43. A Place at the Table

The complicated art of inclusion

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Photo by Pavlos Vaenas on Unsplash

I kept apologizing for my kid at a recent family gathering. They put their dogs away for him and we brought his own food and we scooted out early—and, his nervous pacing brought him repeatedly between conversations, and his broad body inadvertently blocked camera angles.

Our family kept saying, it’s fine, it’s fine, stop apologizing, he can be wherever he needs to be, he’s good, it’s okay. It was okay. He really did great, and we are lucky to have a family that accepts and loves our son as he is, as they have for going on 25 years.

After dinner my son circled the kitchen, then tentatively whispered to me, Birthday Party? I didn’t understand his confusion until I saw the fruit tart the birthday girl had requested. This did not look like an appropriate cake to him. But once we sang, “Happy Birthday,” he tried the dessert (and liked it)—after taking it upon himself to blow out her candles. Sorry!

I often play interference when my son is with me. It is my never-ending balancing act, to present him as belonging, worthy and welcome, to help others provide accommodations—and to make sure he understands some social rules, teach him to be respectful and aware and maybe just a little less obtrusive, if he is able.

I have felt this sense of scrambling after and around him, trying to help him fit in, all his life—really from his first invitation to join his same-age peers in a classroom:

A Place at the Table

My son’s new preschool classroom is bright and colorful, the promise of early learning plastered all over the walls and floors. The room is divided into sections, where children can learn through play in thematic areas—play kitchen, building blocks, book nook, sensory and snack tables, circle time rug, and a small outdoor area with tricycles and a climbing structure.

On his first day, I linger. The special education team from our public school district had come to our house over the summer, to introduce the program and explain their “reverse integration” model that offered speech, occupational and physical therapy in a preschool classroom led by a special education teacher for “identified” students like my son alongside a few “typical” peers four mornings a week. I had no idea this kind of program existed, or was even necessary.

My three-year-old kiddo, just three months past his autism diagnosis, is invited to sit in a tiny chair at one of the low round tables across the back of the room. Two cute little girls are already there, engaged in the opening day art project, creating pictures from colorful foam or wooden shapes on white construction paper. I crouch down next to my son’s chair to help him get started.

My son leans forward, spreading his hands wide, and scatters circles and triangles and squares across his side of the table, onto his lap and the floor. He laughs. I scramble to pick up the pieces, return them to the table and his hands, laughing awkwardly and apologizing for him to no one. The girls at his table are demure, busy making butterflies and flowers.

I try to show my son how the pieces can be combined to design a picture. He juggles and clatters the shapes together, a hallmark of his way of playing with toys—flipping and tossing small objects between his hands, feeling their edges and hearing the patterns of sound as they tap against each other.

My son’s unique ways of playing at home were sweet and quiet and joyful and fine. Until I see him sitting across from these precocious little girls who follow directions and build masterpieces and whisper actual words to each other. As a child, I was one of these “typical” girls, a teacher’s helper, asked to sit by classmates who needed help, showing off my early reading skills at storytime in front of my fellow kindergarteners.

Sometimes in my memory, I see those girls at my son’s table as the twins from The Shining, standing still and sinister at the end of the hallway while my son races around on his tricycle in a scary place having a grand old time.

My son giggles and sweeps more shapes from the table, creating swirling performance art with puzzle pieces that are supposed to lay flat. I bend down to catch the falling pieces, fumbling for them under the table longer than necessary, hiding my face from the cheery-scary room.

I glance up and catch the eye of an aide standing behind another table of preschoolers. She smiles and her knowing look makes me drop my gaze. I don’t want to look familiar to her, as the parent of a new special education student. I don’t want my son to so easily plug into their formula here that welcomes him to sit on the wrong side of the table.

The aide’s smile seems to say, it’s fine, it’s fine, stop apologizing. She’s seen this scenario before: a new student, being himself; a nervous mom watching the bars and graphs of developmental delay click into a real-time picture she does not want to see.

Over the next two years, that room was true to its promise of early learning for my son, who memorized letters and numbers (backwards and forwards) and whose voice emerged through the many preschool songs he still sings today; and, for me. I met other families like ours and began to see pictures I had never thought to notice before.

May your pictures come into shape, and may there always be cake, even if neither looks quite like what you expected.

Thanks for being here! I’m on a mission to sift through my memories (in my head and on my computer) to gather the stories I haven’t yet told. Thank you for letting me share this one.

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