The Pain of Parenthood

I remember when I got pregnant for the first time at 22. The feeling was mainly confusion, really. I never thought I’d end up pregnant. Truthfully, I’d never wanted children. Since I’d grown up in such a way which made me feel very unwanted, I never, ever wanted another child to feel so undesired and alone. But, something about being pregnant unexpectedly forced me to consider parenthood from other angles. Once I told my then-boyfriend-now-husband, we stood in the kitchen and had a brief conversation. We both decided that we would like to be parents after all. As a young twenty-something, you think of it more as playing house than you do being someone that is permanently responsible for the life of another human being into perpetuity. Alas, youth can be a curse and it can also be a gift.

When I was young, parenthood was easier, physically. Emotionally, not so much. To be fair, parenting has never been easy on the emotions. However, I think I was much less emotionally available when the kids were little. I do so regret it; but it’s not something I had the awareness or ability to change at the time. Maturity, wisdom, and experience really do shape your parenting ability. However, I see thirty-five year olds who constantly have no clue how to be a parent due to their own lack of understanding the dedication and selflessness it requires, the patience and self-control it demands. Simply, the only way to become a good parent, like anything else, is with practice and the desire to improve.

Feeding and diapering and kissing the boo-boos is the easy part. The sleepless nights and early morning feedings pale in comparison to the challenge of toddler-hood, when children surge forward to insert their independence in every dangerous, gruesome, intolerable way imaginable. The arguing, the screaming, the fits, and the defiant, repetitive ‘No’. This is the gulag of parenthood.

Not that the other years are a breeze, mind you. No. The demands just change, as do the challenges. Now your child is learning to interact with peers. To balance their newfound independence with becoming a communal citizen. The feral animal within must become tamed enough for them to interact with the other feral mammals, all waiting for their turn to potty in the restroom line.

Kids grow and change, and once you start to finally get comfortable - as though you might have figured this whole parenting thing out - the switch is flipped and we all begin again. The pieces of parenthood that are most brutal are within the circumstances which you cannot change.

When my oldest child taught themselves how to read at 5 years old from TV and billboards and books at home, I knew something was different about him. Truthfully, if we are being honest, I knew something was different about him at 4 days old. The wonder he had in his big dark eyes was something god-like, something I knew had long since disappeared from my own life. He was fascinated with everything. He held his head up immediately, and wanted to always be allowed to look all around, to take every bit of it in.

At a month and a half, he screamed bloody murder because his Halloween outfit was too hot. He also screamed when we attempted to use cloth diapers, as I was very much into the idea of sustainable parenting at the time. He hated certain textures and hated to be warm.

By three months old, I had to begin rotating him in stations I made or else he would cry from boredom. First, he would go to the swing. Then, to the floor. Off to the bouncy seat next, and then into the pack n play. We did this daily for months and months. Eventually, we added Sesame Street. Despite him being so young, television was one of the only things that would hold his attention, and he would interact anytime Elmo came on the screen.

At 18 months he was building elaborate structures with toys. By 2 years, he was the perfect escape artist and engineer extraordinaire. He’d figured out how to take the air conditioning vents apart in order to throw toys into the open hole and, subsequently, dump water down them for entertainment’s sake. In short, every parent should own a shop vac. He also taught himself the entire alphabet and how to write it by watching Sesame Street. Before long, we found Blue’s Clue’s, and everyday for two or three years, we HAD to watch Blue’s Clue’s. Let me just say, that when all you watch is one children’s show for years of your adult life, you can see how the women become infatuated with the main adult character. Steve was everything to my kid, and for a time, became important to me as well. I still have a soft spot for the actor who played Steve on Blue’s Clue’s.

At his three year appointment, I asked for an Autism screening. I was denied. The doctor said my child didn’t ‘act’ like he had autism because he was hitting milestones.

“He’s highly intelligent,” I said, not to be that proud mother but because he was highly intelligent. So intelligent, in fact, that it sometimes worried me a bit for safety purposes. He met milestones sometimes through his high intelligence and desire to be mobile. “He’s struggled a lot at pre-school. He can’t wait his turn. He answers every question they ask correctly, whether they call on him or not. He’s just…different somehow,” I finish.

