Autism Vox

Full-time Autism Mother

by Kristina Chew, PhD on October 17th, 2006

A few posts back, in regard to my husband’s and my decision not to have another child—to have “only” Charlie—Jenni asked me “how much of a part of your decision was based on the fact you worked full-time?”.

A good part, I would have to answer. It is true that another factor that played a part in our decision was the increased likelihood of us having another autistic child. Charlie needed and needs and will need a lot of care and services throughout his lifespan, and all of that is going to cost (and is costing us now—-very gladly; Charlie has been doing really great, talking more, liking school, learning, happy). If we had another autistic child and if that child needed the intense services and education that Charlie did, of course we would provide it for her or him—-while constantly be thinking about how much time, energy, attention, and focus it takes to take care of Charlie, let alone a baby and possibly another autistic child.

I wrote more on this topic over a year ago on Autismland, on Just Charlie (#81) (September 18, 2005). I do have to say, being able to work has been of huge importance to myself, to our family and, I think, ultimately, for Charlie. It is inevitable that our world and the fiber of our lives revolves around Charlie and yet, I do think that is beneficial that Charlie recognizes that each of the three of us is a separate individual with separate interests and, to some extent, a separate life.

So Charlie is the schoolboy swimmer-biker who takes the yellow bus to school. Jim rushes off to the train to put together every last detail of the October 27th Autism and Advocacy conference before someday returning to revise his book manuscript on the New Jersey/New York waterfront. I drive off in the black car to teach Latin and ancient Greek at a college in Jersey City.

I have worked, part-time and mostly full-time, since Charlie was diagnosed in July of 1999. I have mostly taught Classics:

A year after Charlie was diagnosed with autism, I took a leave of absence from my then-job as a Classics professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota; after a few months, I submitted a letter of resignation. And I was pretty sure that was it for me and Classics. I was the mother of a barely verbal autistic child and I could not rationalize how Latin, Greek, and the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world fit into what was becoming my world of speech therapy, behavior analysis, special education, sensory integration, IEP’s, cognitive disability, and on and on and on. It seemed a no-brainer to “give up” Classics.

For some time, I considered becoming an autism therapist or teacher or advocate. Charlie was and would always be our life, which was solidly rooted in “Autismland” and was everyday farther and farther away from the hushed world of libraries, classical Greek grammars, Virgil’s love-sick shepherds in the Eclogues, Socrates exhorting us to “know thyself” (gnothi sauton) in Plato’s philosophy. To this day, I clock in plenty more hours at national mega-chain stores (Target, ShopRite) than in ivy-draped neo-Gothic academic settings and “the stacks” of a scholarly library and it seems quite unlikely that the reverse should occur. I love Catullus, but Charlie is my man.

………………

…………..I have been unable to leave Classics behind, even on the toughest days in Autismland. And rather than Latin and Greek being an extravagance, I have come to understand the importance to my and Charlie’s life in hanging onto some aspect of my own life that predates his having autism.

……………….

………..Thanks to Charlie, I am emboldened to consider how cognitive disability and disability exist in the ancient world. No less than Socrates, Charlie has the right not to live “the unexamined life” and, while some might think he would be better spending his time working on his pronunciation of /f/, giving him the chance to be Achilles sulking in his tent and Odysseus taunting the Cyclops acknowledges that he is Charlie Fisher, student, ready to learn and teach the rest of us a thing or two.

Indeed, I would go so far as to say that Charlie and autism have led me back to Classics—have solidified my interest and my passion for studying the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans. The question for me is not whether to study and teach Classics, but how to combine my professional interests with my personal one, autism and Charlie. And I have been picking up some clues of late.

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