Lemonade from the Lemons
Well, what do you know, some good is coming out of the Savage comments. Our local CBS station did a story on Autism and the camp Zane is at. Zane even got some air time. When they start talking about “1 in 150 kids have autism…”, right after the older kid with autism talks a bit, look for the dark haired kid in the front row in the white/tie dye shirt and bright green crocs who is stimming like crazy. lol. That would be Zane.
Local Autism Camp Reacts to Comments (click below or on “Featured Video” next to the article to see the news video)
The sort of sad part about the whole comment uproar is that a big part of the reason they don’t bother me terribly much is because it is such a normal thing to hear. It isn’t even close to the most obnoxious thing I hear said. After all, it used to be the whole thing was blamed on “Refrigerator Mothers” and bad parenting. There has always been an attempt to blame the parents for it (especially moms), but anyone with an ounce of education knows that isn’t the case.
Essentially, after the initial anger, I sort of laughed because he was an “amateur” in making fun of us. I don’t think I could possibly count the times I overhear people nastily saying that I should spank Zane when he is having a meltdown, and feel like I live in dirty looks from passer-bys on many days. It is just a fact of life. Some days it does really get to me…I am human after all. Most of the time I have learned how not to care about it. Other’s opinions of the situation really don’t matter, because they can’t, because if I took it all in, I would never be able to cope.
Maybe I should write him. Apparently, according to him, we get all sorts of freebies with a diagnosis. Where are my freebies? lol Legally, yeah, we are supposed to get things like a free and appropriate education, but it is nowhere near free, and very rarely actually appropriate.
