Admission

I was just reading this excellent post and thinking about a time, years ago, when I may have been a jerk to a kid with Autism. I may not have been, he could have just been a kid misbehaving in church, but he may have had Autism.

When I was about 19 or 20, my sister and I went to Mass at this church that we didn't really like, but that was in our town. It was kind of Folksy Massy Catholic, and that is not our thing. There was a family in front of us and this boy was playing with change, slapping quarters together, and his mom was not even paying attention. I leaned over, after what felt like a long time, and said "could you stop doing that? You are driving me crazy!". The mom, at the handshake of peace, said to me, "you know, I'm going to forgive you". I feel confident I said something like "big deal" or something as snotty.

I know! I know I was in church! It's awful, and I haven't thought of it in years. It recently came back to me, and I was gripped with fear that that boy had Autism. I'll never know, I hope he didn't, I hope he was just a bad kid whose mom wasn't paying attention. But he probably wasn't, and who cares if he was? I never should have said that. It never occurred to me, just the same as it probably doesn't occur to people that Anthony has Autism, that there is an explanation to his whacky behavior.

Anthony is super noisy. SUPER. NOISY. He is a bray-er. It's like instead of flapping his hands to stim, he's flapping his vocal chords. It's NOISY. He is upstairs right now, yelling away, when he should think about going to sleep. We don't take him to church, and haven't for years. The last time he was there was Maria's baptism, when he was 2.5, and he was pretty bad then.

He is less impulsive than he was 2 years ago, and I think maybe he could sit for a while and not dart out up the aisle, but he's so noisy. I take Veronica to church and I take her to the back when she is just babbling loudly, and he is like ten times as noisy! So, no church for him, yet. There's a woman whom I sit near in church who is always telling me I should bring ALL my kids to church. She's funny, one time she told me that people are going to think every time I have a new baby, I just get rid of the old one. I just don't want to get into it, though, because I know she'd feel bad if I said "my son has Autism and he's super noisy and I can't bring him". Plus I might cry when I said it, because sometimes I still cry when I say Anthony has Autism. Even though it's been two years! Sometimes I practice saying it first, when I know I'm going to have to.

Anyway. This woman, who wrote about the little girl who was so badly behaved, the girl who wanted to make her jam a pen in her eye, isn't really a bad person, I'm sure. I'm sure she's embarrassed and feels badly about what's happened. But I wish that she and people like her would just look alive, man. It is all over the news that a lot of kids have Autism now, more than ever before! Epidemic! Jenny McCarthy! Parenthood! They're everywhere! Even a jerkstore like I was would NOT have said anything to that child in church if it hadn't been 20 years ago. I hope, anyway.

When we were little and my brother was sick and would get stared at, I would always stare back at people, I would confront them and try and make them feel bad. Now, though, I don't want to make anyone feel bad for feeling bad about Anthony, or me as his mother. I just don't want it to happen. I don't want anyone to judge little Anthony, believe me, he would have NO idea that it was happening, but I still don't want it. We stay home a lot, but I think maybe it's more for me than for him.