As I jokingly call myself a “Recovering Catholic,” I struggle to put into words the question that was just asked of me:

What exactly do you believe in, if it’s not God?

The truth is, I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t exactly fit into any religion. I don’t really think there is some all powerful man staring down from the heavens watching all of us, but I’m not above believing in so called “miracles” or forces that are beyond my comprehension. I’ve thought a lot about this since realizing that I could no longer be Catholic. For those of you who are curious, my realization came after admitting to myself that I honestly didn’t believe in transubstantiation. Transubstantiation is the process during communion when the wafers and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ- a major tenet of Catholicism. I already had some issues with the church that I was struggling with- from the treatment of those in the LGBTQ community to only men being allowed to be priests, but that one realization made it clear I was no longer in the right community. Since then, I’ve explored other religions and haven’t found anything that I can get behind 100%.

While I personally find most organized religion to be somewhat unappealing, I don’t necessarily feel religion itself is a bad thing. I do however struggle with the hypocrisy. I’ve met a significant amount of people who say they believe in certain religious values, yet they don’t actually practice said values in their every day lives. It feels like for most individuals, church is either a place for socializing, what they’ve always done without questioning, or a way for them to feel like they have some kind of “moral licensing” over others. That’s not to say that there aren’t true believers who live up to their religious beliefs out there, but I’ve seen enough people that don’t to make me leery.

Raising Secular Children

Personal experiences aside, I don’t want my children to treat other humans with compassion because some mysterious higher power told them to, or because they are afraid of the fiery depths of hell. I want them to be good humans simply because it’s the right thing to do. This is how we should treat all humans, regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual preference, size, religion, etc.

Granted, many individuals learn selflessness, generosity, and gratitude through religion — because religion does instill these values — countless others do not. Forgiveness isn’t exclusive to religion. Thankfulness isn’t exclusive to religion. Empathy and understanding are not exclusive to religion. Religion and morality are not inextricably linked — because religion doesn’t make good people. People make good people.

Dealing With The Big Questions

I won’t lie, sometimes it would be nice to have religion as a backup for those “big” questions, about things like death, life, differences, and morals. There is a certain comfort that comes from having a God like figure in your life, knowing that he is taking care of you and loved ones as well as feeling like there is some greater plan to your life. So how do we handle these types of questions?

I’ve found that just being as honest and compassionate as possible is usually the best path. Children can handle the truth as long as it’s presented in a way thats suitable to their age level. I have a few great examples of this:

Over the summer, Everett finally started getting interested in why girls had a “fahchina” aka vagina. My first explanation involved the most basic details. I explained that it was essentially the female version of a penis and that it just looked and acted a little differently.

This explanation held him over for a couple weeks, then he came up to me and asked again. The simple explanation didn’t work. He wanted to know how they worked and why I was bleeding. So I explained it in very basic scientific terms and showed him a kids anatomy book so he could see a woman’s reproductive system. He thought it was super neat and hasn’t asked a question about it since.

My other example deals with death. Last fall when Everett’s pet rabbit, Snowball unexpectedly passed away, I really struggled with how to best comfort him. It would have been so easy to tell him that his rabbit went to live in bunny heaven and was having the time of his (after)life. The scientific approach, ie explaining the life cycle, also didn’t work with Everett. He didn’t believe the bunny was truly gone until he saw the dead bunny, then insisted that after the bunny went into the earth it would come back, (side note: how terrifying would that be ?‍?), and kept  asking us to dig the rabbit up to make sure (we didn’t).

Obviously, only time really heals a broken heart, but what really helped Everett the most was writing the bunny a letter that we buried beside his grave (so Snowball would know how much he was loved). We also planted some flowers on top of the grave, so Everett had a visual representation of how Snowballs memory could be kept alive.

Given that I feel that everyone should be treated equally, I don’t feel right forcing a religion onto the boys- it should be their choice. My husband and I may identify as nonreligious, but we both believe our children deserve the right to make their own choice on the matter. We plan on exposing them to various options once they start having questions. We hope to do this as unbiased as possible, but we will be honest with them about why we chose to be secular.
Living in the Bible Belt and being secular can be isolating, so I can understand if they want to join in with their peers when they are older. Our goal is to simply make sure that they understand what their choices are and to let them pave their own path.

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“Let people help”. “Rely on friends and family”. “Don’t be shy to ask family members to help around the house”. This is the advice touted on every baby blog, in all of the pregnancy books and shouted from the rooftops by experienced moms. But what if you can’t?  