“Yeah but some kids just struggle,” he said dismissively, “Besides, he makes eye contact and can hold conversations. I’m not concerned.”

“I taught him to do those things,” I responded. Because I actually had. My oldest struggled for many months being engrossed in his own inner world and would rarely respond to his name or any verbal expressions. I’d sat with him for months and taught him to acknowledge his name. Yet, it didn't matter. The kid was hitting milestones on time so the doctor had a very nonchalant attitude. Despite knowing something was amiss, and my suspecting autism, I let it go.

By five this same child had taught himself to read, despite having a 2-year-old sibling that kept him busy all of the time. I’ll never forget that meeting.

This time, we had moved to Kentucky and I chose a 5-star rated, black, female pediatrician. She was the most qualified and the best in town. Despite some people having opinions on her, which I was able to read between the lines as racism, I was determined and excited for my child to see her.

“So it says here that your child taught himself to read. Read what? Like a word, a few words?”

“Everything,” I responded plainly. The look on her face was as much perplexed as it was surprised.

“What do you mean everything?”

“Everything, anything, all of it,” I responded.

The doctor scanned the room for a children’s book or magazine, but all she had was a medical pamphlet explaining pediatric milestones. She handed the pamphlet to my child while looking at me with skepticism. I smiled politely and gave a short nod. Instantaneously, my kid started reading the pamphlet - technical medical terms included. The doctor told my son he could stop reading, and he went back to messing with his toy.

“Well, to be honest, I’ve never seen anything like this before. Never. Never even heard of it. I’m going to refer you to Vanderbilt in Nashville, because I think you need a specialty hospital and I wouldn't even begin to be able to…” she trailed off.

We both locked eyes and laughed nervously. She was a genuinely caring pediatrician that always took our concerns seriously. I sincerely hope she’s living her best life today.

Long story short, by the time he was 6, we took him to Vanderbilt for extensive testing and he got an Autism and ADHD diagnosis. He also tested in the gifted range for IQ, and is considered, as I said from the beginning, highly intelligent. As many of you know, this was actually the beginning of the roughest period in his life.

The helplessness I felt when my child was later abused at school under the guise of ‘safety’ is something I don’t think I can ever adequately describe. It’s the most worthless I have ever felt, and I regret not just immediately pulling him out of school. When you’re new to disability, you assume that there are laws and rules to protect your child and to keep them safe, and there are - but quickly you learn that if there’s no one to enforce those rules, then the rules and laws don’t really matter.

Thankfully, after coming to Massachusetts, everything has dramatically improved for my child. I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity to come here, despite having to drain my husband’s 401k to do so. I would’ve traded anything, done anything, to keep my children safe and to give them the opportunity to experience a normal life with peers. Despite that being the most difficult time, it’s still heart wrenching some days to watch my kids struggle. The struggle is quite different now than it was when they were young, but it doesn’t make it any less cruel. My oldest is beginning to realize that middle school sucks. The work is hard, the expectations are tightening up, and the social aspect is grossly complicated.

A few weeks ago, he came home and said, “Well, I don’t think I have any friends anymore.”

My heart sank. Sadly, I knew that this was the case already. Meeting with his school counselor and SPED teacher monthly, they’d already warned me that this could become an issue. The group of boys my son has hung around for three years has decided that he’s an outsider. Instead of being in the group, he’s the child that orbits the group - follows them around, making remarks and trying to connect as they pretend that he isn’t there. A few of these boys have even been cutting; cruel - bullying. The adults recognize the behavior - we all do. They don’t want my kid hanging around; but my kid doesn’t have the capacity to understand that developmentally. Or, he didn’t, until a few weeks ago.

“Why do you say that?” I ask cautiously, wondering how much he understands.

“They act like I’m invisible. They don’t respond when I talk to them or make a joke. They just pretend I’m not there.”

