Discovering my Maternal Spirit Animal
When someone says raising my autistic son was hard on me as opposed to him.
6:16 pm: I’ve been trying to write this since 3:00. Stuff keeps getting in the way.
Coffee Consumption: Only 3 cups. I’m trying to behave.
Music: A whining boxer dog demanding dinner.
The Canines: Whining at me to feed them.
The Omen: Computer shopping. I’m dreading the moment he buys something. Tech has changed significantly since the last time he did this. Lots of cursing and moaning about SaaS is about to ensue.
Leading Man #1: Good question. He should have called by now. Don’t worry…Don’t worry…Don’t – oh who am I kidding? I’m a Mom. I’m going to worry…
Littleton, MA
Lately I’ve been wondering what type of parent I am, specifically what my maternal spirit animal is.
At first, I fell in love with bears, or more specifically those Mama Bear T-shirts on Amazon. Except bears are cuddly. Try catching me without my morning coffee sometime. Definitely NOT cuddly.
Am I a Mother Hen? Not really. My son has grown up, and as he should in the process, away from me. I accept that. Besides, hens are dainty. I wrestle covers away from a 100lb boxer every night.
Mommy Boxer? Fiercely protective? I’m a (semi) reformed overprotective parent. So that doesn’t fit.
I set the idea aside, bring the dogs back in from their mid-morning piss and poop, and head out to JoAnn’s for fabric. While waiting for several bolts of Dr. Who and Star Wars prints to be cut – I’ll find a way to combine them, believe me – someone asks me, “What are you making?”
This is a question sewers ask each other when we’re waiting for fabric cutting. I respond like I have for 12 years without thinking, “A quilt for my son. He lives with his dad in New Jersey.”
I see the curious look in the woman’s eyes. When will I learn? “My ex assumed residential custody. Kiddo’s autistic. He needed the school system down there.”
“He’s autistic? That must be so hard on you both!”
Well, at least I’m off the hook for being a non-custodial, long-distance mom…
I smile and turn back to the cutting table. “2 yards of this please,” I say and hand the clerk another bolt.
I do not turn back to the woman behind me. I know what I’ll say if I do, and it won’t be as polite as I’ve written it below.
I observe my son’s struggles.
He’s the one actually struggling.
Yes. Raising an autistic child is insanely challenging. On top of the usual worries about raising a good human and keeping said human safe – for most of JR’s formative years I felt like the guy with his finger on the big red WWIII nuclear bomb button in a Reagan-era cold war – you have this undefined “spectrum” to navigate. You have hopes and dreams for your child: things you pictured while they were growing under your (or your partner’s) heart for 9 months you need to let go of. You have to see your child struggle on a daily basis.
But isn’t all the rest what every parent does? To hear my father tell it, me and my neurotypical sisters were…well, my mother won’t LET him say we were challenging. She’ll just point to his hair, which went from almost black when I was a teenager to white by the time my 15 years younger baby sister graduated college.
My dad once said you don’t worry less as your child gets older. You just worry about different things.
Parenting an autistic kid is just a different set of challenges from parenting a neurotypical one. My father had to endure teaching me to drive. I have to bite my nails letting my son navigate mass transit on his own. My mother endured my teenage temper tantrums. I try to diffuse meltdowns.
More importantly, I observe my son’s struggles, and while my heart breaks, horribly and painfully every time, I am still on the outside. He is the one actually struggling.
Big difference.
So no, my son’s autism isn’t hard on me. Except when someone says it must be.
…and IEP meetings. IEPs are heartbreaking.
As the store clerk hands me my cut Tie Fighter and Tardis fabrics, it hits me. I know why my maternal spirit animal is. It has nothing to do with autism. It has to do with who I am, and would be no matter how my son saw the world.
I am a Mother Hawk.
Hawks have wingspan. They let their babies have space, but they circle. They protect.
They also have talons…
–CMR