The end of my pregnancy and beginning of my daughter’s life hasn’t looked at all how I expected it to. Breastfeeding classes? Canceled. Mommy-and-me play groups? Nonexistent. Friends and family coming over to meet the baby and help around the house? Nothing but a fantasy. As thankful as I am to have had a healthy baby girl and an amazingly supportive partner, I still feel like COVID-19 stole this time from me. I’m still processing and mourning the loss of a time in my life that was supposed to be happy and exciting.

My stepmom planned a wonderful baby shower for me, with friends and family flying in from all over the country, that I never got to go to. I bought a dress for the pregnancy photoshoot that never got to happen. Gazing at our bundle of joy via ultrasound with my husband by my side ended up being me alone in a room with the technician, wearing a protective mask, trying to record a video of that dark screen on my iPhone to show my husband later. My mother-in-law hasn’t even met her grandchild for fear that she would bring the virus up with her from Florida.

Being pregnant and giving birth during a global pandemic has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. The social isolation alone was challenging, but to experience that with pregnancy and postpartum hormones on top of caring for a newborn for the first time seemed almost insurmountable. When hospitals started restricting visitors, I read story after story of women who were forced to give birth completely alone because the visitor policy didn’t allow their child’s other parent.

Whether I would elect to have a homebirth or have my husband unable to attend the birth of his first child was not a decision I ever envisioned having to make. Thankfully, I didn’t have to. What I did end up having to do was arrive in the hospital, after 24+ hours in labor, breathing through a piece of fabric.

Before I could get inside, I had to stop and get my temperature checked, knowing that if I “failed”, they would try to isolate my baby from me immediately after birth. The fear that they would try to take my baby from me and prevent skin-to-skin, breastfeeding and general motherhood immediately after birth brought me to tears on more than one occasion. Had I tested positive, I was prepared to insist they leave her with me or I would have to leave the hospital and birth somewhere else.

Again, I’m thankful it didn’t come to that.

Once inside, I couldn’t be taken to L&D until I had my COVID test results back. After having my upper nasal cavity assaulted by a lengthy Q-tip, I continued to labor in an emergency department hospital room with no access to pain medication. We were told that I could remove my mask after getting the all clear from the test, but that as soon as the baby came out of me, I had to put my mask back on. At the time, I remember feeling SO grateful that I didn’t have to push with the mask on my face, which isn’t something most mothers have to incorporate into their birth plan. My husband was told to wear a mask the entire time (though to be honest, we both kept forgetting to put it back on when people came in the room with everything we had going on). All of the nurses wore masks at all times. In fact, I saw a nurse in the hallway without a mask on and asked her if she had seen my nurse who had been helping me for days. It turns out she actually WAS my nurse (embarrassing), but I had no idea what she looked like because of the masks.

As if giving birth during a global pandemic wasn’t enough weight on my shoulders, our country simultaneously (finally) began stepping up against systemic racism. While we were in the hospital after birth, our plan was for my husband to run home to tend to our dog on the second day. However, rioting around the globe and within our city resulted in a curfew during my hospitalization, and if my husband left, he wouldn’t be permitted to come back into the hospital until the next morning when curfew was lifted.

Coming home from the hospital was more emotional than I envisioned. I was leaving the safety of on call lactation support and endlessly being able to ask the nurses “is this normal?”. I knew these resources, normally available to new moms after they leave via support groups and meetups, would not be available to me.

When I did find a lactation group still meeting in person, my husband and I debated if it was safe for me to go get some much-needed help getting my baby to latch. My internal monologue debated if I was a horrible mother for risking exposing my child or if I was a horrible mother for not getting the nursing help that I knew I needed to feed her well. It felt so lose-lose. Ultimately, I made the decision that I thought would best set up my daughter for lifelong success and got the help that I needed to nourish her little body.

After a few weeks of settling in and things starting to get easier, I started reading some more baby books again now that I had the time. When the first chapter of a new book started with an emphasis on accepting help from friends and family, I literally threw the book across the room and cried to myself. When my family tried to guilt me into traveling with the new baby or letting people come see her that hadn’t quarantined, I sobbed in the shower. I wasn’t having to choose which daycare to put my daughter in when returning to work, I had to choose whether I was a horrible parent for even considering putting her in daycare during this time or if I should give up my career that I love. If I didn’t have the support of my husband, I don’t know how I would have emotionally made it for this long (shout out to all the single parents – I cannot even fathom how awesome you are for surviving!).

But hey, it’s not all bad – at least I didn’t have a ton of strangers touching my stomach for the last 4 months of pregnancy! In all seriousness, living through this situation has taught me that I can handle a lot more than I thought I could. It also taught me that there are more ways than one to lean on my support system.

I sought out others going through what I was going through. I found a lot of solace in two reddit groups – one private group specifically for mothers due at the same time as me (every birth month has a private reddit bumpers group – I highly recommend you find yours!) as well as an open group for pregnant people during this time called CoronaBumpers. My husband and I may not have hands on help, but I know we have support day and night through a network of amazing friends and family, even if it is virtual.

