DADWAGON

Because it’s a slow day and we’re already edging toward late afternoon, I thought I’d present you a somewhat amusing post from TheHairpin.com, which (full disclosure) is run by my officemate. In this soul-searing dispatch, Carrie Hill Wilner (married, with a child) describes marriage and parenting advice she’s received from guys trying to pick her up in bars. Example:

This one guy at a houseparty thinks you should probably work, because his sister left her job and she just totally let herself go and it’s not like she could afford to. But, counterpoint! This other guy at the houseparty thinks it was really key that his mom stayed home and now he’s strong and secure and wouldn’t let any girl of his who had legs like yours out of his sight (see also, you married the wrong guy, supra). Good job, Mom!

And there you go. Clearly, Carrie’s big mistake was not turning first to Dadwagon, where you find all the answers to any parenting dilemma you might face. Next time, Carrie, you know where to turn.

Making JP comfortable with his new sister, Ellie, is sensitive enough without the addition of divorce as a factor, but such is the nature of my life, and I’m not complaining. I’m a happily divorced man, thank you very much. But it does mean that the process of helping JP adjust to a new sibling does not stay entirely within my control. His mother influences it, too, as is her right as JP’s mother.

In most ways, she has been terrific. She walked my (formerly “our”) dog while I was busy at the hospital with Tomoko and Ellie, and she drove JP into Manhattan, on one of her days, so that he could meet his new sister.

She does, however, seem to be inordinately worried about JP’s ability to live with a sister. Throughout Tomoko’s pregnancy, JP seemed, if anything, excited about what was coming. Mostly, though, he just didn’t get it. He didn’t really understand that a person resided in Tomoko’s belly, that this person would be important in his life, that she would live with him, take up half of his room, and eventually steal all of his toys. He’d nod at me as if he understood everything when I discussed it with him, but I was convinced he wasn’t taking it all in. But, and this is important, he didn’t seem upset about any of it.

The day before Ellie was born, though, JP’s mother contacted me to say that JP was “sad.” This surprised me, given the events of the past nine months, but I felt I had to take it seriously. JP could have changed his mind about his new sister when her arrival neared. When he came to the hospital to meet Ellie, I took him aside, told him how much I loved him, tried to explain that his sister was part of his life in a good way, and that while things might be different, they were going to be good. JP agreed, somewhat indifferently, and asked if we could go see the baby.

Since the baby has been home, JP has struck me as rather confused. He asked how long Ellie would be staying with us, wanted to know where she was going to sleep, and was generally curious to see her eat, sleep, cry, and have her diaper changed. He still doesn’t seem to have figured everything out, but again, I have yet to see him be unhappy about the new circumstances, except that I’ve scolding him a bit more about being too loud.

Which leads me back to JP’s mother. I’m not going to say that she made up JP’s sadness—I don’t believe she did. But I know  a child this age—or at least with my child—tends to reflect your attitudes back to you. I’ve tried to show JP that I feel positive but not wildly over-excited about his new sister, and I believe he has communicated that attitude back to me. Does that demonstrate his true feelings? I don’t really know. Frankly, I bet he doesn’t know what his true feelings are right now. But I feel like it’s my responsibility to model the behavior that I would like from him.

Yesterday JP’s mother called me to ask how JP was doing. I told her he was fine, upbeat about Ellie, but definitely still confused. She told me that before Ellie’s birth she had had a conversation with JP. She had said that a sister was a big event, and that it might bring out new feelings in him—good or bad—and that he should communicate those feelings. Nothing wrong with that in theory, but given the fact that JP likely parroted back to her what he thought she wanted, his sadness strikes me less as a genuine feeling (although I won’t discount it entirely) and more a subconscious bit of undermining on the part of my ex-wife.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying JP’s mother has done something wrong. But I do wish she would do things differently. Is it right for me to paper over JP’s potential discord about his sister? No. But I’d prefer to encourage him to be positive and wait to react to any disturbance if it exhibits itself. Encouraging him to be sad in the name of allowing him the freedom of his emotions just isn’t my style as a parent. I’d rather prepare for the good things and deal with the bad as they happen instead of the other way around.

Here at Dadwagon, we know all about exploiting our children for artistic and commercial gain. It’s how we became millionaires, of course—by accusing other parents of exploitation and then doing the same ourselves.

