I’ve been watching a new television show, Parenthood, a little. I liked the movie, mostly, and this show tries to recapture some of those story beats. Some of the writing is good, most of it mawkish. Characters often perform the “adults behaving badly” dance with very little veritas. Characters behave in ways that would make me run away if they happened in real life. Example: a woman shows up and tells the youngest of the clan, a player, that he fathered a son some five years before. Mom, who has raised this boy as a single child for five years, drops it on the player in front of the son with “He wanted to meet his daddy.”
No responsible mother I know would ever do that. The writers of the show thought it would be a good line to end the scene. Dopey line, dopey line.
I digress.
One of the characters in the drama is a boy with Asperger’s syndrome. I have been blessed with two wonderful children and I don’t know what it is like to parent a child that exhibits that range of behavioral symtoms. The boy’s mother had a great scene where she described the amount of worrying she does. I thought that was good. Being a parent is like never having a day off of a very important job.
A mother with an autistic child has been treating her son with marijuana.
With the return of the White Russian, I felt confident enough by Thanksgiving to make a big meal. Previously, a fragrant house often overstimulated J; last year, he dumped his full Thanksgiving plate on my very pregnant sister-in-law. This time, we sat, said grace. J didn’t lunge and try to grab the food. He didn’t stab Grandpa with a fork like he had last Christmas. He just ate with gusto, and, I think, even a little appreciation.
I think that if dope worked for my child, I would use it.