What do you love about your autie?
March 29th, 2007There’s a lot of negativity going on in the autism world. Right now, one prominent mercury-causes-autism list, parents are all talking about how you know you have an autistic if they do various disgusting or horrible things.
You see, it’s political to like anything about an autistic person (rather than just the person “they would be if they were cured”). In fact, some of the pro-cure movement would disown you if you talk about anything good that doesn’t involve the curing of autism in your loved one. There’s a vested interest a lot of people have in making sure everyone knows autism is nothing but suffering and misery. Hating autism promotes a certain agenda. Liking (not just “loving in spite of the autism”) an autistic person promotes an entirely different agenda.
I know what kind of person I’d rather have as my girlfriend, mother, or sibling.
I don’t know exactly why, to the pro-cure groups, it is so vitally important to hate everything about autism. But I know the harm it causes – it justifies an “at all costs” approach. We don’t need anymore “at all costs” approaches.
So, in response to the garbage on the internet and elsewhere, I’m asking non-autistic readers of my blog to write about what they like about the autistic person (or people) in their life. What makes your child, parent, lover, coworker, etc, a great person? (Sure, we all know that autism has bad things as well as good, but I think plenty of people have focused on the bad, so maybe it’s time to look at the good) Feel free to write about it as a comment to my blog, but it’s just as cool if you write about somewhere else – or even if you just tell your autie what is wonderful about them.
My daughter’s autism is so much a part of her and she is a wonderful person. Her artistic talent, her patience, her intelligence, her kindness as all strengthened by her autism. She is unimaginable as an NT.
I love how my autie son is extremely loving and affectionate, he’s never mean or aggressive to anybody. He never manipulates or holds grudges. He’s always ready to have fun. He learned how to read letters and numbers at 2, and now at 3 he taught himself how to write, by tracing letters with his fingers and then doing the same with pen on paper. I can only imagine what else he can effortlessly learn in the future.
When you love everything about your autistic child, it’s sort of hard to tease it out, but here goes . . .
* her curiosity
* her innocence
* her capacity for kindness
* her tenacity
* her drawings and other art
* her sense of humor
* the way she vamps in front of the mirror like almost all girls do
* when she wants me to put on makeup, and decides to take matters into her own hands, providing me with layers of pink lipstick
* how she still believes in Santa Claus, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding
* how much she loves what she loves
* the opposite — how much she hates what she hates
* her sense of wonder
* her sense of possibility
* her magical sensibility
* her enthusiasm
Okay, now I have to go and make a bath for her, so I’ll stop for the moment. . . .
What’s not to love?
I’ll relate two things that I really like about my son (7).
One, the fantastic things he constructs. He will sit in front of a pile of blocks, or sheets of paper and tape, and just start putting stuff together. He’s got a vision in his head, and he just keeps on going until he’s built the whole thing. He makes magnificent things! He’s made himself an astronaut’s spacesuit from 8.5 x 11″ pieces of paper and scotch tape. He’s also made water treatment plants from various size blocks, pipe cleaners, and found objects.
The second thing I like is how excited he gets when relating what he knows about a subject. It is the excitement that only a child can have. The certainty that you are right (he usually is), the excitement at relating facts about volcanoes, nocturnal animals, or water treatment plants. He’s so into it, and his eyes just shine when he’s talking about stuff.
My son is 21, and a wonderful big brother to his younger sisters. He shares what he knows with them, and what they need to know about stuff he’s already figured out.
He is gentle and truly wants to be helpful.
His sense of humor.
He is a good cook (for the food he likes) and willing to share.
He desires to do right and belong.
He is my son. He is part of our family.
I love the way Joey cocks his head to one side to look at things- from a new angle.
I love the way he wakes up in the morning, opening one eye to say, “Good morning, Mother Bear.” If I say, “Good morning, Joey!” he grins and shoots back, “No, I’m Little Bear!”
I love taking Mr. Guinea Pig to dinner.
I love how Joey can adapt TV show-based scripts to fit what he wants to say.
I love how he knows when his brother is unhappy- and hugs him to make him feel better.
I love how he opens doors for everyone.
I love the little twinkle in his eye when he gives you a wrong answer on purpose- just because he knows he can.
When my 5-year-old son gets excited about something, he flaps his hands and runs around. If he’s wearing a long sleeve shirt or sweater, he’ll draw his hands inside the arms and flap such that the sleeves flail. It’s a pure expression of his joy.
My son is very mechanically inclined and likes to invent rockets, planes and automobiles. When he needs to withdraw from the sturm und drang of life, he paces back and forth and thinks about his inventions while twirling his hair. The thought process leads to a materials list and tools. Next comes the assembly. He will spend hours working on his inventions. They end up looking like elaborate sculptures made of cardboard, tape, string, and colored paper. They look like naive art sculptures that would hold their own in an art gallery.
