Ali Family Autism Truths #22 – The Double Standards

Ali Family Autism Truths #22 – The Double Standards April 22, 2015

D, A and H, about two years ago.
D, A and H, about two years ago.

April 22, 2015 – Autism Awareness Month, Autism Truths #22

At dinnertime this evening, my seven-year-old son H laid a good one one me. His older brother D, who had been sitting with the six of us at the dinner table plowing through his dinner, got up and left the table with a few more bites to go. We called him back – D, come and take another bite! He came back and protested, pushing my husband’s hand away as he tried to give him another spoonful.

One more bite, D – I said to him. So he reluctantly took one last bite and then ran downstairs.

That’s when H said, How come D Bhai gets to leave the table? How come he doesn’t have to finish his food all the time? You make me finish my food, and you always make me sit until I’m done eating?

I’ve heard this line of questioning from our 11-year-old daughter A before. In fact, this past year there have been a lot more questions and frustrations aired from her towards our differing parenting rules and choices regarding D and her and H. I suspect H’s question tonight was a repeat of what he has heard A say in the past few months.

Except with H, how do I explain the double standards to him, the differences in our rules as it pertains to what we’re trying to teach D with his autism, and what we’re trying to teach H and his sister? How do I explain that at times I do insist that D stay and finish the meal, but at other times, gauging the situation and how the day has been, I allow him to leave the table and circle back to finish? Or, if he outright refuses to finish the meal (and I want to avoid a meltdown in front of the other kids), I take his plate and feed him the rest?

How do I explain that yes, sometimes I don’t insist that D finish the entire meal at one go while most often I do insist that H and A finish their food, because as well as I can judge D’s appetite, I just can’t know for sure if he’s full, if his stomach hurts or if there is some other bodily reason why he needs a break from eating at this moment? I have explained much of this to the kids, and yet it still doesn’t make sense to them. I understand that. It’ll take time.

How do I explain that when D messes up something that belongs to A or H, especially when he goes into A’s bedroom and grabs any necklace she may have left out, or chews on a stuffed animal or burrows into her bed — that reprimanding him in the same fashion that I may reprimand her or her younger brother doesn’t work? I do reprimand D, but it isn’t the same. We have locks installed on both the kids’ doors, and we are constantly reminding them to lock their rooms when they are not in there. After a few months of reminding and after A still complained about her stuff getting messed up — we laid down the law. On A.

You have a lock on your door. There is a reason we put it there. We have told you time and time again to lock your room We will continue to instruct D not to mess up your stuff, and if we find him in there, we will ask him to leave your room. But you are responsible now.

I see her getting upset. She’s been playing the it’s-not-fair-because-of-autism card on us a lot more this year, and H sometimes follow suit. I expect it. I alternately indulge their questions and sympathize with them, and at other times I simply say – you know why. I know you know why. But, how much do they understand, though I explain as best possible? They are kids. It’s natural. It’s tough. Inside I seethe sometimes — you want to complain to me about double standards? How about how you can TALK, and your brother can’t? How about how you have friends, and your brother doesn’t? How about how you travel on a plane with ease and we took you guys to India, but we couldn’t take your brother?

But it is what it is. I can’t say those things to them. Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever — not in quite those words. And, in a different world, things would be, well, different. But this is our world. This is our autism life. These are our double standards, for better or for worse.

In past conversations with friends and with my mom, I’ve spoken firmly about how I loved most everything about how my parents raised my brother and I — we were Muslims growing up in a town were there were no Muslims, no Islamic schools, no Sunday schools, no Islamic textbooks, no Internet. Everything we learned, we learned from our parents, and they did their best by us. My only complaint is the double standards they had between me and my two brothers — there was a lot more my brothers were allowed to do than I. A lot. Because they were Muslim boys, and I was a Muslim girl.

And God bless my parents — they did a lot for us, and they made the best decisions they could. I respect and admire them for all of it. But the double standards between boys and girls was something I vowed I’d do differently with my kids.

And yet here we are — with double standards. Except they are autism ones. And the truth is — it’s tough on A and H. And they are good, good kids. But it’s tough. And they question us. And they resent it at times. Maybe I’m not making the best of choices. I try to show that things are as even as possible between all of the kids, but it’s not. Not by a long shot.

And that truth is hard to live with.


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