Seizing What Could Be
“Everyone, everyone, we got a job over here, 50 miles away. There’s a big hole that has to be filled. C’mon!” my son proclaimed to the entire gathering of parents and children at a 5-year-old friends’ birthday party. He was holding a pretend cellphone while straddling a big wheel atop the hill in their backyard.
Bath time is sacred. I cherish it every night because I get to spend an uninterrupted half an hour with my son as he poops, takes a bath, and brushes his teeth. Granted, some nights are harder than others, but most you can count on him being his unequivocal self. As we finished up bath
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
I’m standing in the hallway listening to my son tell his stories before bed. He stutters through his words to find the right ones to explain something his imagination implores him to get out in that very instant. I say “goodnight” as I thought he was done, but as often is the case, he had
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
I was aware of the implications when I said it. I paused, and thought, “No way, is it?…Yes…it is.” Abuse. A word that I have not considered when it comes to childhood stuttering, but similar themes have been swirling in my head since walking alongside my son who stutters for the last two years. I
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 