Over the past year my wife has been very busy with work and that has left my son and I with ample time for adventures. We have pursued his flying perseveration in every conceivable way. His enthusiasm is infectious and I find myself almost excited as he is about some new aviation opportunity.
I love…
his happiness when he jumps and flaps his hands,
his intelligence and curiosity,
his brown eyes and super long lashes,
his preteen grumpiness (yup, I love this too!).
Yup and Joeysmum’s last one too, getting things ‘wrong’ for fun… when so much ‘humour’ depends on putting another person or group down, A’s humour is refreshing.
My son is six, and I love:
-that he still loves to snuggle, always
-that he loves to be silly, and that look he gives you when he says something humorously contrary
-that he wants to make sure everybody’s OK
-that he is SO brave
-that he works SO hard, and
-I also love the happy flappies. How can one not laugh & love when he’s hopping and flapping and you can feel the joy with him?
Thanks for the opportunity to share.
We love our son’s sense of humor, his curiousity, his whole way of seeing the world, the way he still screams, “Mama!” instinctively when he is scared, the way he can play with something all day and never tire of what he is playing, the way he can stay in character no matter who or what he is pretending to be for amazing lengths of time, his love and affection, how adorable he is – everyone is drawn to him, how he senses someone’s sadness and gives a favorite toy or some other simply sweet suggestion or gesture to make them feel better, his energy, everything.
And I love this website and all the others that focus on what is great about all people’s differences. I love the voice of all autistics who are willing to share their greatness. You teach us NT’s so much!
I’m not a parent myself but I find these comments incredibly beautiful. It’s not often I read things written by the parents of autistics and smile.
How excited he gets about dinosaurs and frogs. He still gets SO shiny-eyed, but when he was little, he would run and jump with excitement because he was telling you facts about frogs. How he hugs by just barely leaning on you. How he has a consistent physical pose for every animal and video game character that he loves (why verbally describe something when using your whole body does just as well?). How much he laughs at his own jokes….
Joel, thank you for starting this thread. I published my comment as a post on my blog, which you can see here.
Well, it will be hard to list just a few things I love about my beautiful three-year-old daughter, who has autism, but here goes:
*her outspokeness
*her hugs and kisses
*her amazing mind
*her green eye and her blue eye
*her laugh
*her wacky sense of humor
*her beautiful olive skin
*her way with animals
*her tomboyishness
*her bravery
I could go on and on…she’s an awesome kid and an awesome person!
One thing I love is the way my 5-year old son interacts with his new baby brother (2 months).
He will spontaneously approach the baby every hour or so, kiss his forehead, and say “I love you, Colin.” He will rub Colin’s hand when baby is crying and say “It’ll be okay.” He will sit indian-style and hold out his hands to hold Colin. When I place Colin in his arms, he says, “Oh, what a cute little baby.”
I’m telling you, this kid is just the greatest thing that has ever happened to me (notwithstanding my other two sons, of course).
I’m going to have to blog this, to be able to do the kids justice.
I love his great WYSIWYG, the way he shows support for family members when they need it, his blazing intelligence, his sense of fairness, his twisted sense of humor, the way he holds his arms out when he is surprised, the way he smiles to himself when he’s walking down the street … so many things!
My daughter is the least judgmental person I know. She accepts people EXACTLY as they are, every time.
She is kind and always concerned about her sisters well-being. She tells them they are beautiful and that she loves them every day.
She is bossy, but in a good way.
She never is fake. Never. (Although lots of therapists have tried to change this!)
She changes people. Most kids/adults don’t know what to expect from a ten year old with autism and they are pleasantly suprised at how much they enjoy her enthusiasm and personality. So, I guess, she is a teacher.
I have 2 autistic chilren, one on each end of the spectrum.
For my almost twenty-three- year-old son; I love his honesty. He is the most truthful person I have ever known. I love the contrast between his intelligence and his naïveté. I love his ability to concentrate. I love his empathy. I love his precise use of language. I love the sound he makes when he types so fast and rhythmically.
For my fourteen-year-old daughter; I love that she is basically such a happy person. I love how she touches her forehead to mine as a greeting. I love how happy she is to see the people she loves. I love her echolalia; how she comes up with a phrase from a video or song that is an amusing, perfect commentary on a situation just when you think she isn’t paying attention to what is happening. I love the song-song high pitched sound she makes when she is happy or trying to “sweet-talk” the dog.
Great idea Joel.
I love everything about my gorgeous son, the boy known as Duncan. I love;
How he sings when he feels like it,
How he snuggles me and his big sister,
How he gets so engrossed in what interests him,
How he never tries to hurt anyone but gets upset to see people sad,
How he has a magical laugh and a smile that would melt the polar ice-caps,
How he can scroll through the huge store of phrases in his head to say something appropriate,
His new drawing skills, amazing!
