Arrgh.

 Ooof, I messed up the other day.

We were hanging out at a beach, and my friend's kids weren't into playing, so my kid was feeling really lonely. And I noticed this boy talking to an adult about Legos, who set off my a-dar. He was wandering around, also seeming lonely, so I persuaded my kid to ask him if he wanted to do something.

It's been so long since I've tried something like this, and I totally didn't take into account how it would feel to an autistic teen. He handled it much better than my own kid would've, very politely, but he was obviously startled and I hope it didn't freak him out too much. (Especially since my kid is huge.) Maybe someone with more experience facilitating could've made it happen, I dunno. 

I feel so bad, setting my kid up for failure like that. 

Parenting worries

 I watched "Allen vs. Farrow" yesterday, my stomach in a knot of grief and horror for the people who had to live through that. And anger that I had been so manipulated by Allen's powerful media machine, to the point that I had no idea about this case while it was going on. And also... a touch of fear. 

When family friends talked about how weirdly Allen interacted with his daughter, it hit alarm bells for me. (Note... I'm absolutely not trying to excuse Allen or disbelieve his accusers. The evidence is utterly damning.) Because my relationship with my child often felt weird. She needed attention in unusual ways and she gave attention in unusual ways. (I shouldn't put that in the past tense, it's still true, perhaps even more so now she's an adult.) And I was (and am) always aware of how it might look to the outside world. My mom friends and I, a rather unconventional bunch all around, always used to joke about CPS visits in a way that revealed we were always a little scared it could happen to us.

When my daughter got appendicitis, the doctors were visibly suspicious about why we hadn't brought her in sooner.  Since she was officially diagnosed, they accepted our truthful explanation, that she was under-reactive to pain and not always able to express her feelings, but it was a reminder that our parenting could look weird/wrong/bad. What if she hadn't been diagnosed? I don't know. 

It's still not entirely comfortable. Trans people are under attack in the U.S. My daughter's aide offered to write a letter for us for a "safety file" that parents of trans children keep. I said that now she's an adult, I don't have to worry about CPS anymore, and she reminded me that there's an APS.

(Which is not a bad thing! Unless the law is changed so we're bad parents for supporting her transition. My heart aches for parents in Texas right now.) 

I told my husband about the show making me feel like this and he got it completely.