The Different Kid's Mom

You know, I never really thought about the fact that all those kids I have considered to be "different" have had a mother standing behind them.  Well, at least until recently.  Have you?  We all go through our childhood hanging out with kids who are most like us and occasionally befriending someone whom we consider different.  When we get to middle school we become a little less tolerant of differences and sometimes just downright mean.  By high school many of us outwardly pointed out others' differences and began to separate and avoid "them".  As I went through each of these phases, I never once thought about who that person really was and I think I was a pretty caring young person.

What I have recently experienced is what that whole process looks like from a mother's point of view.  And I'm only at the beginning of it.  It scared me.  Here's how it went.

We are standing in line for a huge bouncy house water slide. We= Mack and I.  Fiona has already ditched us and is off with her friends sliding and sliding.  First, Mack is one of the younger people in line.  I have to show her how to get in line and I have to work pretty hard to keep her still enough to keep her place in line.  She is barking, shouting, spinning, and just generally making a scene.  Kids are looking at her.  Kids are laughing at her.  Kids are making fun of her.  I'm standing there in horror.  She makes it to the front of the line, climbs the slide alone (amazing the slide operator), and then cracks up as she makes her way to the bottom again.  I barely survived that.  Only now I have about 20 more of those to go.  

She does this over and over and each time gets more excited which turns on her noises even more.  She is clearly very different than her peers.  We are officially out in the world.  My kid is the different kid.  Shit.  I begin to tell children to stop laughing at others because it is mean.  I feel defensive.  I feel mad.  And then.  She decides that her swim top is bothering her, so she takes it off.  Now she is the different kid- standing in line in her own way- now topless.  I thought things were uncomfortable before.  Ha.  Now I have the same kids staring and laughing but now they are also pointing at her adorable "outie" which is a remnant of a horrible hernia.  We have been planning to have it surgically "fixed" once she began school to avoid this type of teasing.  I'm standing on a muddy tarp watching my sweet baby become the target of everything I've been afraid of.  

It is really hard for me to help Mack navigate through the world and really we haven't even gotten to the hard part yet.  So far she has been influenced mostly by her family.  We haven't had to add in all the opinions of the world.  It frightens me.  She is an amazing person.  She is sweet and beautiful.  She is happy and knows what she wants.  I don't want those things to change when kids notice that she marches to the beat of her own drum.  

Each phase of a special life is different.  Parents of special kids (of course I know all kids are special) have a long road ahead of them because the road always changes direction.  Once we get used to how things are...they change.  Teaching an inflexible child how to do this takes a lot of work.  When I say a lot...you have to really know what I'm talking about to know what I'm talking about.  So, we plug along behind our babies as they venture out.  Just know that we're back here.  We are ready to catch them when they fall- because we know they are going to fall.  And.  Sometimes they won't.  And when they don't, expect a ticker tape parade because we needed a day where they didn't fall.