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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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10:23 a.m. - 2011-10-13
I'm all a' dither because my new cell phone battery is due to arrive today. I don't have a landline and it's making me anxious to be without my cell. Not that I get a lot of calls, I just want to be reachable if the school calls or Wolf needs me. It's a mom thing. Speaking of which, thanks for the kudos. I don't know if I'm brave or cool so much as I am the mom of a VERY literal-minded kid. I can't use metaphors or spin tales about storks and cabbages and assume he'll figure things out on his own. Wolf is always told the straight poop using the correct terms. Not just about bodies and sex, but about everything. It's the only way to do with Aspies- honest and direct. Though I remembered my own confusion and questions about sex when I was a kid and getting no help at all. So when I became a mom I decided my kids would always have as much info as they needed. Hence, my boys have always known the correct names for things and as much of the whys and hows as was age appropriate. One of the nice things about being a heathen is I didn't have to lade my kids with a lot of guilt and fear. I didn't have to make them feel like shit over perfectly normal body functions to please some prude of a god who supposedly gave us these wonderful bodies and then demands we be ignorant of and feel shame about them to make Him happy. Talk about turning a deity into an asshole! I got into it a few times with a co-worker over this. She, an evangelical, insisted my honesty meant my son (Alex at that time) would have no morals. I put it to her in terms of cars. Nobody bats an eye if I show my 10 year old what's under the hood. If I explained how the engine ran and what you needed to do take care of it. If I taught him to respect the power of the car and to be safe and careful when it was his turn behind the wheel. I can make sure he grows up knowing about cars and what they do without it meaning he'd be allowed to drive the damn thing at age 10 (or 12 or 15). I figured since he had been taught about cars- both the fun and the responsibility of owning and driving one then he'd be a better driver when it was his turn to drive. He'd be a smarter driver because he was informed. Nobody in their right mind would say to a kid with a question about cars, "You are a nasty thing for asking that. Be ashamed! It's none of your business about what makes a car go." And then at the 'right' age turn the kid loose with a car they were completely ignorant about, totally without a clue as to the rules of the road, feeling ashamed and guilty for wanting to drive at all, and were left to assume elves were under the hood making it go by magic. And then have the nerve to be all surprised when the kid smacks into a tree their first time out. Yet there are bazillions of people who believe this is the correct approach to (not) teaching their kids about sex. Duh. (Hello, Bristol Palin!) As it is Alex didn't get his driver's license until he was 19. No info as to when he got rid of his virginity but I suspect it was around the same time. So much for him being a prowling alley cat with no morals just because I told him what his penis was for. Nor did he take the car for a joyride when he was 13. He was taught better about both subjects. And I did it without making him feel like a criminal for being curious about cars or sex. Ditto for Wolf. Why, yes, I am passionate on this subject. I detest those who feel superior about being ignorant. As though being a brainless twit is something to be proud of. "Hur, hur, hur! I'm as dumb as a box of rocks and this makes me better than you elitist snobs with your book learnin'!" Rightie-o there, Cleatus. Let's hope you do sail off the edge of your flat Earth. Please do us all a favor and go before you breed. Thanks. In other smart news, Wolf is running a 95% average in algebra. The rest of his grades are in the A to B+ range too. Whew! I'll admit I was worried about him keeping up academically with his transition to regular school. No slam on the alternative school, they helped Wolf (and the other kids) with a lot more than the quadratic equation. It's just that Wolf is coming from years of being in a classroom with fewer than 8 students. Usually only 4 or 5. It's almost as though he'd been privately tutored since 3rd grade and the speed and distractions of public school are a big, big thing for him to cope with. So far he's doing okay. More than okay. I've always thought that 'God chooses mothers of handicapped children' thing by Erma Bombeck was a load of crap. I wasn't chosen by anybody. My ex has screwed up DNA, that's all. It's for certain I'm no saint and I sure as hell resent and envy moms whose kids are easier and regular and 'normal'. But she got one thing right- I never miss the opportunity to celebrate when Wolf does something well. It's really fucking hard to parent the autistic. The laurels and milestones are few and far between. I've been forced to let go of pride and expectation. When you're always the mom carrying a howling banshee out of the diner or the movie, when you have to admit to the other playground moms that your 5 year old isn't potty trained yet and he's never spoken a complete sentence and you're not even sure he knows who you are, well, you get over the loss of the typical ya-yas of parenthood. You never get the thrills from being the prodigy's mother. You're forever known as that kid's mom. That kid, the weird one, the misbehaving terror. I had to drop out of the Mommy Olympics a long time ago. No point, I wasn't ever going to win a medal. I had to learn to be relieved and grateful when my kid didn't pull the fire alarm, bite another kid, or wet himself today. And he's 9. So Wolf's 95 in algebra? Oh man, I'm gonna happy dance for weeks on that one.
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