When I started telling people that my son has special needs, I often heard about how he could be a child prodigy! Perhaps he’d become a famous musician! A scientist! A mathematician!
No pressure.
The reality is that this is the exception rather than the rule. Most children with special needs will grow up to be adults with special needs. Average.
Just like, well, you.
So where is this idea coming from?
Well, there is Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory. He is an incredibly high achieving scientist. The Good Doctor. He has autism and is a savant surgeon! Einstein was said to have had special needs. If I hear again that my son will become verbal, because, well, look at Einstein, he didn’t talk until he was at least four, I may implode. Beethoven! He lost his hearing at 26 years old and is one of the greatest composers in history. Oh, wait, Marla Runyon! She is an Olympic Gold Medalist in running who is blind. Frida Kahlo, an incredible painter from Mexico, had polio at 6 years old, leaving one leg weaker than the other. Then she broke her back and spent the rest of her life in a cast but still painted! Does your child have this issue? They could be a painting prodigy!
Never mind that aside from these famous folks, there are millions of people in history who had special needs and led wonderful lives. “Average” lives.
When I hear these people chime in with these ideas, time and time again, it says very little about my son, who has special needs, but says a lot to me about them. I think that they are uncomfortable. I think that they need to comfort me in what they perceive as my loss, by telling me the possible upside. It makes me think that their experiences with folks with special needs are limited. That my son having special needs makes them uncomfortable.
There is a saying that I have heard repeatedly. It is that when you know one person with special needs, you know one person with special needs. It is a world that is so individualized that two people could have the exact same diagnosis and it could present itself so radically differently that you would never know it. I cannot base my son’s worth in life on what other folks with special needs have achieved. That would be like saying that I should have been a world-renowned gymnast like Nadia Comaneci because, look, we both have two arms and two legs!
I am not discounting my son. Far from it. He is a world of possibility. He has already displayed a wicked sense of humor. And, at the age of 6, I have realized that one of his amazing talents is that he is a spreader of joy. He makes people smile everywhere he goes. If he achieved nothing else in life, this would be an incredible contribution to the world. But I know that he will achieve more.
We need no comfort. My son, as he is, is enough.