The daily battles, private prayers, and unexpected growth of raising a child whose struggles play out in public
IT
was in mid-November, when the sky was so laden, it looked like its belly would split any second. Indoors, my mind and nerves were on the verge of giving way. I was on the floor, trying to play with my little ones. But Yitzi kept hurling toys at his brother. When I assembled a tower of stacking blocks, he yanked my headscarf and scratched my face.
I decided to go out.
My phone rang just as I put the boys into the stroller. It was my mother.
“You’re going out?” she shrieked. “Have you seen the sky?”
“I’m going to the local park, there’s a shelter there. We’ll be fine,” I said as I quickly ended the call before Yitzi managed to undo the stroller straps.
We reached the park just before the heavens opened. I was wearing my raincoat and my babies were shielded by the stroller’s rain cover. The pounding of the rain soothed my nerves.
Unsurprisingly, the park was deserted. I took my place under the ornamental bandstand to protect us from the rain. I felt like a sole player in a huge stadium, singing my own song, to an audience of One.
I lifted the plastic from the stroller and together with my twin sons, we watched in awe as the pelting rain flattened the grass and ricocheted straight off the asphalt path. A short distance away, down the hill, a dirty yet peaceful river lined up with dusty barges. We gazed in wonder as the deluge crashed onto the peeling exteriors of the river homes, making patterns and circles in the murky water.
For a precious 20 minutes, Yitzi was silent. Moish had fallen asleep. I felt almost at peace. Almost, because since the twins’ birth two years ago, I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of feeling relaxed. Because of Yitzi, my beautiful, beloved, highly aggressive child.
When he was a baby, Yitzi consistently screamed in his stroller and lashed out at whoever tried to soothe him. Already then, I felt like an incompetent mother who couldn’t handle her child.
I wasn’t accustomed to being so entirely out of my depth. Having been blessed with a contented childhood and optimistic nature, I assumed that my mothering career would be similarly straightforward. I’d be proactive, and raise happy children, focus on personal growth, take chinuch classes, and work on my shalom bayis. And of course, I’d daven.
With Yitzi, I fell flat on my face and got bruised in the process.
Seven years on, time, experience, and learning have been my allies in this peculiar game, and moment to moment, battle by battle, the show goes on.
As it happens, Yitzi is thankfully a gorgeous child with deep-blue eyes, golden hair, and a brilliant mind that excels at learning.
If he’d been someone else’s kid, I’d probably contemptuously dismiss him as a write-off. Bad tempered! Bad middos! Poorly raised. But I was there from the start and know that Yitzi is a lonely, frustrated little boy who is navigating a complicated world he can’t make sense of, and his many innate sensitivities and idiosyncrasies make it hard for him to access relief.
Today, the term Asperger’s is thrown around quite liberally for people whose behavior is somewhat off the section of “normal.” But labels feel generic. Yitzi’s a whole person and not a flavor of jelly, and he didn’t ask to be created this way. Unfortunately for him, his impulsivity, lack of emotional regulation, and poor social skills make it hard for him to remain contained when triggered.
Of course, this doesn’t mean I leave him to grow up naturally like a vilde chaye.
Intervention is my middle name, and I promise you, I’ve tried everything. Homeopathies, vitamins, massage, essential oils. Speech and language therapy, social groups, occupational therapy, visual timelines, and programs for behavior control. He’s in a specialized program in school and receives weekly, targeted therapy sessions in different areas.
At home, I’ve begun yet another new behavioral program, but it’s in the early stages. B’chasdei Hashem, despite the daily challenges, we’ve seen some good progress, though it’s laborious and long and feels more overwhelming than celebratory.
Yitzi is a project, and while you might see a kid with glazed eyes wildly kicking his mother on the sidewalk and hurling his backpack into the street, know that you’re viewing a tiny snapshot of a huge picture and that you don’t know anything about anything.
Know this about living with a neurodivergent child:
While there are some hugely cherished peaceful moments, and Yitzi can at times be truly endearing and cute, and even his quirks like his obsessive neatness and strong sense of rightness can be really charming; most of the time, I’m walking on eggshells, my eyes and mind hypervigilant about which seemingly innocent item will turn into the next projectile to hit a person or damage my house.
A typical morning will start like this: violent kicks on my bedroom door. A background medley of a host of sibling voices protesting about being attacked. Yitzi shrieking about a missing shoe, accompanied by the sound of the other shoe being hurled down two flights of steps, narrowly missing a rushing sister. While the missing shoe is quickly located, the pandemonium continues with continuous insults, physical aggression, and threats hurled in all directions.