His love of life, his joy in everyday things.
How he examines things so close with one eye closed, seeing detail that everyone else misses. (I’ve tried it too, when you look at the toy train like that, you can imagine you’re the driver!)
I adore my son Ryan. He is a beautiful child inside and out. I love the way he hugs me and says “We’re friends”. He has the most joyful laugh. It is hard to put into words what I love about my son.
I love everything about my son.
Everything. He is the coolest, sweetest, smartest, most interesting, fun, amazing human, ever.
I love that he is always himself. That he can have fun anywhere at any time. I love his cuddliness and his glorious optimism.
I would love to tell you I love everything about my son, but I can’t say I “feel the love” all the time. He’s a teenager now and has an attitude that tends to be a pain in the derriere…
But his gifts that shine through, that make me jealous of who he is, are his ability to “frame”situations in just a few words or pictures (comics).His ability to see through problems and get to the heart of the matter. (I love conciseness. ) His intelligence. The deep way that he thinks about things (“still waters run deep…” used to be said of me as a child.)
I love the way he makes me grow as a human being, and has changed my life and made me a far better person just by being who he is. Frankly, I never learned to love myself until he changed all the bad parts. I love the way he worries about me. (I wonder if he loves the way I worry about him….)
Thanks for the post.
There are a lot of things I love about my son. Before I finish this comment though I’m going to go hug him and tell him I love him.
Ok, thanks for that.
I love Patrick’s smile. It’s wide and genuine.
I love Patrick’s laugh. It’s spontanious and infectious.
I love Patrick’s bravery. He climbs to the highest heights (literally and figuratively).
I love Patrick’s ability to cope with life. Even during a meltdown he’s trying to find ways to cope.
I love how Patrick is constantly changing, growing, maturing. I love how he slowly but surely adapts to the our increasing expectations.
I love that he loves us without reservation. I love his breath on my cheek in the morning, his kiss on my forehead when I’m sick, his pat on my back when I’ve done a good job.
I love his fierceness. I love his tenacity. I love his obsession with trains, trucks, equipment and numbers.
I love his quirkyness. I love how he “talks” to himself when he wakes up in the morning.
I love his perserverance.
I love how my son gets so excited about the most mundane things, the little things, the details.
I love how my son picks up a piece of popcorn and says it looks just like a brain or unrolls all the tape and tells me that he made a squishy brain.
I love my son’s sense of humor.
I love how intense and focused my son can get.
I love my son’s giggle.
I love how my son sees the world and makes me see the world.
I love everything about my beautiful little boy, his big brown eyes and his wonderful smile.
I could write a book in response to this question, but for the moment I just noted one or two things here: http://aoskoli.blogspot.com/2007/04/whats-right.html
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My autie – He is my best friend and co-worker. He has a wonderful sense of humor (my husband calls it a ‘Puckish sense of humor’. He was the person I turned to for support when my daughter passed away – I was over a thousand miles away, at a hospital, and he was the ONLY friend I called. I love his compassion, his empathy, his caring. He taught me about autism, and I am as different in his world, as he is in mine. (He gave me a quiz once, to determine if I was autistic – I failed miserably). I walk a fine line between showing him how much we care about him, and ‘mothering’ him too much. I want to protect him from abuse and bullying, the same way I want to protect my children. His intelligence is overwhelming at times, but he keeps me straight! His honesty and work ethic are without comparison. I love the energy and effort he puts into everything he does. He has many hobbies and interests, and he is one of the best conversationalists we have ever met. We love our friend -
My brother talks about physics in the same way that other people talk about music or art.
Well first of all I love my dad because, well, he’s my dad! But I think the things I list when I have to are all “symptoms” of his AS and neither I or mum would have him any other way!
My dad does the best Dalek impressions. He always had time for me – when other adults were rushing about he would sit down and build the lego castle of doom for 6 hours! He always answered my “whys” as truthfully as he could. He always has an explanation… admittedly he might stop half way through an explanation of how wires are made and end up telling you how telephones work – but you always learn something.
He sings and hums and drums all day long!
He will spend weeks nursing a sick hedgehog back to health and hours brushing the knots out of my hair.
He likes helping people. He doesn’t judge people because of how they look. He is trusting (perhaps too trusting) but also deeply kind and loving in a way that less trusting people cannot be.
His attention to detail, intelligence and calm head in emergencies means he has saved over a dozen lives (probably more) and that is only counting the human ones.
I love that he can explain to you the exact chemical reactions going on in one but he cannot boil an egg himself. I love that he can take apart a router, fix a car with a coke can on the side of the road, explain the micro electronics of a CPU but can’t use the internet.