But every once in a while, I’m confronted by something where I can’t quite figure out how I feel. Case in point, the work of Timothy Archibald, a photographer whose portraits of his autistic son, Eli, were featured in the New York Times’s “Lens” blog last week. The pictures are, at the very least, haunting: Eli naked, curled up in a plastic container; Eli putting his face into a funnel; Eli with a pair of needlenose pliers in his mouth.

At first, I was ready to condemn this project (now available in book form as “Echolilia”) as pure, beautiful exploitation. The kind of thing I’d probably do, that is. But then, you know, I read the accompanying story, which is where things got murkier. Rather than being Mr. Archibald’s sole idea, many of the compositions were collaborations between father and son:

Sometimes Eli would have an idea for a more interesting pose or setting. Mostly that was Mr. Archibald’s job. He might suggest that they try the shot again at a different time of day or in a place with different light. The collaboration “satisfied something deep inside both of us,” Mr. Archibald said. “We shared — I don’t know what — mutual respect?’’

It makes sense to me. With certain avenues of communication closed off by autism, you take advantage of what remains open, even if outsiders (like a few of the NYT commenters) don’t quite understand. Still, there’s something unsettling about it—possibly because the photos themselves depict a world straddling the line between suburban familiarity and alien isolation. So, I haven’t made up my mind yet.

And that’s partially because, by some strange confluence of circumstances, last week I wound up reading multiple articles about autism. There was another piece in the Times, about how early diagnosis of autism can help mitigate the worst of its symptoms (is that the right word?). That was fine, but straightforward.

My favorite story, though, was the tale (in the Atlantic) of Donald Gray Triplett, a 77-year-old Mississippi man who was the first person ever diagnosed with autism. His life has been kind of amazing. From a childhood spent partly in institutions and partly in the loving care of his family and his community, he’s grown into a fairly independent adult—really, an independent senior citizen—who spends his days not just golfing but traveling the world:

He has been to Germany, Tunisia, Hungary, Dubai, Spain, Portugal, France, Bulgaria, and Colombia—some 36 foreign countries and 28 U.S. states in all, including Egypt three times, Istanbul five times, and Hawaii 17. He’s notched one African safari, several cruises, and innumerable PGA tournaments.

It’s not wanderlust exactly. Most times, he sets six days as his maximum time away, and maintains no contact afterward with people he meets along the way. He makes it a mission to get his own snapshots of places he’s already seen in pictures, and assembles them into albums when he gets home. Then he gets to work planning his next foray, calling the airlines himself for domestic travel, and relying on a travel agent in Jackson when he’s going overseas. He is, in all likelihood, the best-traveled man in Forest, Mississippi.

For certain obvious reasons, his story appeals to me. I’m always fascinated by what drives people to walk out their front doors and embark on ambitious expeditions. Beyond that one line—”It’s not wanderlust, exactly”—the story doesn’t really get into why Mr. Triplett travels. I imagine that it wasn’t an easy question for the writers to ask, or for Mr. Triplett to answer. But it should remind us all of two things: 1. that the “veil of autism,” as it’s often described, can hide a rich and evolving interior life; and 2. that we never really know how our children, autistic or not, will turn out.

Finally, if you’ve got 15 minutes to waste, there’s an Austistic Spectrum Quotient Test floating around on Facebook. It’s worth checking out just to know what the questions are, although I think there’s some debate about how accurate it is. For what it’s worth, I scored a 10.

This “Week on the Wagon” feature—WoTW, as it’s known at Dadwagon HQ—is usually a joke about how momentous the past five days of bloggery have been. A laugh here, an aggrandizement there, dashes of sarcasm, some salty language. But mostly it’s a mask, a kind of internal linkbait that serves to redirect you, our lazy readers, back to stories you may have missed.

But this week was, well, pretty action-packed, beginning with the celebration of one year of being in business (really, “in business”—there’s no business to speak of here), continuing on to Christopher’s departure (he will be missed!), and ending with the news that Theodore and his baby-mama, Tomoko, have brought a new child into the Dadwagon universe (into the regular universe, too, but we only care about the former). Not bad, eh?

And to think, at the same time we debated the merits of moving to the suburbs, we ranted (about politics) and raved (about SEO) and ranted some more (about fear-mongering iPhone apps), and we even found a few minutes to appreciate art with our kids. We really are something!

On top of that, we had the fine assistance of guest-blogger Todd Pruzan, whose deftly written and indelible portrait of suburban life in Maplewood, N.J., will surely disintegrate once his friends and neighbors (not to mention his local housing association) realize he’s been writing for a “filth raunch blog” all week. Thank you, Todd, and please accept our apologies.