Two months after she was born, I still don’t know if I’m doing things right. I have no idea if I would be learning tips and tricks from other mothers that would make raising her easier. I’m still feeling isolated and lonely, but when I’m feeling really overwhelmed, I take a whiff of that amazing new baby smell and I know we will get through it together.

-Abbi Hernandez, Ph.D.

7/24/2020

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Ending An Era Of Colorblindness

All Ages:

Ages Birth-4:

Ages 5-12:

Teens:

Final Thoughts

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This week, in addition to being cyberbullied, I also had to face the harsh reality that my son is perhaps the “bully” in his classroom.

I spend a few minutes every school day talking to his teacher so I can make sure that we are as much on the same page as possible. Wednesday she confirmed one of my biggest worries.

“The other kids in the classroom are starting to purposefully avoid Everett. They ask to not sit beside him. They move their trays away from him in the cafeteria”

My heart shattered into a million pieces. However, I wasn’t surprised. I had already noticed this happening in other places. Everett just can’t seem to keep his hands to himself. His version of playing is chasing other kids to the point they become afraid or aggressive towards him. He destroys their building projects, throws their toys to the floor, and touches them nonstop. I hoped that going to school would help with this, but it hasn’t. So far, he seems to focus this type of behavior on the same 1-3 kids, but no one is really safe from “Hurricane Everett.”

Worries About What The Future Holds

At this point, I’m at a loss. He has various therapy sessions, including yoga/impulsive management techniques, and we are making an appointment with a counselor, but I still worry that his impulse control issues aren’t going to get much better. It’s the one area that we haven’t seen much improvement in.

Yesterday, I was even talking to a friend about how I was afraid to get things like nerf guns, because I feel like I need to face the reality that it seems like kids like Everett are the type that become school shooters. Saying it out loud physically made me feel ill. Typing it isn’t much better.

Although Autism doesn’t cause agression, students with Autism tend to be the targets of violence and bullying. However, I worry that Everett’s constant struggles with the understood societal behaviors combined with his lack of impulse control puts him at risk. Risk of being alienated to the point where he feels his only recourse is something drastic like a school shooting.

I honestly don’t know how to get this thought/image out of my head. It terrifies me. It sickens me. It makes me cry.

Everett is truly a sweet and loving boy, but what is going to happen to him if he spends the next 10 years being systematically avoided by his peers? I can’t protect him from everything, no parent can do this, but I’m doing my damndest to prepare him.

What You Can Do

Several people have asked me how they can help. It’s simple.

Teach your kids empathy.

Long story short, we pass our judgment making skills and biases onto our children. Teach them kindness, especially to those who are different from yourself. Teach them patience. Teach them about how those who are differently abled are not lesser individuals. Teach them about the weight of their words and actions.

Teach your kids empathy.

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Today is the last day of Autism Awareness Month and I wanted to end with a bang. I want to talk about invisible disabilities. Autism is just a small slice in the invisible disability world, studies show that 96 percent of people who live with an illness live with an invisible one, and 73 percent of people who live with a severe disability do not use devices like a wheelchair. This means that when you look at them, you wouldn’t know that they’re disabled. Think about how many people you see who are clearly disabled during an average week. Statistically, for every person you’ve seen who looks disabled, you’ve seen at least 4 more who are disabled but don’t look it. Circling back to my soapbox, out of that staggering number, 1 in 59 of children recieve an Autism diagnosis.

They don’t look it.

So how can you tell? Often times you can’t unless you know what to look for, and even then it’s a gamble. It’s best to just be a decent, non-judgmental, and compassionate human being.
According to the American Occupational Therapy Association, sensory processing affects virtually all aspects of a child’s daily life, including motor coordination, school performance, and relationships. A child with sensory processing disorder could have 20/20 vision and perfect hearing, but when he’s in a crowded mall, his brain is not able to manage all of the auditory and visual information he’s receiving through his eyes and ears.

While each kid reacts differently to overstimulation, some will scream or become physically aggressive. What may look like defiance is just a kid doing his best to manage a stressful environment.

The assumption that a lack of discipline indicates a failure by the parent is totally without merit. Often times, people mistake sensory processing issues as discipline issues. No Karen, my child doesn’t need XYZ punishment, he needs calming techniques and resetting. Discipline will not prevent him from being overwhelmed by his environment.

I’m starting to learn that sometimes we just need to leave a playdate when Everett starts having meltdown signs. It sucks for everyone, but the last time we didn’t leave he bit a child. Twice. I’d rather be judged for “indulging ” my child than to have him physically hurt another child. It’s sad, because it seems like this is the beginning of feeling like I’m isolating him from the world.

