SILVER SPRING, Md., July 25, 2011—I do a lot of thinking about what having an autistic brother means to my other two sons. For the most part, now that they are all between the ages of 6 and 9, they are siblings just like any others—sometimes they are best friends and sometimes they act like they want to kill each other. Yet, I know that the coming years will bring extra challenges to their relationship.
A couple of years ago, I visited my home town. While telling some of my old high school friends about Jack, my son with autism, one of them said, "You know I have a brother with autism, right?" I thought about it and I remembered him. I hadn't ever interacted with him much, but he was definitely different than the rest of us. I'd never known he was autistic, but after she said that, it made complete sense.
I asked her how it was to grow up with an autistic brother. I think I was hoping that she would tell me that he had brought extra meaning to her life, that he had taught her to appreciate differences or that she had learned something important from him.
She thought about it for a minute and then she told me that it was hard. That sometimes it was embarrassing.
It was tough to hear that, but it was honest.
That said, I had a five-minute conversation with her about her brother. Naturally, she couldn't tell me the complexities of her sibling relationship in that amount of time. It is possible that what I hoped she'd say and what she actually said were both true. I don't know.
Brothers at play
At 8 years old, Jack is still young enough that his differences haven't yet been embarrassing to his brothers. He and his brothers get along well. Jack's older brother has intuitively learned to engage him and can sometimes get him to do things that even I can't. Jack's younger brother looks up to him and the two of them play together beautifully, something I attribute at least partly to their closer developmental age. Already, all three of my sons are each others' best teachers.
Yet, even with their compatibility, his brothers have begun to notice Jack's differences. His younger brother, who has sensory issues, doesn't like Jack's vocal stims—humming, sound effects and the like. His older brother has started to notice and object to the less demanding household chores and expectations that Jack is held to. Certainly neither of them enjoy being dragged along to therapy appointment after therapy appointment.
But this is the easy part. In a few years, my kids' peers will be looking for differences to tease and vulnerabilities to bully. Sticking out because your brother hums all the time or has meltdowns or needs an aide at school isn't cool. Some kids can turn these challenges into leadership opportunities, but not everyone can—or wants to.
How do I teach my more typical kids to stand up to the norm without making them resent Jack for it? There is a fine line in there somewhere and I am not sure where it is.
I have found some wonderful resources online concerning sibling relationships. Jess at Diary of a Mom has eloquently and thoughtfully explored the relationship between her autistic daughter and her typical daughter on her popular autism blog. Special Needs Sibling Saturdays is a blog series devoted to exploring relationships between siblings in all kinds of special needs families, with different authors posting each week. I've written about it before myself.
Yet, none of these writers or I have the answers. We are all struggling. Balancing the needs of our typical children with our special needs children (or the needs of multiple special needs siblings) is hard. When you have two or more children whose needs are opposed to each other and both of them hold your whole heart, how do you decide whose need is greater at any one time?
Brothers, best friends and support system
Even if my sons manage to make it through the trenches of the school years relatively unscathed, there are lifelong ramifications of having a brother with autism. I have the greatest of hope that Jack will grow up to be independent and be able to live the life he wants. But I also know that no matter what, he will need a support system. Whether that support be physical caretaking, emotional buttressing or practical advice as to how typical people see things, he will need help.
My typical kids have given Jack many gifts. They have given him the same gifts that any brothers give: friendship, love and round-the-clock playmates. They have also provided benefits specific to his autism: They are role models for how to navigate a typical world, they break the ice with other children, they pave the way at school.
However, I also hope that Jack gives them some of the same gifts that parenting him has given to me. parenting Jack has given me gifts of compassion, understanding and acceptance of all kinds of people. His presence in my life has given me entry to the amazing world of special needs and disabled people. Much as being a parent in general opened my eyes to the magic of watching my children grow into their own beings, being an autism mom has helped me discover a whole world I never really saw before.
I hope that even if it doesn't happen soon, that someday Jack's brothers will figure out the same thing. I hope that they will realize how special and lucky they are to have grown up around people of all kinds, who each have their own valuable perspective to offer.
It's a tricky proposition, trying to teach kids that living a harder life can present them with a richer existence, especially when they're still at an age when having to do things the hard way seems so unfair and without purpose.
My entire goal with my sons is to help them form a strong, lifelong bond that will evolve through all their stages of life. I hope that one day, if someone asks my sons what is was like to grow up with an autistic brother, that they will be able to be honest. They may say that it was hard, but hopefully they will also have stories of the joy that Jack has brought to them.
Jean writes a personal blog at Stimeyland and an autism-events website for Montgomery County, Maryland, at AutMont. You can find her on Twitter as @Stimey. Read more of Jean's work at Autism Unexpected in the Communities at the Washington Times.
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