A mate of mine started dating a woman with a couple of kids. Everything was going great, they were talking on the phone all the time, texting each other, the L word was starting to get a workout, they seemed happy together. Until my friend asked if he could meet her kids, then everything went cold. He came to see me for some advice, partly because he needed someone to talk to and partly because I have a daughter with autism.

You see his new friend also has a child with autism.

Now I'm not saying this is the reason she went cold all of a sudden, after all meeting the children is a natural part of getting to know someone who has a family. It can be daunting, but if one of those kids has special needs, it can be terrifying for both. Many years ago I was in the same situation as my friend and I well recall the day when I met my girlfriend's son, who was visiting from the institution where he lived, as she was unable to cope with him at home. Her nervousness at introducing her son to me must have sent her stress levels off the scale for all sorts of reasons, number one being the possibility it could have been the end of the relationship.

I explained all this to my mate and counselled patience as this women may have been going through a few emotional hoops of her own. He was bewildered that something so good could abruptly end, but I wasn't really surprised; as parents of an autistic child, it's something we go through every day as we negotiate life - exactly who do we tell about our daughter and how much to say? Those that have followed this blog for a while know something of her, but it's only what I choose to show you, usually it is something nice or a bit funny, but there is also another side that I'd rather keep to myself, though astute readers would have glimpsed it.

It was easy for me to imagine what his new friend must be going through and was brought into sharp relief yesterday at a family day organized by the autistic school my daughter attends. We met at a central point in a large park and fanned out from there, following our kids, depending on their whims. A small group of us found ourselves over at the children's playground that was being rebuilt after recently being burnt down by someone who got their amusement by destroying someone elses, so much of it was fenced off.

Our daughter M was happily playing on a roundabout, when in talking to her we mentioned her name and a couple with three children who were standing nearby shyly introduced themselves as they knew of M. We weren't wearing anything to identify ourselves to each other as parents of autistic kids, something that will probably be rectified next time around. As we talked, I noticed a father closely following his son around, who was extremely restless and taking off in all directions, including the fenced off area and ignored his dad's pleas to come back. I thought to myself that he must be with our group. The son came over to where we standing and his dad stood next to me, so we started to talk. I didn't think he knew me and I wanted to let him know that we also had a child with autism, but how to do it in case I was wrong?

We talked about his son a little bit with me trying to find a key to open up the conversation when I grabbed the nettle and asked what school his son went to and could see that he was very reluctant to tell me, so I mentioned half of our school's name without mentioning the autistic part and the relief on his face was overwhelming and so we chatted for about half an hour. Can you imagine what it's like to be relieved that you can talk freely about your own child, or why you should be even feeling that relief in the first place?

That is one of the more difficult balancing acts of being a parent with an autistic child, we want to tell you all about it, but we also don't want to tell you a thing. We are very often scared how you will react, sometimes with good reason. Yet we know in our hearts that disseminating information about this condition and the effects it has is one of the best things we can do, as it leads to greater understanding all round. But what we don't want to do is tell you that our child, our flesh and blood, is behaving strangely or doing things that are considered inappropriate, especially age inappropriate. We want you to believe the best about our child because we are like all proud parents everywhere, that's what we do, it's innate.

Just so you know, my mate's new friend wrestled with her demons, whichever one's they were, and won.

This is also an entry to http://blobolobolob.blogspot.com/2007/04/blogging-against-disablism-day-will-be.html

Labels: autism, blogging against disablism day