Yes, I Do Have an Autistic Child and No, I Will Not Cry with You

I've been a parent for ten years now, my son is ten years old and he is lovely. For seven years and two months I've been a parent of a child with Autism and it has been quite a ride. When my son was three he played with trains as a matter of fact that is all he played with. When he was four he played with trains and when he was five until he reached 1^st grade that's all he did for hours at a time. Now he doesn't he just does what most any other autistic kid does and perseverates on some other activity.

I've spent countless hours in parent groups and I've learned one thing and one thing only in those groups and that's unless your there to complain about the trials and tribulations of be a parent of an autistic kid you don't fit it at all and the other parents look at you like you're a leper. Parent groups where never my thing because beside the fact that I was the only single parent of no financial means I also seemed to be the only parent there who had the capacity to not throw a pity party to anyone who would listen about how tough it is. Gosh like seriously can some people just get over the fact that life isn't everything we want and just roll with the punches and be joyful anyway? I guess not that would actually be much too easy. So after about a year I stopped going to the mandatory meetings while our children were in session it was so depressing. I'll never forget the day one mother was in tears about the fact that she couldn't afford a new car because of the cost of therapy and how her and her husband only had a three bedroom house. By the way her current car was an Infiniti and she only had one child! I thought to myself wow I wish I had an Infiniti and a three bedroom house! I mean after all she only had one child and the child had the third room for a playroom. That's how it was week after week with the exception of one other parent. Parent after parent would tell their story and try to out woe each other about how bad their situation was and how it could get worse. Then we'd collect our kids and all the other parents would drive home in the 40,000 dollar cars to their homes that they were to0 caught up to see how unfortunate to have. After a while I started bringing snack because I was like being at the movies.

Even though I dreaded the needless woeful sob stories I kind of miss the time there because it was truly a scene from a black comedy. I say I'm just so happy that my son is happy and I just want him to work to the best of his abilities and the choir sings...Ohhhh but I just want my child to be normal boo hoo hoo.