Seizing What Could Be
Last spring, my son was at soccer practice on a Friday night after school. The coaches—of which I was one—divided the kids up into two lines to teach them how to pass the ball to each other and then run to a spot near the goal to shoot and score. The drill required the passer
This is a narrative role-play where I overlay my knowledge and experience of stuttering as remembered from my childhood with how I imagine my son is internalizing his perceptions. It is a perspective that is regularly top-of-mind as I go through the days with him and try to understand how he’s thinking about the way
“Some friends were making fun of me today, mama.” My son’s words caught my attention from across the room as I was making dinner. “What does ‘making fun of’ mean?” he asked. As I heard the question, I knew he was trying to tell us something that had happened at school that day, but he
Every parent has been there. You’re staring down your toddler who is about to do something they mostly know is wrong and you have seen them do it before, except this time you sense a change. Perhaps they are beginning to hear your pleas, “don’t do that” or “no, that is wrong.” For my wife
My internal alarm went off, an innate threat response learned in childhood. But for my son at his 5-year check-up, the request from the nurse to do his first vision and hearing tests didn’t set off the same visceral reaction. He stood 10 feet from the chart as I covered one of his eyes. In
Perhaps this is biased because I stutter. But maybe not because I have experienced both sides, even if my onset was over thirty years ago, I know how the story goes. Being a kid who starts to stutter and being a parent of a kid who starts to stutter can be a challenging reality to
They did the best they could with what they had at the time. I would argue that most adults who stutter have uttered this line about how their stuttering was handled by their parents during childhood. I have myself. When I have said it, though, it is backs by years of coming to terms, reaching the
If you have lived with stuttering or another chronic difference, then you know the ups and downs, the oscillations between “good” and “bad” days, whatever your measure of such may be. There is a toll it takes, and you either submit to its demands or you build specific defenses—coping mechanisms—to withstand at least some of
There is no alternative. As time stands still, my heart stops, awareness heightens, hearing narrows, and I physically turn towards my son as I detect that he is about to speak. No matter what I’m doing or where I may be, he gets my undivided, hypervigilant attention. The seconds between first detection and the beginning
What follows is a deeply personal series of posts for National Stuttering Awareness Week describing my ongoing adjustment to parenting a son who stutters. Publicly sharing my experience is part of my effort to process this seldom discussed phase in the through life stuttering journey and an attempt to spotlight mental health awareness month, which
Every Waking Moment 