When Eli was eight, Doctor Cohen told his parents that it was possible that he could be on the autism spectrum; he might have Asperger's, the doctor said. For a long while, neither his mother nor his father really knew what to make of the diagnosis. They felt lost, like they were stranded in the middle of nowhere without a map, left largely on their own to figure it out. It didn't help when they looked up information on Hans Asperger and learned what a horrible person he had been in life; being Jewish, how were they supposed to make peace with a diagnosis named after a man with a history like his?
Having no other resources readily available, they turned to the Internet for help. They both took turns spending hours looking through Google search results on "autism," "Asperger's syndrome," and "raising autistic children." What they were met with was terabytes' worth of websites and blogs from Autism Parents, warning them about the struggles they were bound to suffer for years to come. Screamer headlines bombarded the Moskowitzes one right after the other with stories of parents bemoaning their existences, of countless mothers and fathers lamenting about how difficult it was being burdened with an autistic kid.
Be prepared for tantrums galore, they warned Simon and Ruth. Grieve for losing their child to the awfulness of autism. Steel themselves for a life of never knowing true affection from their son. Did they know that it cost more to raise an autistic kid than a kid with cancer, were they prepared for that on top of the medical expenses they'd already had? Hadn't they heard the average life expectancy for autistic people was only 54 years old? Were they aware autistic individuals were far more likely to be manipulated and taken advantage of than their neurotypical peers? Their son would never be normal. They would never know peace, life would be nothing but continuous stress and burnouts. So wouldn't they donate to the cause to find a cure for autism?
Then came the blaming. Eli's condition certainly must have been their fault, said the people on the forums. After all, they had vaccinated him, hadn't they heard that vaccines caused autism? And Ruth Moskowitz got it the worst, being the mother. A constant stream of vitriol came in her direction. Had she taken care of herself properly during her pregnancy? Wasn't she affectionate enough with her son as soon as he was born, they demanded to know? Did she hold him enough? Had she breast-fed him (what did she mean by "complications due to the cleft lip," what sort of excuse was that)? Was she ever frigid or distant at any moment? Did she only feed him wholesome organic foods, or did she let him eat things full of toxins and chemicals from commercial garbage?
The accusations got so awful that her husband Simon suggested she just delete the account altogether. Ruth would rather have dealt with them blaming her than have had to read some of the testimonials several of the other mothers posted. She didn't think it was possible for parents to hate their children as much as some of those people did. Certain therapies they described putting their kids through sounded like nothing short of child abuse, and Ruth almost got sick to her stomach when she learned that a few parents even ended up killing their autistic children; worse still, the media reports usually were more sympathetic to the parents than to the children who'd been murdered. And all of this for what? Because their child wouldn't say "I love you" to them on command?
Still they kept being blasted with messages over and over that certain behaviors their son showed were wrong, and that they needed to be corrected sooner rather than later, or else his life would be constant suffering when he got older. Didn't they want to be good parents? Against their better inclinations, the Moskowitzes tried to listen to some of the less outrageous advice they were given by the other parents. When others at Temple wanted to tousle Eli's hair or give him a hug, they didn't let him hide behind them anymore, but forced him to accept the attention. If they saw him start fidgeting with his hands or clothes, they stopped him.
They regretted their actions almost immediately. It drove Eli into hysterics, he broke down crying more often than ever before. And even though the parents on the forums told them to persevere, to not give in and coddle him, that he was just manipulating them by throwing his tantrums, Simon and Ruth found that they just couldn't stand to see him so miserable. So they stopped.
Things outside the Internet were hardly any better when others learned of his diagnosis. The Moskowitzes resisted the school counselor when he suggested putting Eli in special needs when he started Fourth Grade. Such a move seemed completely unnecessary. His grades and behavior were fine for the most part. More often than not, it was the other kids who were the problem. They wouldn't stop picking on him, whether it was for his lip or for his quirks. Why didn't the school do something about that first, instead of trying to stigmatize their son?
It got to be unbearable, all the things they were reading and being told. Eventually, they couldn't stand hearing anymore advice from the parents on those forums, or the unwanted guidance of the counselors. They couldn't tolerate being told that their son would never really know what love was (much less how to express it), that he had no idea what empathy entailed and would always struggle with it, that he would functionally be a robot at best, or a sociopath at worst. What they were being told didn't match their experiences as his parents, who knew him better than anyone. Far from being an emotionless shell, they saw that Eli experienced emotions deeper than most kids they knew that weren't on the spectrum; he just didn't express them in ways people expected.
So, having had enough, the Moskowitzes walked away from it all. They stopped going to the forums, stopped frequenting the websites, stopped looking up information about autism altogether. They tried to rely on their intuitions, only seeking further help when they were overwhelmed by something they didn't understand. In the meantime, they would just love him. Surely that would be enough.
