Hello world

Over the last several months, I have been taking photographs of everyday objects I find in odd places in our home. I’m not even sure when my son first began making these art installations. He has has probably been doing it for years. But suddenly one day in May, this plastic goose standing on top of the globe caught my eye. It struck me as the physical manifestation of a mind that sees the world in a special way. Once I began seeing through the lens of autism as a different way of looking at the world, I started to notice these installations all over our home.

My name is Amelia, and I am an autism mom. This sounds confessional, but I assure you that if you saw me out in the community with my son, you would either think (a) that I am an autism mom or (b) that I was a terrible parent for allowing my child to act the way he does sometimes. There’s just no hiding it, and I wouldn’t want to.  I would never have chosen to be an autism mom, but at this point I can’t imagine being any other kind of mom. Just as I couldn’t imagine having any other kind of child.

Amelia to Singularity: You’re the perfect kid for me.
Singularity to Amelia: You’re the perfect mom for me.

Be still, my heart!

My treasured boy, whom I shall call “Singularity” for the purposes of this blog, recently had his ninth birthday. He is a singularity, along the lines of the old saying “if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” In other words, all people with autism have their own individual flavor of autism, their own particular strengths and challenges. I also like this moniker, because of technological and quantum physics usages of the word. And because it reminds me of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I am starting this blog for mainly selfish reasons. I want to elaborate on my thoughts about the experience of being an autism mom in more depth than I might if I were just writing a personal journal. I kept a personal journal for many years, and my experience of it is that I just didn’t explore things fully when I was writing for myself. After all, I already knew the context for everything I was writing. I think that the process of doing outward-facing writing will make me reach deeper. If this helps any other parents in a similar situation, all the better.

I have chosen this wordy blog title for two reasons. First, people with autism may have different views of the world than the rest of us. I don’t believe that we “neurotypicals” can really imagine what it feels like to have autism, but I do think that we get an occasional glimmer.

Second, autism moms have a different way of looking at their children’s development. We look at our children’s behaviors that are considered inappropriate for children their age by the wider world, and we rejoice to see that our children are reaching developmental milestones  that their age peers have long since passed. Seeing our children do something "normal" can bring a tear to our eyes. It is also painful for us to watch our children struggle with things that come easily to other children.

OK, maybe there are three reasons. I am a former librarian, a present-day indexer of books, a lifelong reader. I love words. My husband loves words. We are a wordy family. My son learned to read when he was 18 months old. So, naturally this blog must have a wordy title. 

I don’t know yet how I feel about allowing comments on this blog. As I alluded above, I am used to people criticizing my parenting. I am inured to that. But being an autism parent is a journey through Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief. After all these years, I live mostly in the acceptance stage. But if someone were to post an inflammatory comment on a day when I’m in an anger or depression phase, it could be devastating. So for now I have turned commenting off. Please feel free to email me at AutismADifferentWay(at)gmail(dot)com.

Update as of 11/7/2013: I have decided to turn on comments, so that it doesn't feel as if I am writing into a void. I hope that people will be kind and respectful.