Hi Pod! I’m Dad is where I talk through fatherhood while raising a son with autism who does not speak.
I’m James Guttman, the dad behind Hi Blog! I’m Dad. This podcast isn’t about tips or solutions. It is about what life actually feels like when autism is part of your home every day, and you are trying to be present for it without pretending it is easier than it is.
Some episodes are about joy and connection. Others are about exhaustion, fear, patience, and the quiet moments that never make it into awareness campaigns. Everything you hear here comes from real mornings, real mistakes, and a deep love for my kids.
There is no takeaway. Just one dad saying the things he usually keeps to himself.
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When my son Lucas was first diagnosed with autism, I worried that I'd spend the rest of my life defending him from strangers. Every trip to a restaurant, store, or public place felt like an opportunity for someone to stare, make a comment, or cross a line.
But something unexpected happened. The confrontations I anticipated never came. Instead, I encountered strangers who showed kindness, understanding, and sometimes even generosity.
This week on Hi Pod, I'm Dad, I talk about how my attitude toward other people's opinions has changed, including a memorable encounter with an older man at a swimming pool that completely surprised me.
I also explore a bigger lesson about parenting both my nonverbal son and my neurotypical daughter. Why do we place so much importance on milestones, achievements, and expectations? What happens when we stop measuring our children's worth by what they accomplish and simply love them for who they are?
From autism awareness and public judgment to college, personal happiness, and unconditional love, this episode is about learning when to push, when to let go, and why being a good parent doesn't mean controlling how the world sees your children.
Sometimes the things we spend years worrying about turn out to be the things we never needed to worry about at all.
It's the journey made with Pod. HiPod I'm Dad. Hi Pod, it's James Gutman. It is Friday. It is HiPod I'm Dad.com. It is right in the middle of October. Thank you for finding me once again anywhere, streaming service, blah, blah, blah. We're in every single one. Um, and it's always good to get on here, get to talk to you guys. And my favorite part about doing these podcasts on Friday is that I've had a whole week to think back on the blog post that I wrote on Monday, which was for this week, a blog post called I Used to Watch Everyone Watching My Son. And this is a topic I've talked about before, I've uh I've addressed before. The idea that when Lucas was little, my concern was going to be that I had to fight everyone. Literally, fight everyone. I, I mean, I'm from New York, I'm from Long Island. I grew up in a neighborhood where I don't know, you talked trash, you got hit, so to speak. So you have to watch your mouth. And if people offended you, it's up to you. You got to defend yourself. Maybe it's barbaric, maybe it's archaic,
whatever it is now. At the time, it was a reality, and that's kind of where I came from. Uh, we have crazy stories where I tell people and they're like, Where did you grow up? A root? And I'm like, it wasn't that bad. Maybe it was just the circle that I was around. But I am big on respect. I've always felt that way. And I've talked on here too, the fact that I go out of my way to be pleasant to people. You know, I say thank you. Um, I call people sir and ma'am. I just do it if I don't know you. If I work, uh if I go somewhere where someone's working and I have them help me. I went to the DMV the other day, and you know, guy helped me out and said, Thank you, sir, and then I left. So I look at it like I am polite and pleasant over the top, almost to a fault. So if you're rude back to me, I know for a fact it's it's on you. You did this. And then we kind of go from there. And I've had, and pretty recently, too, there's a few months ago, I was unloaded on somebody. Um story, but at the end of the day, I'm thinking about it now. I'm like, oh, that was pretty crazy. But to me, it's about respect. You have to respect people. Now, for myself, right? Like if somebody disrespects me, I will get offended by it. But traditionally, and I think a lot of people on here, we place our children above ourselves, right? And you hear people say it all the time. If somebody messes with my kids, I'll kill them and there's memes, and I'm a mama bear and I'll eat you, and all the things that people threaten to do. But that's in our head. We know it. We know that this is true. So if somebody, you know, does something to my kids, I'm gonna freak out, you know. Anytime my daughter tells me she's having a bad day, I go, what's the matter? Uh, people are being annoying. I go, Do I have to beat beat up anybody? She's like, No, you don't have to beat up anybody. This
is a constant question. So it's a real concern. If somebody says something about my kids, I'm gonna freak out. And then here comes this boy that I love this kid with all my heart, but I know that he is vulnerable. I know that he is um, I know that he is noticeable. People will see him if we're out. They'll hear him, they'll watch him. I knew that there was no way around the fact that if I bring him out and he gets excited and he jumps around and claps, people are gonna look at him, right? And I was worried about that a lot because it took one person to say something. And I'm like, I'm gonna go to jail, and that's it. And I've almost like justified, I think I've said this on here before too. Like one of the things that I determined a long time ago was um, you know, we have to be adults, right? We have to be grown-ups and we have to handle ourselves and be controlled. So if I go to McDonald's and you don't give me enough french fries, I'm