We Need Better Mothers

I first saw "the letter" yesterday.

I have to say I was so angry that I had to move myself away from the computer and just sit and hold my littlest little.

It's been circulating around social media and you've probably seen it. Social media really is incredible that way - a blessing and a curse. This is the message that has been all over. Take a deep breath. You're going to need it.

I'm not going to talk about the "mother" who wrote it. I'm not wasting my words or energy on her - not for a moment.

But I am going to talk about the mother she addressed in the letter. It isn't me. While Eli has melt downs and times when I can't understand what he is saying and he is a challenge and difficult and loud and "different", he will never be this precious child.

I met the mother this letter is addressed to today - one of tens of thousands that it could have been written to. I met the "lady living at this address." While waiting for Eli to finish his therapy, she said hello. We sat and talked while we waiting for our sons.

I met this mother.

The mother of a sixteen-year-old boy with autism. A young man who will never be able to live beyond her care - beyond her comfort. A young man who will never go to college - like his sister did for the first time today. He most likely will never "normally" communicate or understand boundaries or social etiquette or an "inside voice".

I listened as she shared the little bit about her son with me. I listened while I sat beside my five-year-old. I listened while I waited for my littlest little who I knew has a real shot at every single one of those things. I listened and I looked into her eyes.

She was so tired. She smiled nearly the entire conversation but I could see it.
Her eyes were so tired.

I knew how much she loves him. I could see it just as much as I could see the hurt.

We hurt for our children. We hurt for the things we hear that they don't. We ache for the hatred we witness that we pray in the deepest corners of our soul that they never experience.

She sat there knowing what future could be held for her son. Her son who is just as human, just as much a child of God, just as much worthy of joy and hope and peace - however he finds it.
This mother deserves a world that teaches its children understanding and generosity and open-mindedness and patience. This mother deserves a people who strive to become educated on the world around them. She deserves compassion. She deserves fellow mothers who teach their children that the hand dealt to them has nothing, nothing to do with how they treat others. That how "normal" they are does not give them a right to berate and tear down those who were dealt a different hand. That nothing given to us naturally makes us better than anyone else. That how their brain works doesn't mean how someone else's works warrants for them to be condemned or locked up or ...  I can't even type the other thing written above.

This mother deserves better mothers.

This child deserves a better world.

I hope with all that I am that the world is kinder to my child. I pray with every ounce of hope that there are children with better mothers who have taught them how to love - how to truly love their fellow man.

We need better mothers.