Читать книгу We Said, They Said - Cassie Zupke - Страница 10

It's not my fault my child has autism. When I was pregnant, I didn't drink or do drugs. I didn't ride roller coasters or swing on trapezes or stay up too late at night. I didn't marry a man who was a druggie and whose sperm swam crooked. After my child was born, I didn't neglect him. I played with him and responded to him and laughed and smiled and fed him well and let him watch only a little more TV than he should have. I loved my baby and did all the things that mothers of typically developing children do. But my child turned out to be autistic, and theirs didn't.

We didn't decide to have a child with autism. When my husband and I lay in bed at night dreaming of our angel-to-be, we didn't envision a sweet, wonderful little whirlwind of a child who would get kicked out of preschool twice before he turned 3 years old. We didn't encourage him to obsess over his toys or show him how to line them up in perfect rows or teach him that it was okay to ignore Grandma even though she'd traveled more than 1,000 miles to see him. We disciplined him, and still he took our house apart piece by piece. We taught him not to hit other kids, and still he did it far longer than typically developing toddlers do. We made him ask for things before we gave them to him, and his language was still delayed and garbled. Our son developed autism, and no matter what we do, we can't change that fact.

Why does my child have autism, and yours doesn't? Genetics could play a part. We spun the wheel of chance and received a bundle of joy that came up beautiful, intelligent, and autistic. You spun the wheel and hit a different combination. Environmental factors play their role too, but my son's physical and emotional environment wasn't so different from that of your child. What made mine autistic and yours not? As of right now, no one knows.

When my husband and I decided to have a baby, we didn't know we were making a decision that would radically change our lives forever. While every baby changes the lives of his parents, having a child with special needs launches you onto another planet, with no way back to your old world. Ever. For some parents, this can mean changing diapers well into their 80s. It may mean living the rest of their lives with someone who is angry, anxious, violent, or depressed. It does mean entering a world of isolation, where few of your friends and family understand your child and why you do what you do. It may mean giving up your career and your education, because you can't find anyone else who can care for your child. It can mean designating an unexpectedly large portion of your income to therapies, tutoring, doctor visits, and medicines, because they don't come cheap. Your other children will get less attention and time, and so will your marriage.

We didn't decide to have a child with autism, and we did nothing to cause it. You could have had him as easily as I did. But, the thought of that makes me sad. My life back on “planet normalcy” was a good life, and it was far easier than the one I have now. Yet, when I watch my sweet little whirlwind running in the sunshine, flapping his arms and giggling at some joke only he understands, I feel more blessed than I could have ever imagined. You could have had my son, but you didn't. He is mine, and I'm keeping him—probably for the rest of my life.