I always dreamed of being a mother. Did I imagine my future son’s face in all the details: the color of the father’s eyes, my smile, Grandma’s hair, Grandpa’s size?Motherhood has always been as natural to me as breathing. But when my dream finally came true, it didn’t happen as I expected. The idea of having an autistic child had never passed through my mind.
He wanted to scream, kick and curse the world, because I?I’m going to see him suffer? A cascade of emotions and questions piled up on me, so I decided to write you this letter to tell you how I feel, because with or without autism, my love grows every day.
We believe we teach our children to live, but they are the ones who teach us what life is like.
Dear Son:
I don’t know what’s going to happen now, I know, I know, I’m your mother and I’m supposed to have it all planned more or less, that he would have already made lists with the nearest universities he could look for. by and get a good one. I didn’t need to be the best, I’m not one of CES’s mothers, but I’d look for a good education for you. I would have prepared the video camera for every presentation I made at school and I spent the afternoons helping you with scientific projects, because that’s what loving mothers do.
What does that mean? Yes, I know there’s only two of you, but we seem to have lost track. I want to do a good job as a mother. I want to give you every chance you can. I want you to be prepared to fight among the best in the competitive world we live in, because even if I’m not one of the mothers of CES, I want you to follow in my footsteps and succeed in your studies.
As I said before, I’m supposed to know what to do, know every step of the way. Have you thought about extracurricular activities, private teachers, football team, piano lessons?After literally writing the details of their upbringing and education before. heading for childbirth Basically, know what to do at every stage of the process.
So, yesterday, you were diagnosed: you’re autistic. Now I feel like we’re both horrified at sea, as if a stream of waves hit us violently in the middle of a storm and we can only get carried away, I’m not trying to scare you, but I don’t know what to do next: aren’t there many textbooks on the education of autistic children?but a lot of questions.
Last night I found myself trying not to cry, I was in mourning when I said goodbye to the doctor who would never become me, the basketball star you will never become, he cried for girlfriends, jobs or successes that I would never live with. . He had no vision for the future, because none of the pieces matched.
But do you know what I think now when I write this letter, saying goodbye to all these expectations: because they would break the same way, even later. And she should learn the same way to be a good mother to you, for her own needs and desires.
In other words, have you seen these children who have been preparing to be doctors since childhood, don’t you feel like running away before imagining someone who can’t expel their own gas by skewering it with a needle?On the other hand, do you know the topics that some of them use in their PhDs?Do you think we need more experts around the world in Pitbulls mating habits with some antibiotic resistance?I imagine these questions will baffle you, since you’re only two years old.
I realized that this plan I had for you, even if you accepted it (even if you made this mistake), would not guarantee anything. You know what I realized, too? That you’re not boring. You’re sweet, kind and bright.
You’ll run around the room to kiss me and solve the problems your way, you’ll even get the cat to hug him violently when he runs away from you, in what we have to work on, but that makes your mother proud. And yes, you’re my autistic son, but you’re also unique and authentic, so why do I cry about plans that have disappeared, when they never really existed?
In the end, of course, your future is still unknown, but as little as I know, I begin to think that I will be a happy, independent and realized adult. The diagnosis didn’t stop me from seeing in you the intelligence and the exception that fascinates me.
Now, that same morning, I hope you’ll be treated like any other unstable, unreasonable, emotional, reactive, explosive, rare, and capricious child. In the coming years, I will cross my fingers instead of complaining, right next to the mothers of neurotic children, when I change my mind about their preschool snack, I would like to see you discover slugs and bury them as a treasure, inexplicably still alive, as children without autism do.
In other words, my love, autism is not an insurmountable obstacle to greatness, success or normalcy. And I anticipate that as it grows, it will continue to be. You are loving and wonderful; it’s stubborn, resilient and determined. He’s capable. Bright things await you in the future and despite what we learned yesterday, I consider myself a lucky person, for all the newborns I could have as a child, I have you.
We have you, my love. And together we’ll figure out how to move on
Despite how dramatic it can be to hear for the first time that you have an autistic child, the reality of diagnosis is not as terrible as we think, having an autistic child simply teaches us to discover the world again through your eyes and your authenticity. way to get to know him.
An autistic child is like any other child, with a different way of relating to the outside world, if you are also a mother of an autistic child, you will quickly realize that with early intervention you can lead a good life. , your autistic child will in any case follow his own path, in which he will certainly find happiness.
Author’s Note: Article based on an open letter to my newly diagnosed austist son by Shannon Frost Greenstein.