46. Well Met

A wish for inclusion

Click here for the “read aloud” version:

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There was a guy at my high school who always dressed in the same blue sweatsuit. No matter the weather, I would see him across the quad, maybe pacing or talking to himself, always in blue. I don’t recall any conversations my friends and I had about him, but somebody dubbed him, “Blueberry.”

That’s all I knew about him. I didn’t give him another thought (self-absorbed teenager that I was)—until I found myself in daily negotiations over clean shirts and weather-appropriate clothes with the young man who lives with me.

Now I wonder, thirty-five-plus years later, if I might know something about that kid after all. And, his mother.¹

Recently, I was prompted to imagine meeting my son as a stranger. In “The Strangers We Love,”

Elizabeth Marro

writes about the intimate yet separate relationship between parents and their adult (grown and flown) children. She wonders “what it might be like to come upon my son ‘in the wild,’ unburdened by the relationship of parent and child, just two people encountering each other.” What would it be like to get to know our children as others might?

On one hand, it makes me smile to think of interacting with my son as an outsider. If I wasn’t his parent, maybe I’d find it charming when he “straightens” my desk and supervises my cooking and insists from the passenger seat that my hands stay at 10 and 2. Take away the stress and worry that comes with daily, lifelong caregiving, and I can imagine feeling more bemused and less bothered.

After all, I get a kick out of talking to the other differently abled participants in his day program, learning how they communicate, hearing about their interests. They and their families are some of my favorite people.

But then I remember that boy in blue across the campus, and I wonder.

I was brought up by good and gracious parents to be kind and welcoming to everyone. But my attitudes today have been so shaped by my experience as the parent of this particular young man, I just don’t know how I might approach my son in an alternate universe where we existed separately.

Even in the early years after his autism diagnosis, I felt nervous talking to people with disabilities. Special education was unfamiliar territory. It took me a long time to recognize some of the unconscious biases and beliefs I’ve held about education and aptitude and intelligence, and it’s an ongoing process to untangle from them.

If a different me came across my son “in the wild,” would she give herself a chance to know him?

I hope so. He’s one of my favorite people.

In schools, inclusion is touted as primarily a benefit for the students with disabilities, to give them access to the general curriculum, social opportunities, and “typical” role models. But I think it’s perhaps more important the other way around.

I am better having met my kid.

And, I can’t help but wonder what else I could have gained if I’d walked across my high school quad and asked that boy in the blue sweatshirt his name.

Speaking of which — here’s an early essay I wrote (and one of my favorite memories) exploring some thoughts on inclusion. I’ve added a “read aloud” version here, too. I hope you’ll check it out:

Thanks, as always, for reading or listening!

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1.

Steph Curtis

knows something about this, too!