Speaker 1: 0:14

Hi Pod, I am Dad. He's not just Hi Dad, he's my dad. James Gutman. Folks, james Gutman, just hi dad, he's my dad, james gutman folks. Hi pot, I'm dad.

Speaker 1: 0:31

Welcome back to another edition of the podcast. It is may. Welcome to may. It is 2025. Thank you for finding me on any streaming service. We're there hypodomdadcom all the archives. It is fantastic, uh.

Speaker 1: 0:41

And it has been a week where, as always when I write in the blog on highbloghomdadcom Monday and Wednesday, I focus on my son and the idea of autism appreciation. Now, for those of you guys who are new, who haven't been here before, the whole idea, my whole reason for autism appreciation was I felt like it was the evolution from awareness to acceptance, which I always I always thought it was crazy that we get into these debates about. You know, april's autism awareness. Now it's autism acceptance, don't you say awareness? Everyone's fighting over the wording of it. Meanwhile, one of the people in my life who is most affected by autism doesn't use any words at all, and I can understand him great. Meanwhile, everybody else fighting for the same thing autism and just embracing people with autism are now fighting over which one's more important. Now, I've gone over this a lot and I always felt like autism awareness and acceptance and appreciation. They can be applied two ways. Well, actually two of them can be applied two different ways, right? So autism awareness for me as a dad, as somebody whose child had autism, involved me picking up what I was seeing, right, because a lot of times we talk ourselves out of things we don't want to say something out loud. And autism awareness for me was becoming aware my son is doing things that that could be autism, which, if you have a child with autism, if you've dealt with the situation, you know how terrifying that can be for young parents. Even think it you get mad at yourself Like why would I think that I don't think that I used to say all the time when he was little that I was worried about talking about him having autism, even after his diagnosis, because I always thought one day this kid is going to be talking and just neurotypical and he's going to turn to me and be like yo, why'd you tell everyone I had autism? I thought that until he was like five eyes sick, it was insane. So that's autism awareness being aware of the fact that your kid has autism.

Speaker 1: 2:26

For the public, autism awareness involves being aware that there are people with autism, right? So if my son is at a restaurant or if my son is somewhere with me in line and he's excited and he's happy and he claps or he shouts out something not to the point where it's disturbing everyone, but definitely something that would be out of place and noticeable you don't have people staring at you. And I've dealt with this. I you know, sometimes you still deal with it. I dealt with it the other day.

Speaker 1: 2:50

We were at a restaurant and we got up and he clapped and he's jumping and I see this guy and he's literally four feet away from us and he's kind of like looking, and so I give them kind of a leeway, right. Like you look a little bit like look over, I don't mind if you look real quick, because I don't know, there's been times where I'll wake up in the middle of the night. He's yelling in his room. I forget that that's just part of my life and I freak out. I'm like who's yelling? Oh my god, lucas is yelling. So the guy looked for a bit and then I just turned, I just kind of stared him in the face until he looked away and this story sounds so much better than it really was. If you realize that he was like four feet away from us, he's right there and I'm just like, hey, you know thing in my brain, where are you going? Psycho boy. But that was the first time that had happened in years of anybody looking right. And the reason why is because people are aware of autism. 2011 versus now you know, when he was a baby versus now, it's completely different. So people get it. There's a lot, you know, more people noticing. So, at the end of the day, autism awareness was important. It's important for families like mine. It's important for people like Lucas. It's important for people with autism who are not looking to work in the community, maybe just yet, and he's one of those people. Okay, autism acceptance right Now.

Speaker 1: 4:03

You think to yourself well, you were aware of it, you accepted it right, kind of sorta. I didn't. I had him tested for his hearing and I went through all these different things to try to find out. What else could it be besides autism? I waited for him to catch up. A part of me kept thinking everybody else is like stupid and he and I are going to be the two that, when we just break through it, right, like I, would sit with him at night and go over and try to teach him words and try to teach him how to speak and do different things. And I kept thinking I'm going to walk out with this kid and he's going to be like hello everyone. And everyone's going to be like, oh my God, confetti is going to be in many ways because he has autism. But back then I was terrified, but I was going to show the world. So no, I hadn't accepted autism yet, although I was aware of it.

Speaker 1: 5:00

For the public, accepting autism is different than being aware of it. You can be aware that somebody has autism but not want them to work at your store because they require all these different things and you don't know how it's going to happen. Autism acceptance is kind of like yeah, accept it, you're part of the community, do your thing. I'm not going to. You know, it's a lot of doom saying right. It's a lot of doom saying right With people who don't know something, and I've noticed this from writing that HuffPo article. I've noticed from dealing with different people. The less some people know about something, the more they make up in their head and the worse it is. And autism is a big part of it. So a lot of these things that may keep somebody from getting employment or being accepted into a group is because of assumptions that are made about who they might be. Autism acceptance that's what it is Now. For me, all that's great. I did it. I did autism awareness, aware of it. Autism acceptance I accepted it.

Speaker 1: 5:51

But once I did what was left to do, I was living with my kid. We were like hanging out. He's my son. I have a daughter, a neurotypical daughter. I treat him the same way. It was kind of like we watch TV together and we sit around together and he's a part of my life. But obviously it's different, right? It's different than it would be if he had words, if he was neurotypical and a lot of his personality is unique because he has autism and I like his personality. Don't get me wrong, he's definitely got. You know, he's a kid, right. So he does kid things. So don't get me wrong. For example and this is funny because I was thinking about this today and I was going to talk about it and then I got the perfect example to talk to you guys about it A lot of people have the misconception that for me, autism appreciation means that everything he does is just like wonderfully great.

