Whenever we meet new acquaintances, the topic of conversation inevitably turns to our children, which also turns to an explanation of Autism, 15q24, and an entire catalog of other adjectives.
It gets awkward quickly. People are usually polite and interested but in a hyper-sensitive society they’re unsure what questions are appropriate. So they dance around the questions they really want to ask until I give them permission and promise I won’t get offended.
People on the spectrum are… well… how would you say it? “Delayed”?
Is he in, like, a special class or something?
Can he understand what we are saying?
Was it because you gave him shots and stuff?
Will he ever live on his own?
Again, it’s uncomfortable but asking is a form of caring so I try to respond graciously. But if there’s one question that requires a little more patience on my part it is, “What is his ‘Gift’?”
I don’t think we live in an era where people’s minds automatically drift to the Rain Man when they think of Autism. But like it or not, that movie seems to have conditioned our society. The thought goes: Autism comes with a lot of social, emotional, and cognitive baggage, but at least it leaves some stamp of brilliance on the individual. The notion of a Gift is still perpetuated in the media.
As I write, ABC airs a medical drama, The Good Doctor, about a brilliant surgeon who has high-functioning Autism. Dr. Murphy is socially aloof, but he has a Gift. He can envision the human body in a way the average doctor cannot. Colleagues can overlook some of his interpersonal difficulties because he is uniquely qualified to see things they cannot. Originally the writers of the show went to great lengths to differentiate between “Autism” and “Savant,” but if you watch from week to week you still get the impression that they are one in the same.
I highly recommend the movie Temple Grandin. It is a raw biopic about the namesake of the movie, painting a vivid reality of what it’s like to have Autism. But she has a Gift: because she can think in pictures, she has become a brilliant engineer who streamlined the entire cattle industry.
Then there is Ben Affleck’s “The Accountant” and by now you know the routine. A guy struggles to function in polite company, but he has a Gift. He’s brilliant with numbers (and ninja skills too). One critic painted Affleck’s character as “giving Autistic kids their own superhero.”
Part of the appeal these stories have on society is that they try to soften the blow of an otherwise bleak reality. “Special Needs” doesn’t seem so bad if we can rebrand it as “Special Ability,” or “Differently Abled.” So when people ask of our son, “What is his gift?” what they really want to know is,
Is he, like, an accomplished pianist?
Can he do calculus in his head?
He’s probably fluent in Mandarin.
Has he memorized “War and Peace”?
I bet he has a photographic memory, or something like that.
The question is innocent. Those who ask are not being unkind, they simply reveal their social conditioning. At the risk of being naïve, I believe most people ask because they genuinely care, so I have to force myself not to answer, “What is his Gift? Well, on any given day he’s got a 50-50 shot at getting his pants on the right way—does that count?”
In fairness, there are things my son is good at. He’s charming and has a great sense of humor. He has enormous confidence on a bicycle and is incredibly friendly. He particularly enjoys manual labor. But a savant he is not. Society is conditioned to believe that in spite of his difficulties, there is latent brilliance somewhere beneath the disability.
The most obvious problem with that understanding is it simply isn’t true, not for our son nor for the majority of children and adults who live with a similar disability. What makes a story like Rain Man, The Good Doctor, Temple Grandin and The Accountant compelling is that they are outliers. They may give the layperson a sense of relief on our behalf, but for the families who live Autism and special-needs day to day, it simply isn’t the reality.
But there is a second problem. Asking about a child’s Gift and expecting some gleam of brilliance shining from the darkness of disability reveals that deep down, we still ascribe value and dignity to a human being solely on what they can contribute to society. The unspoken philosophy seemingly embedded in our culture suggests that maybe our kids are weird but the discomfort they impose on society is tolerated so long as they have some superhuman ability that makes them worthy citizens of humanity. Certainly only a handful of people believe that and even fewer would say it out loud, but like it or not, that is the governing, albeit unspoken, philosophy in our culture.
I am Christian. In Christian theology, value and dignity are assigned at the beginning, not later when some “Gift” is discovered and honed. The worth of a human being was pronounced when God said, “Let us make man in our own image,” and he stamped that image on the first human couple. When there were no other humans around to affirm their worth, and when the first couple had absolutely nothing to contribute that could earn God’s respect, God gave his nod of approval anyway. Perhaps one could even say God bestowed worth and dignity in spite of human inability to earn them through some “gift.”
So God created man in his own image,
In the image of God he created him,
Male and female, he created them
Genesis 1:27
I don’t believe many people in our son’s life are waiting to endow him with value and dignity until they can recognize some superhuman feat of cognitive ability. But a question that presumes some “gift” (and the slight disappointment at discovering there isn’t one) reveals a cultural conditioning, even if it lies dormant beneath the surface.
My dad was once asked, after I received my Master’s degree, if he was proud of my achievement. His answer was, “I’m proud of all my kids.” That may seem like classic question-dodging, but “I’m proud of all my kids” was his way of saying that none of his four children needed to do anything impressive or display some “Gift” before we could earn his pride. My dad very well may be impressed, but he wouldn’t bestow honor and dignity to us as a result of our accomplishments. We are his kids, and in his mind, that’s all that matters. Any perceived achievement or “Gift” is simply a bonus.
I’m proud of my son. He can’t tie a shoe. He can’t use a spoon. He can’t do advanced arithmetic. On any given day he has a 50-50 chance of getting his pants on the right way. He reads at a 2nd grade level and has a temper that would make a drunken Irishman seem like a cub scout. He doesn’t have a Gift. But his value, dignity, and worth as a human being is not dependent on one. He’s my kid, and like his siblings, he is given a nod of approval from the God whose image he bears, and that’s all that matters to me.
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