Questions of identity

That is a hair tie carefully placed on the sticky-outy things (cup holders?) on the dish drying rack. When I see things like this, I marvel at the thought process Singularity must go through: Hmmm, there is a hair tie. There is the dish rack. Those things sticking out seem to be just the right distance apart to hold this hair tie. I was right!  At least that is what I imagine he must be thinking. He never says.

Singularity has very long hair, because he has a lot of sensory issues that make haircuts difficult. I think that the problem may be the sound of the scissors so close to his ears, but it is difficult to remember, as it has been over two years since I cut his hair. (He may have had two professional haircuts in his entire life so far.) He is also very sensitive about having his hair washed. He hates it when water gets in his face or ears.

About six months ago, we finally settled on a hairstyle to keep his hair under control. I usually put a French braid in the crown section of his hair to keep the straggling hairs out of his face, and then I  put the rest of the hair into a ponytail. I’m not sure why this innovation was so long in coming. Prior to that, we had taken to making him wear a hat at the dinner table, to keep his hair out of his food.

People make a lot of assumptions about others based on their appearance. Over the summer, Singularity got tired of explaining to people that he was a boy. (This happened most often when he was entering a public men’s room.) So we made a special hair tie using letter beads that says, “I am a boy”.

A friend of mine wanted to know if Singularity is transgendered, because of his long hair. No, he isn’t. (But it would be fine with me if he was.) Singularity seems very clear about his gender and sexual identity.  I am quite certain that he is attracted to women, as he is taking a rather, um, Oedipal interest in my curvy female body.

He has also informed me that he is going to marry a woman and become the father of six children. They are already in our family tree on Ancestry.com. (Genealogy has been a special interest of his.) He has already named his six children, although I am sure that their future mother might have something to say about that. I love it that one of his daughters is named after me. He says that he doesn't know yet whom he will marry, but that he might already know her.

Singularity gets anxious about having someone to take care of him. I told him once that he could live with me as long as he needs to. So now he is planning for his wife and children to live with me when he grows up!

This post is reminding me of a very fine book I recently read, called Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon, which is a thoughtful exploration of “horizontal” identities, identities that separate you from your family, but which make you part of a community with others who have dwarfism, who are Deaf, who are gay, who have autism, who are transgendered, etc. Solomon doesn't write about this, but being an autism parent is another horizontal identity. Nothing from our prior lives has prepared us for this adventure.

Last fall at our house, we went through a "Flat Stanley" phase. Flat Stanley is a boy who became flattened when a bulletin board fell on him. He has many interesting adventures, all made possible by his flatness. In The Japanese Ninja Surprise, Stanley mails himself to Japan to meet a famous movie ninja, who imparts the wisdom that a flat boy is what Stanley is, but it is not who he is. 

Just as being an autism mom is part of my identity, Singularity is forming a sense of autistic identity. "Autism mom" and "boy with autism" are what we are, not who we are.