Kelly, neurotypical: Adjusting to parenthood is hard for everyone, and it was certainly challenging for us. I struggled more than I thought I would; I had a rough bout with depression and postpartum anxiety, which I was fortunately able to control with medication. And I'd be lying if I said that Josh's diagnosis gave me no concerns about his ability to parent. I had a lot of concerns (more on that later).
Building a treehouse.
We were both flailing for the first 18 months or so of our child's life (more on that later, too). But after the initial chaos, we settled into our parenting routine. Both of us have our strengths and weaknesses as parents/spouses/people. Clearly, ASD lends itself to some particular difficulties for Josh. But here, I'll focus on sharing his strengths as a dad.
Josh understands and has empathy (yes, empathy!) for the things that upset or scare our daughter. For example, both of them are bothered by unexpected loud noises, and neither of them likes to try new foods. While this presents a challenge as I try to ensure that our child receives a varied and nutritional diet, she knows that her dad understands her. When she's scared or upset, she wants him to comfort her just as often as she wants her mom.
He teaches our daughter to enjoy nature and have respect for its creatures. We have two dogs with whom Josh is very bonded. He involves our daughter in their care and models good stewardship. He has also taught her a healthy love of playing in the dirt. He seems most at peace to me when he's outside working on the yard, and she is delighted to be out there with him, surrounded by the flowers and bumblebees.
He enjoys play-time with our daughter, especially arts and crafts and sensory activities. Not many adults would enjoy an hour or so of Play-Doh or clay time with a three-year-old, but Josh does. He finds great relaxation in artistic, sensory activities, so these are good bonding activities for the two of them.
He is not preoccupied with things like gender roles. If he sees a dinosaur shirt he likes, he buys it for our daughter. It never occurs to him that some people would think that's strange. As a result, our daughter is very well-rounded in her interests. She's most recently expressed a desire to have a Spiderman/Princess Sofia birthday party.
He involves her in projects and processes. He asks her what she prefers, and values her input. He lets her help with projects, like building a tree house. He assumes she can do things, rather than assuming she can't. He's teaching her to have agency over her life and body. empowering her to do things like use simple tools to build and create, and showing her it's ok to say 'no, thank you' if she doesn't want a hug. He's raising a strong young lady.
These are some of Josh's superpowers as a dad. I wrote this post on my own because it has been a great joy of my life to see him grow into the dad he is today and I wanted this, the way I see him with our daughter, to stand on its own. Every autistic person is different and not every autistic person will experience parenthood the way Josh has, but it's important to both of us to demonstrate that an autistic person can parent, and parent well.
Comments