“That’s my kid!”
These are the words my heart shouted when I saw Gus Walz shouting, “That’s my Dad!” Like so many proud parents of hashtagneurodivergent kids (many of whom are neurodivergent ourselves), I instantly saw my own 18-year-old son in that full-hearted moment of excitement, and in the past 24 hours, everything changed.
If you’d asked me yesterday, is the world ready for my delightful son? I would have said, “not quite.” When I mention that my kid is hashtagautistic, I still sometimes get reactions like “I’m so sorry.” (Sorry? Why would you be sorry that my kid is who he is?) What these reactions miss is how the experience of navigating the educational and medical system and learning about hashtagneurodiversity has utterly transformed my emotional, intellectual and logistical capacity, and how it opened my eyes to all the ways in which my own hashtagADHD, dyspraxia, and social and sensory quirks have shaped my life and career.
What these comments miss most of all is that my son is open, insightful and engaged in a dozen ways that feel absolutely extraordinary in an 18-year-old boy, and that make it a joy to be his mother. I don’t want to dish out heartwarming inspiration here; there’s WAY too much of that in how we talk about disability! Just saying that witnessing neurotypical teenagers often makes me feel lucky that mine is so honest and uninhibited.
But I have also seen how much the world stigmatizes that honesty and openness, especially in boys—and yes, often under the label of “weird.”
That’s why it has felt utterly healing and hopeful to watch the groundswell of love and support the world has showered on Gus Walz, and the whole Walz family, since that moment last night. Yes, there are some people out there who are saying mean things—but believe me, it is not exactly breaking news to discover that the world contains a**holes who pick on people if they don’t fit some outdated notion of “normal.”
What is news to me is the other side of this equation: To discover that for every bully who is going to pick on a kid like mine, there are a hundred or even a thousand people who are going to see his open heart and uninhibited enthusiasm, and respond with kindness and love. People who are going to stand up for him, and I am starting to think, people who are going to stand by him.
For the past decade, I have actively fought hope. I took one day at a time, and refused to hope that one great day would lead to an even better next day, because for many years our family fell backwards as often as we moved forward. That practice proved so essential to our emotional survival that I have held onto it, even though our son has been on a remarkable trajectory of growth for the past three years.
But today, I’m ready to let that practice go, and to embrace a new one. Today has made me believe that the world just might be ready for kids like Gus Walz, and my son, and maybe even old weirdos like me. Today has made me ready to embrace hope.
This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.
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