The funny things we say...

I couldn't sleep last night and was thinking of the funny things people say.

Well, actually the stupid things people say, for a brief moment there I attempted to be politically correct.

I think it was my friend and her e-mail to me a week or so ago that got my mind on that train of thought.  She shared with me how she struggles with how to handle when parents compare degree of difficulty in a child with a disability.  Things like, "You don't know how hard my son with autism is to handle, your son with autism is much higher functioning..."

And all the false assumptions that go with that....about how "easy" it is if your child can talk.  About how "easy" it is if your child can listen to you.  About how "easy" their life as an adult will be.

I've even fallen victim to that mindset.  I had a friend whose son needed to be in a wheelchair. She would always say Brandon was welcome to parties held for the holidays, and I was always thinking to myself, "Easy for you to say, your son won't be up and running around knocking over everyone's drinks and stealing their food..."

What an asshole'ish thing to think. Let alone say to someone.

Yet I thought it, and at times to others, said it.

I would imagine I'm not alone.

We've all done that in one form or another.

That's the bad thing about autism.  It's such a spectrum with so many degree's of how the child, youth, or adult is affected that you cannot possibly cover all bases with one story or one aspect.  You will never portray all it is with one generalization.

But yet we try.

A one-size autism awareness campaign will most definitely not fit all.

Pitting one degree of difficulty against another will most definitely not accomplish anything at all.

While I'm not going to party's because all my son would be doing is running all over the place, someone else has their son at a party in a wheelchair wishing he could run all over the place.

While my son is in a self-contained classroom oblivious to what his typical peers are thinking of him, there are other mother's sons who are higher-functioning in that typical classroom with those typical peers who are teasing him, taunting him, and bullying him, -- and he very much knows it.

Someone would dare compare and say one of those students are "luckier" than the other?  I think not.

While my son will need constant supervision and guardianship so that he won't be taken advantage of; my friend's sons will be able to live pretty independently, yet open season to predator's who would take advantage of them sexually, criminally, or financially.

Someone would dare to think, let alone say that one of those mother's are "luckier" than the other?  I think not.

While there is a common thread of "knowing" about each of our separate, yet equally challenging lives, when it comes to the autism melting pot we all together live in ---  we best recognize that we cannot ever speak for any one of us individually and think we're speaking for all.

So to compare your child, your situation, with anyone else's, saying yours is better or worse than theirs, is irresponsible and demeaning.

You're not comparing apples to oranges...

You're comparing hell to hell.


Where both leave a parent with third-degree burns.