For breakfast, Yitzi has his standard sandwich with avocado, and Heaven have mercy if the toast is in the wrong shade or sheds a sliver of its crust before appearing on his plate.
I’ve grown to pray for the tiny things in life: Please let the avocado be ripe and not have a hint of brown. Please Hashem, let no one sneeze this morning or smell a bit off or sniff or blow their nose (you don’t want to know what happens). Please make Yitzi okay with wearing his clothes today and get to cheder on time, with his regular mode of transportation, and without too much tension.
Sometimes I scream, too, but often I survive the second by deep breathing, murmuring reassuring maxims like ein od milvado and remembering my parenting tools.
And I’m so endlessly grateful for little things. Thank You, Hashem, that Yitzi didn’t spit into everyone’s breakfast plates. Thank You for the miracle that despite lagging behind and being deliberately slow, he somehow made it out on time. Thank You that I have survived another tense morning without screaming and somehow still managed to half-smile as he raced out the door at the last second.
In my moment-to-moment life, I wish for simple things: a home where toys are played with and not hurled at people; where people are passed by and not shoved (especially when they’re carrying a bowl of hot soup); where I can walk down the stairs without fear of being pushed.
When I get to pause for a breather, I can touch the collective damage on my walls, on my cabinets, in my heart.
But know this, too.
Through this journey, I’ve slowly morphed into a person I didn’t know I could be.
I’ve had to fight victimhood, weariness, and the rut of behaving like prey. I have had to fight to operate like the strong, resilient mother Hashem wants me to be. And I’ve had to battle frustration, exasperation, and fatigue to fight from the depths of my heart and soul to be my son’s greatest advocate, even when he beats me up and mocks my best efforts.
Perhaps more importantly, I’ve been forced to confront and reset my own attitudes and values, be vulnerable, but also more open and humble.
Did you have an elderly Great-Aunt Gretta from the Deutschland (or Oberland)? Mine would frown and sigh deeply as a child with sticky hands ran past her without a greeting, clutching a bag trailing with cookie crumbs and yelling to boot. Great-Aunt Gretta used to live in my mind, and I would internally shake my head at people’s behavior. Judgy. But I have grown now and no longer quake from that damaging inner critic, daring to talk back. I have a regular refrain with which I quiet my mind as I stroll down crowded streets: No comments. Other people’s choices are none of your business and if you have nothing nice to say, smile and keep quiet.
Last week, I was on a crowded city bus when a woman got on with her clearly autistic son. He was completely dysregulated and jerkily groped every person he passed in the aisle, including me. It got worse. The stuffiness and crowds must have really triggered him because he became seriously violent and his hysterical screams filled the airspace.
In the ensuing panic, I could hear the mother’s desperate, ineffective efforts to calm and control him, but her cries were almost drowned out by the loud, heavily accented criticism of a version of dear old Gretta seated near me. “She should not bring him on a bus.”
“She should not be out by herself.” “He needs to take medication.” “He needs to be in an institution.”
I got off the bus. When I looked back, I saw it had stopped. The mother alighted (was evicted?), dragging her son.
I watched her pull him into a small alley. He was still lashing out, trying to pull her hair and slap her face. There was a row of hedges in their little hideout and I saw her push him into the branches and leaves.
I couldn’t breathe. I felt clammy and sweaty and felt the pain of both of them so acutely. Oh, how I know that agonizing sensation of desperation, that half-crazed response to harassment, of one’s innate fight-and-flight mechanism being activated against one’s own child. The internal torment, the overwhelming guilt as a mother unleashed on her overgrown baby more force than she possibly had to.
This isn’t a journey for the fainthearted. But like the effect of exercise on my muscles, these trials have made me stronger. Through it all, I try to remember the wise advice from Rabbi Shimon Russell: “Parenting isn’t judged by the child’s behavior, but by the behavior of the parents.” And it’s tzaar gidul banim, the challenges we experience via our kids that fuels our personal growth.
Don’t…
assume anything about anyone, but assume something about everyone: People don’t generally show their struggles on their sleeves, but nobody strolls through life scot-free. I wish we could all smile more, ask less, and cut one another more slack. Trust that people are trying their best and respect their goodness and need for space.
Know that…
If you’re an adult who feels like a grown-up version of Yitzi, know that there’s a huge amount of support readily available. Powerful therapeutic tracks like DBT or professionals like Rifka Schonfeld run amazing programs that can enable and empower real progress and change.
