Shame on You

The church that I attend is a family church.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints places a great deal of importance on the family...on strengthening the family, supporting the family, keeping the family together, etc.  Even so, I have still been amazed at times by couples whose children have long ago grown and moved away, who say things like, "Children should sit in the back."

Now, just so there is not a misunderstanding, I do want you to know that I understand that when dealing with different generations of people, some do have the attitude of "children should be seen and not heard".  Especially in a reverent setting, such as a sacrament meeting, I can completely understand that people come there to rejuvenate spiritually, and that a loud and disruptive child can affect that.

An exception does exist to every rule, however.  We rarely bring Logan to church.  The noise from the organ, multiple conversations going on at once, the silence of the sacrament being passed and then the break from that to people speaking...it wreaks havoc on his senses.  Most of the time, he can make it through that meeting by playing with his dad's Kindle Fire or covering his head up with a blanket.  One particular Sunday,  a couple of weeks ago, he was having a very hard time.  He very loudly asked to go home and got very upset because the hat to his Woody doll got lost.  The only way we could get him out of the chapel was to promise him we would go look for it.  That's the thing about autism and Logan.  He also displays a lot of OCD tendencies.  The hat goes on Woody's head.  If the hat isn't there then it's a crisis.  The same thing with the shower curtain in the bathroom.  There has to be a shower curtain there, and if it's not there, he will hang a blanket there.

In the midst of this disturbance and our desperate attempts to get it under control, an older gentleman turned around in his seat and glared at our family.  I didn't know that this happened until later, when a friend of mine gave me a hug and expressed sympathy for what had occurred.  She felt the man was being very rude.  (He was).  I realized later that this same man, who has trouble getting around, ignored my efforts to hold the door open for him, brushed past me, and didn't answer me when I spoke to him.

I am writing about this, not because I care what this man thinks of me, but because his behavior appalls me.  All I can say to him, and to anyone who treats a struggling family in this manner, is this:  shame on you.  Shame on you, for your immaturity.  Shame on you for your lack of empathy.  Shame on you, for sitting in judgement against a mother, and her family, who are obviously dealing with a difficult situation.

At the same time, I can understand.  I'm embarrassed to say that before I had Logan I was a lot like this man.  I would go to a store, or to church, and witness a screaming, crying child, and shake my head at the parents who obviously didn't know how to parent and who could not control them.  Not anymore.  What Logan has taught me is that you don't do that.  You don't look at someone, and make assumptions based on just what you are seeing.  There is so much more than meets the eye, to anyone, to what they are doing, to how they're reacting.

It would be so easy to never attend church.  I think of this often.  It would be so easy to stop trying, and to stay home, and let Logan run around and stim and not try to expose him to a spiritual atmosphere.  It would be easy to never have to worry, again, about people who are lacking in empathy or understanding, who are simply ignorant of children like my son.  But I don't go to church for them.  And if this individual, or any other, decides that glaring at our family in irritation over something my son can't control will help, all I can say is they'll find me gazing right back at them.