Kids, sadness, and autism... (ramble rant)

Well, I’m really sad this week. For a number of reasons, but the main reasons have to do with kids in my life. I never want to have kids, but at the moment I have a niece that’s my brother’s daughter, and a couple of nieces and nephews that are my husband’s relatives.

I love my niece! She’s about to be four this year, and she’s just the sweetest little girl. My brother got her a kid’s play set that’s like a DJ’s turntable that makes the scratching noise and drum sounds, and she pretends she’s a little DJ but her only “remix” is saying macaroni and cheese a thousand times lmao. But, her mother is one of the coldest bitches I’ve ever met. I’m fairly certain she has post partum depression but she’s always been an asshole, ever since I was a baby. She was my brother’s first girlfriend so of course he’s completely whipped, but she’s incredibly mean and judgemental. Usually I just ignore her, but she’s such a distant mother to my poor little niece. She’s a professor so she has a ton more free time than my brother does as he’s a lawyer, and yet he spends so much more time with his daughter. Her mother just wants nothing to do with her. Today I found out she’s about six months pregnant, and while I’m so so soooo happy my niece will be a big sister to a new little girl, I’m so sad for them because they will never have a close mother figure. The closest they’ll have is my brother and my mother, and my mom can only go to Boston to see them MAYBE once a year, and she’s an even worse mother than my SIL.

Secondly, I grew up with autism. Pretty severe autism as well, I still have massive signs of my autism that are pretty obvious even to people I’ve just met. So, I understand how hard it is to grow up with a condition (a few conditions in fact) that my parents don’t believe in. I never got treated for my autism, and it’s affected my life greatly. Over the Christmas break, I got into a fight with my husband’s sister. She’s 12 years older than him and has three kids, a three year old girl and two 8-11 year old boys. The younger boy shows HEAVY signs of autism. I studied child psychology because my original plan was to work with children with autism and Tourette’s, so in addition to BEING autistic I’ve studied the condition in depth so I can easily recognise the signs. This boy is VERY affected by the fact that he’s likely on the spectrum. It hurts me to see him get overstimulated, scared of people, scream for no reason, laugh when most people would cry and vice versa, because I’ve been through those things. My husband’s sister is extremely religious, to the point where if one of her kids doesn’t want to say a prayer before eating, she won’t let them eat until they pray. Her husband is extremely kind and nice, and I can tell he agrees that his son is likely on the spectrum but the poor boy’s mother is so deep in denial, so the poor kid has never gotten any help. Plus, he’s always been homeschooled since he’s an army kid so there’s never been any teachers or school staff to let his parents know he might have these sorts of issues. She never vaccinated her kids because she thinks vaccinations cause autism, so this is why she thinks it’s impossible for him to be on the spectrum. I’m not faulting her beliefs or anything, I just hate seeing ANYONE go through the shit I went through growing up, especially children. I very politely brought up my concern to her, NEVER made any attempt to belittle her or make her think that I thought she was a bad mother. She screamed at me and called me a “tramp” because I’m not Mormon like her and have different beliefs... She thinks he’s perfectly fine and happy, but it’s so obvious that he’s suffering. I don’t know ladies, I don’t particularly like children I relate to them very easily but I feel uncomfortable around them, but I HATE seeing children suffer. Especially when that suffering is being understated, worsened, or neglected. It does make me happy to see so many good mothers here, making life for their children (and pet children, I know my dog is the only kid I’ll have lmao) as good as they possibly can. You ladies rock, keep up the amazing work and to all those ladies TTC, I hope you get a perfect positive very soon!!!!!! 💜💜💜