Evangeline and I have a lot of friends who grasp at straws trying to help or encourage us on our journey with Autism. Many of them cannot personally identify with us as a fellow-parent affected by Autism, so they try to relate to us vicariously another way. The easiest thing to do is forward an email, share a Facebook post, or hand us a newspaper clipping of the latest trending story about some person who overcame Autism and accomplished something great.
There’s the kid who was the basketball team manager and finally got to play in a game and started draining three-pointers like he’s Steph Curry. There’s a non-verbal girl who can play Beethoven better than Beethoven could play Beethoven. The grown adult who overcame Autism and is now doing research, having earned several masters and doctoral degrees.
The musical prodigy. The advanced calculus PhD. The child who simply overcame and is now living as a productive member of society. They give us a sense that deep down, behind the behavioral and cognitive problems, there lies some hidden genius. These are all heart-warming stories that people share with us, as if to say, “See, this could be your child too! He’ll grow up to do something great!”
These people mean well, and I truly appreciate their honest desire to help, but as the recipient of these stories I actually find them to be less helpful, not more.
First, I can’t help but feel like this is setting me up for a false hope.
The spectacular nature of these stories just proves how rare they actually are. If overcoming Autism and doing something remarkable was commonplace, those stories would never go viral.
I’ve met way too many parents like myself whose greatest hope for their child is that he might bag groceries at the local supermarket for the rest of his life, and that is setting the bar rather high. More of us, however, are beginning to work on our contingency plan in the likely event our special-needs kids outlive us. Who will take care of him when we are too old and frail (assuming we live that long)? What will become of him when we die? Will he live with a sibling? Should we impose that expectation on the sibling? Will he live in an institution? And if so, what nurse on the clock of an institution could possibly love him with the same unconditional love, and care for him with the same sacrificial care that we do?
Overcoming Autism and living as a productive member of adult society with varying degrees of genius and cognitive ability is a noble goal worthy of aspiration, but for many of us, it just isn’t realistic.
But the Second reason why these stories aren’t very helpful is because I can’t help but wonder if we, as a society (even as a church), haven’t inadvertently made the value of a human being dependent on ability. Obviously no one would ever say that, nor would most even believe that, but many operate as if it were true.
This was reinforced at a conference I attended a few years ago. Three moms of special-needs kids were leading a seminar on developing a special-needs ministry at your church. I understand their goal — These moms wanted to empower leaders and give strategies for starting and sustaining a legitimate special-needs ministry so that no family would need to be told, “We have nothing for your child here.”
However, throughout their seminar, they kept trying to encourage us by saying things like, “These kids aren’t disabled, they are ‘differently-abled.’” “They don’t have ‘special-needs,’ they have ‘special-gifts’ and ‘special-abilities.’” Besides simply being a game of semantics, this actually contradicts the statement of another dad I met who said of his own son’s Autism, “He is severely disabled.”
Their intent was to move children with Autism and other special-needs away from the margins of society and place them in the mainstream. However, the means of moving them was a propped-up false notion of some deep hidden special ability that has yet to be mined. They would never actually say this, but indirectly they reinforced a belief that a person’s value and dignity are dependent on their “special” or “different” ability.
And they would never say this, but those who try to encourage our hearts with trending stories about the special-needs kid who mastered “Pathetique” also indirectly make value dependent on ability. This attitude is many things, but it is not Christian.
Right at the beginning of the Bible, honor is given to all human beings for no other reason than “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). In fact, the entire first chapter of the Bible is a story about the dignity of mankind for no other reason than because they are God’s. They are not given dignity to the degree of their ability. They are loved, unconditionally, irrespective of what they can or cannot do, simply because they are his.
I felt the same thing the first moment my child emerged from the womb. I loved him unconditionally; not because he had anything to offer me, not because he came with “special abilities,” and not because someday he might achieve greatness. No, I loved him in that moment because he was my son, created in the image of God, and I was his dad. Nothing else mattered then. Nothing else matters now.
My son will most likely never earn a PhD. He will never play a masterpiece concerto. He will never make it rain threes in a varsity basketball game. He will never reach the pinnacle of human ingenuity or set the standard for human achievement. He may, in fact, live at home for the duration of his life. And if the best he ever amounts to is bagging groceries at the supermarket, I could not be prouder of him. Not because he is the best grocery bagger in the store: most likely he will suck at that too. No, I could not be prouder of him simply for the fact that he is my son, and quite frankly, I don’t need another reason.
We must stop defining people based on some perceived ability, or lack thereof. Instead, we must recognize their inherent dignity assigned to them by their Creator, irrespective of any ability or disability. My son has value — no more, and no less than any other human being with any level of ability. I wish you could see him the same way I do. And I hope I can always see you the way God does.
