When you deal with special needs children, you are always measuring progress, whether that be the personal things you want to see your child accomplish or the educational goals you set with the school team every year. In preparing to write another “Autism Awareness Month” article, it dawned on me that my family has made progress in another way this year.
A year ago at this time, I wrote my first Gertie article for the newspaper. It may not have seemed like much at the time, but for my husband and I, it was not an easy decision to “out” ourselves as an Autism family. Don’t get me wrong, we are not ashamed of Gertie, but we didn’t know if it was right to put our children’s stories out there and risk them being judged or treated differently. A lot of families feel it’s no one’s business what special needs or learning disabilities their children struggle with, and that’s okay. There are a lot of privacy issues that come in to play with special education and there is a reason for that. Unfortunately, there are a lot of negative people in the world who simply don’t understand what it is to live, learn and love with Autism or any other special needs for that matter. Negativity comes from a lack of understanding and this is the best way I know to help fight that for my daughters. We feel strongly that we need to advocate for our children and decided that in our case it was necessary to explain what it’s like to have Gertrude in our family. We welcome questions and have so appreciated all the people who have come forward to tell us about the person they love who lives with Autism.
As important as Autism Awareness is, we are ready to move on in our journey to Autism Acceptance. I guess I want to know that we won’t always have to be shouting from the rooftops that Gertie is here to stay, but that someday it will just be okay... no big deal. We won’t have to explain why our children struggle like they do or require the support that they need everyday. It will just be accepted and understood. That’s the world I’m looking forward to. I don’t feel I need to change my children, just help them to progress - much like any other parent feels about their kids. Of course I want society to be educated about the spectrum of Autism, because ignorance breeds fear. I simply look forward to a day when the majority of the ignorance and confusion is gone and we can all just accept and love our children and our neighbor’s children as they are.
