I woke up today to a dozen or so blog posts to read, and several conversations online about being and raising autistics. There have been a few news stories and everyone has an opinion.
Except me. I don't want to develop an opinion on any of them.
I have reached parenting/autism information saturation. I no longer give a fuck what the latest self-advocate, researcher, parent, or organization says my kids are or should be or how I am fucking it all up. I don't even want to know if I am doing it right. I am so fucking tired of being lumped in with the willfully ignorant and delusional and deceptive, just because I have autistic kids, and talk about them.
I don't want to play anymore. I am afraid to write, afraid not to write, afraid of appearing to be apathetic or evil or just stupid. I don't want to talk to my kids therapists and teachers. I don't want to put everything I am or want to be, on hold indefinitely because my children have to be enriched, advocated for, nurtured, scheduled, accommodated.
I don't want to do therapies and work on skills and shit with my kids. I just want to be the mom and let them watch TV and jump on the trampoline and read them bedtime stories without emphasizing parts of speech and pronoun agreement. I don't want to make every moment teachable or provide educational opportunities every waking hour.
I am just so tired of it all. I want to be a mom more like the mom my mother was. Sure it was a different time and situation and all that crap, but I don't care. I am not cut out to be a helicopter mom, to be an "attachment parent" who is involved in every aspect of their child's life. It isn't that I want to neglect them, I just want them to be able to amuse themselves, tell me when they need my attention, and generally do their thing without my input all the time.
I know I am not supposed to want my kids to be anything but what they are, but I have to say it: I want normal. I want average. I don't want to qualify my parenthood with "special needs". I want to send my kids out to the yard to play, or to school on the bus, or invite the neighbors kids to play without having to plan for days.
I want to bitch about my kids without being accused of not loving them. I want to notice a silly or unusual behaviour and laugh or cry without being given advice on how to address, nurture or react to it.
I don't want to be the caregiver of special needs children anymore. I want to be the mommy.
