking care of the kids by myself for the past two weeks while he finished his thesis, and he knew I needed to just escape for a bit. I couldn't find a single movie worth seeing, so I went to the bookstore and just rambled around for a while. Eventually I ended up in the parent resources section, thumbing through books about autism and getting more depressed rather than less. I left the section gloomily, roamed to the sci-fi/fantasy section, and glanced through books by one of my favorite authors. Lo and behold, the first book to catch my eye was about an autistic man who is the subject of tests not unlike those in "Flowers for Algernon." And the author, it turns out, is the mother of an autistic son. It was the weirdest thing, but I just started crying. I bought the book. I don't know...it just felt more comforting to me than any of the "Parents' Flawless Guide for Autism" kind of stuff. I don't need a textbook; I need a story. Which is why I have song lyrics running through my head instead of scientific theories. This is why I want to be an author; stories give me hope and purpose.
Wow, this is a ponderous sort of post, but I feel better having written it. And I'm going to go give my son a big hug.
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Date: 2006-04-12 08:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-04-14 03:25 am (UTC)I came over here from Fernwithy's LJ - do you mind if I friend you?
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