{"id":881,"date":"2007-06-26T17:54:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-26T17:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2007\/06\/the-last-word\/"},"modified":"2007-06-26T17:54:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-26T17:54:00","slug":"the-last-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/the-last-word\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Word"},"content":{"rendered":"

I made the following comment to a recent blog post of mine, but I think it is important enough an issue to make it a new blog post. <\/span><\/p>\n

I feel a couple of things about our entire “Insult to the Autistic Community” discussion. For one, I feel remorse that I inadvertently made a statement that out of ignorance was a step backwards for the cause of acceptance of autistic people. Amanda and some others were objecting to my little wish, that in that photo, I could see Nat as “truly older than Max.” The way I understand this to be insulting to Nat and the autistic community is that he really is 17<\/span>, no matter what, and to wish he acted like an NT 17 year old is as if I am saying it is somehow inferior to act as an autistic 17 year old.<\/p>\n

I understand and respect this point. What I don’t like is the sometimes belligerent tone that the discussion took. I don’t like thought police. But if autistic people are telling me that what I did is akin to using the “N” word against blacks, or “retard,” for the developmentally delayed, then I will be more careful in the future.<\/p>\n

I will say it again: I love Nat as he is, but the world is NT and it is more difficult to live your life NOT NT, and I want him to have a better life. Let me elaborate: I believe he loves to work, from what I have seen, but getting employment will be very difficult for him without a high school diploma, certain skills, etc. I believe he loves women, but I am not at all sure he can find a girlfriend with his functioning levels and lack of conversational skills. He would probably like to live on his own some day, but he will not earn enough to do that with the small job he can do. As a mother, it is my right to dislike those facts. Just like I dislike that Benj can be very cranky, and doesn’t like sports, and this will exclude him from some valuable relationships. I don’t want Nat (or Ben) to change, but it would make me happier sometimes if he were more able to function on the world’s terms. It would make me happier if he could share his thoughts with me. Yes it would. That does not mean autism is less-than; it means autism is more difficult. Just like probably being gay is more difficult. Or Jewish. It should not be that way, no it should not. It means that autism sometimes makes me unhappy. But so do my other children’s issues (Max can be difficult to motivate, etc.)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I also feel a little pissed off because I hope that the point of my blog post was not lost on everyone. I am annoyed that there was absolutely no quarter given to me by the other side, no benefit of the doubt. I did not like the tone of some of the comments. But I ran nearly all of them anyway.<\/p>\n

I am okay with learning something new, and I have. Maybe we all have.<\/p>\n

Finally, I stand by all my feelings about that picture, but I will restate them differently now. I loved the way Nat looked in that picture. He looked more connected, okay? He looked older. Like he was up to something. I like that. Call it whatever you want. He looked — I don’t know — familiar, somehow. He looked like himself and yet not. I have a picture of Max that is like that, too, btw, where Max looks older than he is and I have a glimpse of the man to come. Maybe that is what I saw. The man Nat could\/will be. He is still my Nat in that picture. I will leave diagnosis out of it for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made the following comment to a recent blog post of mine, but I think it is important enough an issue to make it a new blog post. I feel a couple of things about our entire “Insult to the Autistic Community” discussion. For one, I feel remorse that I inadvertently made a statement that […]<\/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-881","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-ed","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","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=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}