I’m worried about my little guy, Benj. This seems to be a year where he is becoming more of an individual, and I wish I could celebrate that, but we live in such a cookie cutter society, it is hard for me to feel okay about who he is. I love him so deeply, I even feel it in my guts sometimes when I look at him. We like to joke that he is dessert personified. Anyway, his personality does not fit with his perfect little face. He is such a rigid thinker; one bad experience with another kid and he will never again consider that kid a friend. So his playdate pool is getting narrower and narrower. He doesn’t seem to notice, however; only that when one particular kid can’t play, he gets upset. He is very possessive of that kid, who is very popular, and so I find I am constantly gently pushing Benj towards other kids. But he has so little interest in the other kids, who are largely into sports or XBox. Benj hardly watches any t.v. All he does watch are the videos that Nat happens to have on, mindless Disney Sing-Alongs. I think he enjoys spending the time with Nat, though, so I let them do this. It gives me pleasure to see them together, but their age-inappropriate activity makes me a little sad, too.<\/p>\n
But only if I judge us by the rest of the world’s norms. Too bad I can’t tell the rest of the world to F*** off. Sometimes I just want to keep my boys to myself, in the house, safe and sound, my cocoon. Where no one can tease them or mistreat them. How many times have I fantasized about homeschooling them for this very reason? But I know my limitations. I don’t have it in me to spend long days instructing them. I also know that the very thing that hurts us so much — venturing outside — is what is going to make us strong. Nat needs to be in contact with the community to keep the world informed of people like him, and to inform himself of these experiences. Ben needs to be in contact with more and more different kinds of kids so that he can have more friends instead of fewer and stay flexible, grown, and learn. Other kids can benefit from a mind like Benji’s, too. A kid who has invented his own world (Stickfus, a planet made of stick figures) and an entire language (Sticktopian) and alphabet. He remembers all the details, too, each time. All the characters, all their foibles. He has created so many amazing things, I can’t even begin to list them all here.<\/p>\n
But why can’t his peers see how wonderful he is? Why does a boy have to be a little cruel, a little tough, and know how to throw a damned ball to be liked in this society?<\/p>\n
Why does love have to be so sad?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m worried about my little guy, Benj. This seems to be a year where he is becoming more of an individual, and I wish I could celebrate that, but we live in such a cookie cutter society, it is hard for me to feel okay about who he is. I love him so deeply, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-mN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}