“It could be that,” I say, trying a way to let him down gently, “it could also be that they don’t hear you or -”

“They hear me,” he interrupts, “They just straight up ignore me.”

My heart drops into my stomach. I feel clammy and sticky, uncomfortable and desperate. As I’m trying to think of what to say next, he says, “I just don’t have any friends.”

My stomach is now a cavernous pit. There’s ringing in my ears and a choking sensation in my throat.

“That’s not true,” I say softly. “There’s G who likes to chat with you, and there’s A who also is your friend.”

For some reason, he struggles to see that there are two children who are interested in him and spending time with him. Though he’s never been able to express why he wants to hang with this particular group of boys that doesn’t want him around, I believe it’s because he views them as the cooler kids - and he sees himself as a likable kid, which he is. But, he craves belonging, and where better to do it than with the kids you think of as the most cool and accepted kids in the grade?

“I never see G, and I don’t think A is even at school anymore,” he says.

This, I correct, because both kids are at school still daily and A is literally in class with him often. G is female, so I think there’s some gender hesitation there with the bizarre intimacy expectations of middle school. Overall, both kids would be lovely to him and he truly enjoys their company as well, but doesn’t recognize it.

“I just have no friends,” he repeats. I decide now to validate that feeling, since I’ve already attempted to correct the factual piece of this statement once.

“Well, does it bother you to have no friends at school?” I almost squeak, chest aching, throat closing in anticipation.

“No, not really.” I was stunned silent. No? It doesn't? If it were me… Oh - that’s the problem. If it were me…

As I sat soaking in his answer, I learned a very important parenting skill. Just because I would feel a certain way about a situation does not mean that my child will feel that way. Yes, he’s autistic. Yes, he struggles socially. Yes, he’s quite uniquely and lovably different. I should’ve taken into account that because he is a different person that maybe he would feel differently than me, too. But it’s hard. I’ve spent his entire life protecting him, coddling him, shielding him from a world that’s brutal and cruel. It isn’t that I don’t think he can handle it; it’s that I don’t trust the world to appropriately handle him. I don’t want the world to suck him dry of his best qualities of gentleness, kindness, openness, and big heartedness. I don’t want the world to beat him into submission, figuratively or literally. As I was. As so many of us were.

I don’t want my child to have to cultivate resilience - because what they don’t tell you is that resilience has a price. Resilience hardens you by cutting off your access to vulnerability, which we all need to live in the truest form of ourselves. Resilience has a very high price. And because I love my child so much, and because I’ve already had to build my own resilience, I’ve used it to shield him from losing his own vulnerability, his childhood, his humanity.

By shielding him, am I enabling him by perpetuating a false world? Like the people who constructed the lie for Truman in the Truman Show? I’m starting to see evidence to support this notion. Maybe my protection has slithered its way into too many areas of his life, strangling his ability to use that intelligence to problem solve on his own. It’s just so hard to let go. To trust the universe to treat your child kindly, because so many others do not. To trust yourself to know that you’ll be there if your kid needs your support. To trust your child to be able to face the monsters of the world alone. Will he be alone? I must remind myself that he may be alone in the moment, but I am always here, waiting to be called upon. I am always there with him too, deep within his heart.

“I am glad that it doesn’t bother you, sweetheart,” I began, warmly and softly, but I was once again interrupted.

“It really doesn’t matter, as long as I have my brother as my best friend, and you and dad, then I’m happy,” he says with a soaring smile. I couldn’t help but smile back. His happiness is all I’ve ever wanted since the day I knew he existed.

Parenting is never anything like we expect. It changes and grows, just as our children do. I never thought that this part of parenting would be so emotionally burdensome. The pain I feel for my child is unimaginable. Yet I recognize that some of that pain is the pain drudged up from my own childhood experiences. Things bother me so much not only because I see my children struggling, but because my own inner child struggled at that age and is reminded of her own pain.

Raising teenagers is interesting, because I never anticipated going through my own healing alongside their trials and tribulations. I never anticipated holding space for both my kid and my inner teenage self, both just desperately desiring to belong. But I would, and I will, do it over and over and over again, because I love.