 |
Honesty is noble stuff. Bla, bla, bla. You don't know honest until you've met my kid. Therein lies real honesty. Down home, unadulterated truth, I tell you. No secret is sacred. Imaginary scenario: Here comes Johnny Appleseed boppin' along the highway. My kid's gonna say, "Hey, you have a pot on your head." No sweat, the man does wear a pot on his head. Many folks might comment on his choice of head gear or point at him. When one chooses to be different, one accepts the risk of being pointed at. But, taking honesty to its logical conclusion, my kid might add, "And it looks really silly because it belongs on a stove." (Or, having recently learned the metaphorical meaning of "hot head" and being a kid who loves to play with words, "Hey, are you a hot head and cooking something?") Nobody wants that kind of honesty from a stranger. So Johnny Appleseed conks him with the pot (which, legend has never had it, is also his weapon of choice). But, see, Johnny A.'s anger baffles my kid. His statement was, after all, simply the truth as he saw it (and as most people probably would see it, but not feel called to mention). This compulsion to point out the obvious is dubbed, in our house, "OTM-OTM". On the mind, out the mouth. The trouble begins when we bring OTM-OTM into the real world. "That man is really old. Look at the old man, Mom." (Using mega-decibel playground voice.) What am I supposed to say, "Maybe he simply has very gray hair and just had a back operation." Or "Yes, he certainly is!" Of course the latter reply would simply be too . . . honest, but my kid would call me on the former choice right then and there. "He is, too, old, Mom. See? He has wrinkles! He's all bent over when he walks! How can you say he's not old? Mom, why won't you answer me? Hey Mister, how old are you?" So I hiss "Shh" or give an ambivalent "Hmmm", avoid the "old guy's" eyes and wander--okay, slink--in another direction. Sometimes it's more painful. I need to find a coat rather desperately as winter approaches and I have been, for the past six months, accumulating body fat to survive the coming cold weather. I thought perhaps I could get away with trying on a coat while we shopped for school clothes. Watching his mother try on coats is, apparently, a boring pastime for a teenage boy. Nearby, a man up on a scaffold is digging into the ceiling tiles. My kid walks up to the man on the scaffold, proclaims, "You're a black man!" And I'm red, but manage to croak, "That's not nice," send a very sheepish smile to the startled maintenance man, who is a man of color, and then I hear my son say, "Okay. I'm sorry, you're white." One has to be more specific with my kid. I should have said what I really meant: "It's not nice to make comments on people's appearance." But I didn't, so now I'm purple, too. The red and purple combination looks much more attractive in the flower garden. I avoid the man's gaze, which I'm sure has evolved from a perplexed smile to an accusing stare. Trying to maintain some semblance of cool, acutely aware of my (now rather mottled) whiteness, I pull another coat off the rack. So my kid amuses himself with a little poetry. "You're dark, you're light, you're black, you're white." And your mother is a rainbow. Call me ROY G. BIV. We're outta here. Body fat will have to suffice as winter insulation this year. Thankfully, over time our kid has learned that there are such things as "white lies" (you don't tell someone that dinner at the fancy restaurant is their surprise birthday party, for example) and that there are times--many, many times--to simply "keep your mouth shut". He doesn't believe in these teachings, of course, because they simply lack any semblance of logic, but they are, at least--and at last--a concept. And that's the truth, pl-pl-pl-pl-pl. -----------
Asperger's Syndrome falls into the Autistic spectrum of disorders. Two characteristics of AS are: the tendency to be very literal-minded and see things (not just people!) as black or white, and the inability to intuitively grasp tricky social rules. It's often difficult for an AS individual to understand why others become offended when told they're old or their dress is ugly ("Like my new dress?" will receive an honest reply from my kid. So don't ask if the answer is important to you!) or why some comments can be construed as bigoted. Such statements can be painfully embarrassing to the person with them, or even hurtful to the target of the blunt observation. What "we neurotypicals" need to understand is that the AS person's intent is not to judge or disparage and especially not to hurt feelings, but merely to make note of what is. In my kid's world, "politically correct", though intellectually a concept, makes no logical sense. For more information on Asperger's Syndrome,
please visit the website: "OASIS" (http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger)
and don't miss the article "What the DSM IV Means to Me", (http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/asmeans1.html),
written by a woman with AS. ©Copyright 2009 Nan Jacobs Nan Jacobs lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and son, a menagerie of pets and a herd of tow trucks. When not "thinkin' out loud", she's vying with the cats for the nearest sunbeam, trying to ignore the call of the wild dust bunnies. (Sloths are her heroes.) Nan's essay, "Word Games", is published in "A Cup of Comfort for Parents of Children with Autism" (Adams Media, 2007) and a short story, "Twilight Whispers", will be available for download from http://thewildrosepress.com in time for the Christmas holidays in 2008. Please drop in and visit Nan at http://nanjacobs.com Send Nan a message either directly or using the Word Catalyst feedback form. For more from Nan visit the Word Catalyst archives. |
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
  |
Thinkin' Out Loud
"Let's discuss honesty for a moment. Honesty
is the stuff of presidents, of legends. Consider George Washington
and the cherry tree; Abe Lincoln and the miles he walked (no
doubt through snow) to return a penny. Jimmy Carter won the Nobel
Peace Prize for speaking honestly in order to solve problems!
From The Attic
Cheshire Cat
Truly Calhoun
Songs of