Steve Gallup is the first autism Dad to submit a guest blog for Father's Day - and I'm hoping that his story will be an inspiration to the MANY other autism dads out there. Steve is the father of a 26 year old son on the autism spectrum, and he is the author of a memoir being published this year. Steve's website is http://www.fatherspledge.com.
MOTHER'S DAY came and went, and now it's the dads' turn. Having separate days to celebrate mothers and fathers prompts the question of what each side contributes to the adventure of raising kids.
Quite a lot has been written about masculine versus feminine approaches to problem solving. Women are more nurturing, we're told. Men are the ones who do battle with the cold, cruel world. Men are spring-loaded to achieve resolution, whereas women want to understand and connect.
There must be some truth to generalizations like that. However, when it comes to a challenge like developmental disability, mothers and fathers both exert themselves tirelessly to overcome the problems besetting their kids. I would say, based on the hundreds of such parents I've known, that mothers and fathers both want more than anything else to make life better for their kids. If a child's future is clouded by something like autism, there's very little difference between the sexes in parental determination to make that threat go away.
The main distinction in our household was probably in the resources my wife and I looked to for resolution. At the outset, we both naively expected the doctors to have everything our son needed; but when they didn't, she felt sure someone else would come along. The search for that someone else led past a wide variety of alternative providers, each of whom more or less plausibly explained our son's condition in terms of his own specialty. Another aspect of her outward focus was a deep concern that the world might not accept our child. To address that, she devoted considerable effort to making sure, via things like his clothes and haircuts, that he spent every minute looking as cute as he possibly could.
In short, she turned to the world for both guidance and approval. Her suffering was in direct relation to whatever extent either was withheld.
I needed guidance, too! But I recognized fairly early on that the kind of input we were getting, in itself, was not going to be enough. A great deal of effort on our own part was going to be necessary, even assuming we were on the right track. Accordingly, I set myself the task of muscling through all impediments, at whatever cost.
This year is seeing the publication of a memoir I wrote that dramatizes the campaign my family waged to rescue our son Joseph from developmental disability. It shows his hard-won achievements, the impediments that fell by the wayside--and what the enterprise cost us.
ANOTHER WAY to look at gender differences is in comparing the effect childhood disability has on mothers and fathers. There have been studies suggesting that the mothers may be more stressed and have lower levels of well-being. Given that fathers typically have the distraction of a job outside the house, as I did, this generalization too has merit.
At the time, I knew that we were both under pressure, sometimes functioning only on adrenalin. But I don't recall wondering which of us was in worse shape, emotionally. The process of writing about it later has led me to understand more clearly the degree of sustained anxiety and frustration my wife felt, and the connection between that and her untimely demise when our son was only nine years old.
On Father's Day we congratulate and thank dads for all they do. On this and every other day of the year, we fathers will not be amiss if we earn that regard by finding new ways to help our wives understand how very special and vitally important they are.
Are you a dad interested in writing a guest blog for father's day? If so, please get in touch with me at autism.guide@about.com. I'm in search of guest blogs from autism dads, no more than 1,000 words long. They should be personal reflections on autism and fatherhood, and should not be previously published. I'll be glad to include a link back to your site if you have one, and photos are welcome but not required. Please do NOT send essays promoting a particular therapy, therapist or political perspective.
THANK YOU!
