Ouch, got me right on the nerve

The MomLogic website is not one I tend to waste a whole lot of time on. I find their “reporting” to be more like the nastier version of gossip, with loving attention slathered over people who are, you know, “just sayin’ it like it is”…a phrase which here means, “flinging soupy dung all over other people.”

I’m also not all that passionate about which movie star is having babies with what other movie star. I have enough trouble keeping track of my friends and family on that front, I hardly need to add keeping up with some ditzy bleached-blonde debutante’s sins to my day.

But someone pointed out a link to me today, and I followed the link, and man. Ouch.

Nothing but fast food and child harnesses for the Octomom's kids! features a snark about one of her children wearing a safety harness, and herself clutching a bag of fast food.

The octuplets' grandpa was snapped carrying one of Nadya Suleman's kids, who was wearing a harness. With 14, she'll probably have them ALL on leashes soon enough. Later, the paps caught Octomom after a fast-food run. Good to know she's concerned with providing a healthy diet for her kids!

Dudes. Quick question: How often in the last, say, month, have you gotten a quick bite from a fast food place on your way to and from something? Please. Not only does one stop at a fast food place not make fast food junkies of the whole family…even if she was feeding them mostly fast food, she is hardly alone on that. It is a terrible sin that pervades even the most comfortable of nuclear families.

But that’s not actually the part that stung me personally.

Yup. It was the harness thing. I look at that harness and you know what I see?

I see something I really wish I had.

Captain Adventure has outgrown his buddy harness (the kind with the cute fluffy animal ‘backpack’), and besides, he can unsnap it faster than I can. I need something beefier, like what her kid is wearing in that photo.

Because. He. Is. Autistic. I suspect perhaps the child in the picture is one of the special needs kids in the crowd…of course, I’m hardly an expert and even if I was I couldn’t diagnose somebody from one (1) picture on the danged Internet…but knowing that three of her six kids are “special needs” I’d be a little surprised if she didn’t have an assortment of adaptive tools in her home…from heavy duty strollers designed to take more weight and restraint for old children to yeah, safety harnesses.

The idea that a harness is somehow ‘convenient’ or a way to substitute medieval torture devices for, you know, actual attentiveness is such utter bullshit that…well, I’m on a bit of a peeved rant about it right now.

I don’t use the harness because it is convenient for me. Quite the contrary. It’s a pain in the tush. It’s awkward, it’s embarrassing, it’s yet another thing to keep track of whenever I’m going out of the house with Captain Adventure…which sometimes feels like I’m planning for a six week safari through darkest Africa instead of a half-hour trip to the danged mall.

What would be convenient for me would be having a four year old who responds to verbal commands like, “Come here.” “Walk with me.” “Give me your hand.” “WATCH OUT!”

A harness is an ugly necessity. He’s heavy and hard to carry when he’s being cooperative. When he decides he’s going to fight for his freedom, it’s like hanging onto a forty pound octopus on PCP.

When he decides he wants to run, he just runs. He doesn’t stop because I’m yelling frantically, he doesn’t pause to consider fast-moving traffic, getting lost, falling off cliffs or being mauled by the doggies he wants to pet – ‘pet’ being a word which here means ‘whack on the nose repeatedly while yelling “Oooooooooo, ICE OGGIE!” into its face.’

I hate the harness. And I love it. Without it, I wouldn’t dare take him to the mall, or the supermarket. No crowds. No fairs, no festivals, no Disneyland, no farmer’s market.

These are all things that are good for him. They expose him to different situations, encourage him to socialize, they give him things to talk about, get excited about, they can be used as excellent rewards for desired behaviors and punishment for less-charming outbursts…which again is an exciting development.

The kind of nasty judgmental attitude shown by this article is what I deal with, just about every single time I take him out for any length of time. He doesn’t look disabled, you know? He looks like a perfectly healthy, sparkling, intelligent little four year old dude.

It’s only when he’s trying to talk that it becomes painfully obvious that something is…off. Or when he suddenly melts down for no apparent reason.

Or when he does something so shockingly stupid that you’d swear basic human instinct should have stopped him.

“Christ, what is he, retarded?!” the witness yelled as I snatched him away from the huge moving wheels of the truck. Ten years off my life, because my little innocent wanted to get a closer look at the giant toy come to life. He would have gone right under those wheels, trying to play with the gas cap on a moving frickin’ big rig. Hyper-focused on what he wanted, he was oblivious to everything from my screaming to the fact that those really big wheels were moving inexorably forward…and of course, he utterly lacks the ability to think through such things as total rig weight versus his body’s ability to withstand crushing force and just how big an owie those things would cause…

My baby could be killed by something so bizarre and unlikely…all it takes is me thinking it should be OK to have him stand right next to me, just for a second, while I reach into the back of the van to pull out the shopping bags. When he has his harness on, I can loop the end over my arm – if he tries to dart off, not only does he not get far, I’m alerted the instant he starts.

Without it, well. He’s fast, and he’s silent. One second he’s there, the next he’s gone.

And you can call all you want…he doesn’t even hear your voice. Unless he wants something from you, in which case he still won’t respond to your calling by yelling back, or even call out for you in turn. At best, he’ll simply start to wail – a loud, undulating scream of frustration or anger…but seldom fear.

Even when lost in a crowd of hundreds in a strange place, my boy simply doesn’t grok the concept of fear.

“A child is not a dog,” other witnesses sniff when I snap him into his buddy harness so we can walk through a market or mall. “Ohmygawd, did you see that horrible woman?!”

It’s especially charming when they do that thing where they loudly comment to others about what a dreadful mother you are (studiously avoiding, you know, actual confrontation), and how in their day blah blah blah. Or, from the younger set, the ohmygawd, that’s, like, totally wrong and some junk! Gawd, when I’m a mom, I’d NEVER do that!

Funny how children hit so many buttons, huh? For we parents, someone else suggesting that we are anything less than perfect is mortal insult…for those of us making the, erm, suggestions, any parental failing (real or imagined) is fair game for snark-festing.

I can’t play holy. I’ve done my fair share of it, too…ironically, most of it when I was younger and had no children of my own. I’ve lightened up considerably since then, but still I have my moments of sitting in judgment on other parents for not doing what I, the Holy and Most Righteous Of Mothers (snort!), would have done.

And I have to say – ‘Octomom’ has really kind of invited this kind of constant negative press, hasn’t she. Good grief, madam, seems like every time you say something it only confirms my hunch that you are a few tentacles short of a sushi roll, there, doancha know.

But at the same time…as a mom with a special needs kid of her own…well. MomLogic Staff, I tell you what. Why don’t you try walking a mile in my moccasins, before you start accusing me of bad parenting because I use {gasp!} a harness on my autistic boy. Why don’t you just take him by his sweet little hand and try for a quick little trip somewhere. Anywhere. One of his favorite parks is, in fact, almost exactly one mile from here.

Why don’t you try walking with him, hand in hand…through the neighborhood, up the parkway, past his old school where his favorite teacher still works, past the siren call of the busily rumbling construction site, down the street to the park.

Betcha you’ll be begging for a harness before you even make the first quarter-mile marker.

Betcha you will.

(Thanks for listening to my ranting...I know I'm preaching to the choir with y'all, and you can't know how much I appreciate the way you put up with me when I'm like this...)