And I love his hugs and his ’shoulder pats’. He has trouble with physical contact sometimes so when he does offer affection you know he means it!
Son #1: I love the way he loves jumping, and for anyone else to jump, as well. I love the way he asks to be picked up, with his whole body. I love his sense of order. I love that so many people tell me he’s sweet.
Daughter: I love the way she runs around quoting videos. I love the way she moves so effortlessly through space, never getting hurt by her own clumsiness. (WHAT clumsiness, in that child?) I love her smile. I love the way she clings to me for comfort. I love that so many people tell me that she’s sweet.
Son #2: I love the way he watches, trying to figure things out. I love the way he pulls things apart and tries to put them back together. I love the way that he’ll snuggle with anyone who walks into his space and sits down. I love the way he kisses people. I love that so many people tell me that he’s sweet.
I love my 5 year old son because he IS!
And he is AUTISTIC, he doesn’t suffer from it, it is him, he is not sick either. And if you want to cure him then that means you want to destroy him, you want to take away who he is…
His quirkiness, how he takes everything on the first level, how he learns things in such a different manner, how he’s progressing beyond any expectations the “specialists: had for him (happy I didn’t listen to them
).
I just love my son and he happens to be autistic!
I love how, when all of his siblings were afraid of the alligator lizard on the porch, Brendan was not afraid. He went straight to it and picked it up. His older brother had already been bitten, but Brendan knew, as if by some magic, exactly how to handle the reptile and he never got bit. He was three years old then. Now he is seven. He is currently using Miquon math workbooks (still in the orange book, but that’s okay). I love how he is so careful to get his answers right, working them out with counters or rods. I love how he will draw the same image, over and over again, with so much detail, until he gets it just right. I love how when he finally gets the picture just the way he wants it, he’ll scan it and make coppies to sell to everyone in the family for a quarter a piece. He’s so sure it’s that good! I love that he never forgets his wallet and so when we are out about town and I don’t have quarters on me, Brendan will treat his five siblings to gumballs from the machine. I’ve always thought that the world would be a better place if only every family, in all the world, could have a son just like Brendan. As a mother of six children, I can tell you without hesitation, that having an autistic child is not a bad thing at all.
My lover has been called an alien by her friends, a freak by her peers, and ignored by most. I never saw any of that . . . instead I saw
* her innocence
* her intensity
* her complete commitment to her beliefs
* her quick humor
* her tenacity
She is a complete and total woman . . . just as she is.
I love all three of my auties because they are my kids. This family, with all it’s difficulties, is much better than an abusive, manipulative one. Each of my kids is different and all are a joy to watch as they grow. I understand more about myself because of the opportunity to be able to raise them.
I love my Dad. One never has the option of choosing one’s parents, of course, but no choice I could have made would have been better. I wouldn’t want to choose, if I couldn’t have him in my life. I don’t like to contemplate such a thing.
I love the intensity of his interests, and the sheer volume of knowledge he holds about them. I love how we can sit for hours in such detailed discourse on some of the most esoteric subjects imaginable, and never run out of the wonder inherent in the exploration. I love how he shared the night sky with me when I was little, and those hours spent in a seeming instant behind the telescope. I love his library, his mind, his excitement, his humor. I love how I have asked him the time, and instead gotten an utterly fascinating half-hour dissertation on the history and precise operation of a quartz watch – and never really noticed how the formidable force of time itself was thus shunted aside as an irrelevant thing. I have always loved playing with Legos with him – yes, even now, and I am well into my 30’s! I love the strange forms he’s created, and the tremendous intensity of his concentration, laserlike and consuming. And in all of these things, a haven away from the troubles that bedevil me.
But most of all, I love how much richer a place the world is for having him in it, because he is truly a world himself. How grey, depressing, and banal would this planet be without our auties? They truly do open the drab little doors of an NT world upon the wondrously color-saturated and fantastical lands of their very own Oz.
The most loveable thing about my autistic friend is his alternative perspective on the world. I’m prone to philosophical weirdness, and I feel comfortable around him, as if I am actually being listened to. It is because of his experience and the prejudice that he suffered from his autism that made him grow to be like this.
Also, he is very intelligent and articulate and not prone to judging a person based on societal standards. He grew up with an outsiders view of everything, and so he can accept outside views of everything.
I only met autistic kid once. I was teaching her, Aisha, music. I loved how genuine she was. I never had to pretend around her. I loved how happy she would get when we were singing the songs and how she would start laughing and gigling and show so much happiness that I’ve not seen in adults for long time. I loved how she liked me and how she could in the middle of exercise come up to me, hug me and tell me that she loves me! She was the most genuine young girl I’ve met in long time. She made me interested in autistic people and interested in practicing music therapy!