Reaching out to others
Since I’m in “take it easy mode” we limited ourselves to one brief outing today. We went for lunch and then headed over to the Carter’s baby clothes outlet to exchange an outfit for our growing little weed.
Having never ventured in that store before, we were surprised to find it packed wall to wall with garish SALE and CLEARANCE and HOLIDAY DISCOUNT signs as well enough upper middle class mothers with strollers to surely violate some fire code. Since we were sans stroller and lugging the boy around in his bucket, Rich offered to take him over to the video game aisle at Best Buy next door while I stood in a crazy long line to exchange our item.
I stood there amongst the ironically humorous bibs and coordinated bootie/cap/jumper outfits, eavesdropping on all the other suburban mothers. I was awash in a sea of white women in yoga pants with dyed blond hair discussing how many outfits grandma should get and if they should sign up for the store’s coupon mailer (realizing that I had only recently been a white woman with dyed blond hair).
As I pondered what sort of subculture I had gotten myself into by procreating, I felt a tug at my purse strap. It was more like a tapping of someone trying to get my attention over and over. I turned around and there was a tall lean black teenager, maybe 15, running his hand up and down my purse strap. Having first deduced him to be the World’s Worst Thief, I realized he was not looking at me or even my purse but only at the strap as he ran his finger nails up and down the course nylon material. I noticed his other hand hooked in the arm of his mother as she reached out to inspect some garment for her young daughter.
I’m still surprised that I processed this all as fast as I did but somewhere in my head I thought, “he’s not lost, his mother is with him, he’s most likely autistic and he’s not hurting me. I’ll just leave him be.” I smiled at him, shrugged and turned back around to wait my turn. I also caught the look of another lady next to me and she clearly looked appalled at both his behavior and my reaction. After about 30 seconds he abandoned my purse strap and started tapping the plastic hangers on the display next to his mother. His mom never knew we interacted.
As I checked out and left, I wondered how many times his hands have strayed in a crowded store like that and how many times his mother has apologized for him. I wondered if she was tired of managing both him and her precocious two-year-old daughter. And I wondered how things might have played out in line if he’d reached out for purse of the lady next to me instead of mine.
A month or so ago, I added Carly Fleischmann to my Twitter friends after watching a TV special about her. She occasionally solicits questions about autism and responds to them in Twitter or her web site. It’s very interesting to read what people ask and her explanations. She’s a clever kid. Remembering Carly as I processed my brief interaction with the boy in the store, I’m even more glad I didn’t pull away from him or scowl. I’d hate for strangers to fuss at me over things I couldn’t help. And in his defense, my purse straps are pretty neato.
When we were in the airport flying to Maine this summer, there was a young girl about Ace’s age running back & forth through the lane ropes, running up to the self-checkout machines & touching them, running up to strangers & tapping on their suitcases. We saw her again at the security line, where she could not stand still and kept hopping out of line, running past the security guard who was checking IDs, once even right up to the belts, well beyond where she was supposed to be. Everyone tolerated her behavior or gently corrected her and directed her back to her suitcase laden parents because you could tell by her face that she had Downs Syndrome. She was visibly different.
My mother leaned over to me and said, “You know, Ace acts just like that sometimes. It is exactly the same, but no one would tolerate it from him. He would get yelled at because you can’t see his disability.”
She was right. It’s hard to know what might be going on inside when there is no clue on the outside. I am not saying Ace’s ADHD is a serious as a child with Downs or an autistic child. I just now a little bit of the feeling, though. I assume autistic parents must struggle with this continuously. I know I do – we do, Ace and I – he just gets viewed as a “bad kid” when what he really is is a disabled kid. You just can’t see it on his face.
As someone who doesn't have kids, it's really easy to see a "bad kid" and make a snap judgment about the kid or the parenting skills of the parents. As I've gotten older and my friends are having kids I'm learning this thing called "patience" combined with this other thing called "understanding". Kids do what they do for a huge number of reasons. It's not always because they're bad or their parents suck; sometimes there are things going on we can't see or don't know about; and rather than scowl or be hateful, we can take a deep breath and relax. It costs us nothing to put on a calm face and sympathize (especially in an airport.. I mean.. how many of us as adults get antsy waiting in crazy long lines for no real apparent reason? Kids are just better at showing us what they want and don't want
I can't tell you the number of times I've pulled out my knitting in a restaurant next to a "bad child" only to have them practically in my lap wanting to see what I'm doing; their full attention on me… (it actually happened in the doctor's office yesterday. A kid was running all over the place, and Mom was at her wit's end with another sick child. I pulled out my rosary making stuff and started making knots…. I might as well have been the pied piper. The kid settled down and Mom was relieved.