Speaker 1: 6:36

He doesn't do anything bad. He's just a loving, happy kid who does only good stuff. Now, he's happy, he's loving. He doesn't always do good stuff. There's definitely times where he does naughty things, he does kid things, he does, you know, mischievous things right. But what makes me still, even during those times, appreciate the fact that he has autism is how he goes about doing them.

Speaker 1: 7:01

For example, an hour ago we were in the kitchen me, him and his sister and we were eating. I was eating a bagel, she was eating a bagel. He had eaten a quesadilla, because that's all he ever wants is for me to make quesadillas. It's a big work, I think he just wants me to make him quesadillas forever. So I made him a quesadilla. He then went go play. She went up to her room and I finally sat down with this bagel and he came back up immediately.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Now he wanted pirate booty, loves pirate booty. So I go to get him pirate booty and as I do it, I look over my shoulder and he's holding half of my bagel and he's just shoving it into his mouth, staring at me as he does, and I look at him and he's just continuing to try to get it in there, like, and there's no alarm on his face. He knows he's not supposed to do it. And there's no alarm, there's no sense of like well, it's kind of like, well, I'm just going to do this and we'll just deal with whatever. And I'm like, hey, no. And then he gets upset and cries and it's cute and sad, and then you feel bad, but then you, I'm going to do no, like 20 times. What do we do? We don't eat people's food. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1: 8:07

And then I made him wait to get his pirate booty while I made coffee. It was a whole thing. And that's how kind of how we deal with those situations. But, dude right in my face, how refreshing is that? Honestly, honestly, before you think, oh, my God, in front of you, there's no, I never have to. Who did this? Who did? It's him, he'll do it, you know when he does it.

Speaker 1: 8:31

And there's something about that purity and that kind of that honesty that he has and who he is and what he does and how he goes about things that you know. I say I envy, and I do envy it, but I wish, I wish everybody was like him. I wish everybody had that same approach to life that Lucas does because of autism, and that's why I appreciate his autism. Whether he's doing bad things without covering them up, whether he's showing you the joy on his face like unfiltered over anything, that makes him happy, it really is a beautiful way to go about life and when you have people there who love you like he does, it's. There's nothing sad about his life having autism and that's what I said I wasn't gonna do. But that's the whole thing.

Speaker 1: 9:14

When I talk about cure and looking for a cure and things like that, the thing I don't like about talking about looking for a cure is because what if there ever is a cure? Right, there's probably isn't a cure. This is the way he looks at the world. I don't think there is a cure. I don't think it's possible, based on how it affects my son's personality, but even the idea of it. Like I don't want him different. This is who he is. I'm cool with it.

Speaker 1: 9:33

Is it a lot of work? Yeah. Am I going to have to worry about adult care for him? Yeah. Am I having concerns now about things as he gets older? Yes, lots of things. Man, I'm still helping him get ready for school and he's got a little mustache growing and life is what it is for us.

Speaker 1: 9:49

But I wouldn't change him for anything. He's sweet and he's kind and I don't know the purpose that he serves is. It goes beyond the stupid stuff that we worry about. He doesn't write things, he doesn't build things and he doesn't paint houses or fix plumbing or do dry cleaning. He doesn't do stuff like that. He serves a purpose that no one else serves, at least for my life, of just bringing this example of what we can all be right to everyone else. You just see it. I don't know, it's a beautiful thing, but that, see, and all that right, and all that. That's autism appreciation. And here's what's crazy, right, the way I experience autism appreciation is the exact same way I want the outside to experience autism appreciation, unlike awareness, unlike acceptance, where you could be like for the public it's like this and for the family it's like this. Autism appreciation, the same for everybody we all appreciate. The only difference is just like autism, awareness and acceptance.

Speaker 1: 10:47

It's up to me, as his dad, to tell these things to people, to write these blogs, to share these stories, to tell you a side of raising my son that you know, not every story is happy. Not every story is some joyous thing. I have stories on the blog about him, you know, wrecking his room or refusing to move off the playground, but they all showcase his personality, and his personality is that's the beauty To me, that's the beauty and that's what I love about my son. So this week I wrote two different ones.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Same kind of thing on Monday, why I needed my nonverbal son as much as he needed me. It's the idea that you know why would God give me a nonverbal son? It's like because I needed him. And why did I need him? Because of everything I just told you. And then the next one was if you don't know my son, you don't know crystals, or you know anti-vaxxers, or you know some of the respondents to a piece that I wrote recently, and you're delusional, you're dangerous. I'm like I love my son and I'm dangerous. So that's a t-shirt, ain't it? But yeah, so I wrote that on Wednesday, monday, wednesday, highblogomdadcom. We got all this stuff there. And again, guys, I'm going to talk more about it as we get closer to it. We're about a little over a month away from High World.

Speaker 1: 11:59

I'm dad. How fathers can journey from autism, awareness to acceptance, to appreciation. Hey, that was the theme of the show that comes out June 19th. It'll be in stores, it's on Amazon right now for pre-order and there's tons of crazy stuff on the way about this book. I promise you, give me, I'll tell you what. Give me three weeks. Within the next three weeks, I have major news. I'll tell you guys all about it, and that does it for me. Follow me on social media, hi, james Gutman. H-i James Gutman. Be back here next Friday, any streaming service. Thank you, hi, blog. I'm dadcom. So much stuff Until then, james Gutman, be well, bye pod, we'll see you next time.