not gonna lose my mind over it because I go to jail, it looks silly. And then when I go to jail, people are like, What'd you go to jail for? I'd be like, Well, I was yelling at the uh the lady at McDonald's, and then people want to fight you in jail. It's a whole thing. But if you disrespect my family, if you disrespect somebody that I'm with, somebody that needs my protection, and I then protect them, and then I go to jail, people in jail will be like, What are you in jail for? I'd be like, someone made fun of my special needs son. They'll be like, You're the king of jail. And that's it. And you get all the, you know, I don't smoke cigarettes, but I'll get cigarettes. I get cigarettes and, you know, pizza, whatever they they give you in jail. That said, I mean, you guys know I say these things, and don't get me wrong, there's definitely truth to it in the back of my head. But I mean, we we make light of these things, but that was a concern was that I was gonna have to fight people in the street for mocking my son. And to this day I still would. Like if somebody mocked him or was blatantly rude or touched him, I can't even imagine. Luckily, that never happened. And I mean that. It never has happened. And look, I know I'm I'm lucky, I'm special. I know there's other people out there who have horror stories about this happening. It's never happened with me. I've never had a negative comment about Lucas. And I don't know if it is autism awareness having this big jump since he was a baby. I don't know if it comes down to um just where we live, the fact that I'm a dad with this kid. I've always kind of put it more towards the fact that people see me with Lucas. And even when he's having a meltdown, which is rare, or he's having some sort of like episode, they see that I'm handling it, right? If he gets upset and he sits on the floor,
I sit with my son and I'll rub his back and I'll be like, it's okay, buddy. Shh, we do a lot of that. And nobody has ever approached me during those times. They walk around us, they'll look over. One time, two years ago, I was on a vacation. People paid for our meal because they saw me with him. Um, it's been positive. I had a dad, uh, I call him a dad, it's an old man, at the pool. And I wrote about this one time. It was called A Stranger Tapped Me on My Shoulder while my son was melting down. And Lucas is crying, he didn't want to get out of the pool. And I'm literally trying to like pull him out. I'm sitting with him and I'm hugging him. It's okay, buddy. And we get out, and I'm stopping wet, and I'm miserable, and this old man tapped me on the shoulder, and I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna have to fight an old man at the pool. And um, and he told me I was a wonderful dad. And I was like, oh my god. And it made me realize the world, the world seems really, really crappy sometimes, right? If you go online, you read the comments and the trolls, and I get trolls, man. I get them not all the time. I mean, I would say like 1% of comments are troll comments. And what's even crazier is that those comments are all the same, almost like it comes from some sort of a farm, perhaps. I don't know. I don't know who's real and who's not. But even if the person is real online, you'll get like a negative comment, something mocking, something making fun. You can't do anything about that, right? Those people do it, they're nameless and somewhere else in the world. So you delete it and you move on. But you deal with it and you get them now and then. But by and large, people are kind and people are understanding. Um, they might be ill-informed, they might be ignorant, they might ask a question that I mean, it it might offend you viscerally somewhere, where you're like, wait, what? And I've had people, you know, not understand my son. I've had people not understand me, right? Even in my writing, I will not pretend about my son ever. He is who he is. So I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like he understands something he doesn't. I'm not gonna put these uh hopes like on him. I won't turn around and pretend that he understands something he doesn't or that he's doing something he's not. Lucas is Lucas. I don't have to pretend with him. I love him for who he is. I don't love him for what he can do, I don't love him for what his milestones are. I love him for who he is as a human being. And he doesn't have to do anything. And by the same token, my daughter, who is neurotypical, she is a genius off in her
freshman year of college, has to do nothing for me to really love my daughter. And I'm gonna tell you something that I told her, and I've had parents push back on me with this, but um, this is who I am. She was freaking out before she applied to these colleges. She applied to like 20 colleges, she got into pretty much all of them. Um, she's an overachiever, very smart, uh, very dedicated and devoted to what she does on a level that um I admire. I thought I was. And then I see her and I'm like, this kid has got it down pat. She's organized, she knows her stuff. It is amazing. But I said to her, I said, listen, Olivia, I want you to be happy, right? I want you to find where you're meant to be because I'm a believer, I'm a writer, right? So I'm already like this hippie type of thing. People here on my writer, they're like, You're a writer? But what is a real job? I get that all the time. What are you really? I'm a writer. That's what I do. Um, and it led to some crow, even before I was doing the internet stuff, I remember, you know, oh, you're a writer, so I guess you're not working. I'm like, I write for a magazine. Like people don't, they don't think that you can do these, you know, dream things on a level where you are successful. So I believe that if you chase what you think you want to do, if you chase your passion, you will make money doing your passion. I