
Find out more about Kathy Lette’s Girls’ Night Out.
My generation had to leave home to have sex. But now most of us allow our kids to have sex at home once they turn sixteen, it ends up making for some very awkward moments over the muesli in the mornings, as you never know who is going to turn up – animal, vegetable, mineral…..
But when you have a child with special needs, the parental angst is in overdrive.
My son Jules was diagnosed with autism when he was three.
Autism is a lifelong neurological condition whose chief characteristics are an inability to communicate, chronic O.C.D. and anxiety, but also, often, a very high IQ. I call my son Wikipedia with a pulse. But his clever quirkiness meant years of school bullying.
Kathy Lette on why we should change the way we view autism. Post continues below.
Aged nine he came home with a sticker on his back reading “Kick me, I’m a retard.” You might as well have ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it.
Consequently, I became ridiculously overprotective. I would never let him out of the house without enough in his backpack to set up a comfortable wilderness homestead.