I’m fortunate to have understanding friends who know Everett often doesn’t mean to be aggressive towards their children, but I get an overwhelming amount of judgment from others.

They see a perfectly normal child, who is aggressive towards their child, who doesn’t respond to normal societal behavior expectations and assume he’s a bad kid. They act shocked that this “horrible” kid is allowed to be at the playground. When I try to explain that he’s learning or on the spectrum I’ve gotten dirty looks.

When I try to calm Everett down I hear their snide remarks about how he’s bad because obviously I don’t know how to discipline him “correctly.” I hear them telling their child to not play with mine.

What I rarely hear are the parents using the moment as a teachable one. They could just as easily teach compassion and inclusion, but they often don’t. They act shocked by his diagnosis. I hear “he looks normal” “but he’s so smart.”

Just because you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there

Autism can be invisible. This fact is a double edged sword. It will help my son in life, and it will hurt him at times. The fact that one cannot see his autism spectrum disorder, will at least impact how people will judge him. It will also leave him vulnerable to misunderstanding and unsolicited judgements. So much of how we deal with situations and people is based on our perceptions. Sometimes our perceptions are born from experience, knowledge and our personal ideologies. But sometimes they are born from fear, misunderstanding and ignorance.
When a parent is struggling to find a diagnosis, pay for therapies, or just get through the day with a kid who has an invisible disability, it is not helpful to insist nothing’s wrong because their kid looks so “normal” or that their IQ is so high. What may be intended as a compliment may come as a slap in the face to the parent who has committed precious time, energy, and money to her child’s disability.
Parents of kids with invisible disabilities are not just responsible for feeding, clothing, loving, disciplining, and teaching their kids. They must also advocate for their kids in a system that does not always have their best interests at heart.

Parenting is hard enough without adding other people’s assumptions to the equation. Parents of kids with invisible disabilities just want the world to know that it’s only okay to assume one thing: They and their kids are doing the best they can.

After all, human beings are not all cookie-cutter perfect nor the same. We all have different weaknesses and strengths. Therefore, instead of expecting everyone to fit the same mold, let’s look for each person’s individual, exceptional qualities and show them our admiration for their courage in the midst of their hurdles.

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I’ve been toying with the idea of reflection. Reflecting on how life has changed and how we are handling it.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius

I’m learning about advocating and proactively confronting social issues. Teaching Everett how to properly engage and play with others, as well as teaching them how to play with him.

I’m experiencing the joys in unexpected milestones. Everett drawing actual objects and people. His vocabulary catching up with his imagination. Him not hitting someone all day. When he walks the whole way across a balance beam without falling. Milestones most parents don’t think about.

I’m trying to learn when to push Everett and when to let things happen on their own time. He’s at such a defiant age that I feel like I prepare for some unknown battle every day. It’s exhausting. I’m trying to learn when to actually pick the battles that are most important. “Fine you won’t get dressed? You can go to the store in your breakfast covered pjs while you rock 1 flip flop and 1 rain boot. Screw it”

One of the hardest things to know is where the disability is and when your children are being purposefully willful. Kids are kids and a child with a disability is probably not above using it as an excuse to get away with things. I’m learning to recognize where the line is, and it’s frequently fuzzy.

I think the way you manage that is by really trying to understand what your child’s specific challenges are. Yes, he or she has been diagnosed with autism. But what does that mean for your child?

For my kiddo, it means if I take him to a playdate that morning, if he doesn’t reset, that night he’s a total beast. I could assume he’s being purposefully “bad” , or I could say to myself, “Oh, he was at that loud & very busy playdate today and it took every bit of him to be in that crowded, sensory-overloaded environment. To be social, to make nice – that can be so draining for him.”

One of the things I’ve had to learn is to adjust my perspective on how children learn and understand the effect of the situations they are in. I’m a social person so I thrive at a party. But someone with social issues may not.

I’m also relearning about self care. Taking time with friends who AREN’T parents. Starting a photography business. I’m trying to remember that a healthy family needs a sane mother. Similar to the whole airplane spiel about “putting on your oxygen mask before helping others.”

Last, but not least, I’m learning to not underestimate Everett. Parents of special needs kids often think our children can’t go on without us. We’re obsessed with looking at the future and worrying about it. We know they’re going to have to function without us one day, but we worry that they can’t. We see them struggling with potty training well after their peers, we see them sitting away from the other kids at the playground, unsure of how to interact, and so on.

However, we also see their sweet tenderness and desire to learn. We see their joy and fascination at things we often don’t notice. And given the opportunity, we see them doing things we didn’t ever expect they could do without help.

Being a parent of a super special kiddo is hard, but after some reflection, it’s actually kind of beautiful too.

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