would rather be the most successful, you know, juggler in the world than like the least successful insurance salesman in the office, right? There's a big difference. So I told my daughter that. I said, listen, I want you to be everything you can be. But if you told me tomorrow, Dad, I don't, I can't do this. I'm not gonna do college. I want to join the circus. I'm like, I will try to talk you out of it. I will, you know, make you, you know, talk to me about what the benefits are, why you want to do it. But if your heart is set to it and you're really gonna do it and that's your passion and you refuse anything else, I'm like, I will be in the front row of every circus performance for you. I will be the biggest fan. I will have you know merchandise and I'll join all the fan clubs or whatever. I love you for you. You don't have to be a lawyer or a doctor or anything for me to love you. Same thing with my son. And I told somebody that once, and I'm like, oh, not me. My kid's gonna go to school. I'm like, well, what if your kid was like, you know, mom, I really, really want to, you know, do this. And well, I don't care. I don't care. I'm like, all right, well, that's that's how you get a kid that resents you. I don't want her to resent me. Um, but that's not even why I'm doing it. I'm just doing it because I believe that. I believe that you should uh encourage people to follow their heart and eventually, you know, if that's really what they're meant to do, it plays out, right? Same thing with Lucas. Lucas is who Lucas is. And I decided a long time ago, I realized that my job is not to make him become anything. My job is to make sure that he reaches his full potential. Whatever he's able to accomplish, I want him to accomplish. If he can say one word, and it takes me 50 years to get him to say that one word, he's gonna say one word. Do you know what I mean? Like, so I will push and I will push and I will push to make him the best that he's capable of being, but he doesn't have to reach any milestone. If he doesn't learn one more thing from today until the day I die, all good. That doesn't mean that I didn't do it or I didn't try. I will try every single day, but I want him to be him. And that's all that matters, right?
So again, getting back to the main point, I used to go out and I would watch these people when we would be out. Go to a restaurant, you look around, who's looking at my kid? What are you doing? I wrote a blog once about the uh a kid that I thought was laughing at him years ago. It's called uh the boy in my son's window. And as it turned out, in the end, the kid had special needs just like Lucas, nonverbal autism. I don't know if he's non-verbal, but uh, he had the exact same iPad and he was looking through the window and laughing because it was his iPad. And I was like, oh my God. So I rarely look at people outside of our group. I mean, this was like 10 years ago. And I don't know if the world doesn't stare. I don't know if maybe everyone's become more accepting, or if I just don't notice it. But either way, I'm not here for other people. I don't care what they think. If you're the type of person who's gonna mock a kid with special needs, you you're garbage. Like who cares? You're garbage, right? Now, if I hear you, if he hears you, if you say it around us, if you act a certain way, and we're gonna have, you know, a different discussion. But if you want to just look from across the room, keep your mouth shut, and I don't notice it, do your thing, man. I'm not here for you. I'm here for him. Um, and that helped me feel settled. And I said this because I know that there are other people, and and everything I write, a lot of these things that I write are for a lot of parents who are in those opening stage moments of kind of accepting who their kid is and understanding who their kid is. And one of the biggest fears is this what am I gonna do when people stare at my kid? What am I gonna do if someone says anything? And my goal is to show people that I don't know, man. Sometimes we we identify these issues that we're positive are gonna happen, and then they don't. And it's good to find somebody a couple of years ahead of you who can tell you it's gonna be okay. Because I didn't have anybody to tell me that. Nobody told me it was gonna be okay. Everyone's like, well, you just wait, see what happens. He'll talk. He'll talk. That was always a thing. There was no wait and see, or if he doesn't talk, it's okay. It was always like, don't worry, he'll talk. And then when he didn't, I'm thinking like, all right, now do I worry? You know, it'll be fine, he'll talk. Okay, so now it's not fine because he didn't talk. It's fine. Even if your kid doesn't speak, even if your kid doesn't reach the milestones, you're gonna love your kid. And your kid's gonna love you. And I know this is true, and I've said this over and over again. Right now, anyone who's listening to this, the person in your life who has uh autism or a delay or any sort of disability is lucky to have you because you're listening right now to a podcast about how to be a better person for them. And bad parents, bad caregivers, bad grandparents don't do that. You know what they do? Nothing. Garbage. So bless you. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I can help in any way, and I'm glad that the things I write on hiblogomdad.com, up here with highpodomdad.com, I'm doing the segue
here. Uh, social media, hi James Gubman, H I James Gutman, Instagram, TikTok, blah, blah, blah. All the stuff that I write and I post and I put out there are um to help others and and kind of share a life with you. So thank you for taking the time to listen. Thank you for all you do for the people in your life. And thank you for giving me a chance to share this with you. It means a lot. Until next Friday, this is James Gutman saying, be well. Bye pot. I'm daddy.
