What independence means for Isaac – My Son Isaac
Isaac can talk (and talk and talk and talk) for himself. His non-stop, boom-boom delivery conversely grounds him. When his voice levels are up, he’s actually levelling out. Odd yet oddly not in the land of Isaac.
As the words spitfire, he barely remembers to gasp for breath; like a news reader chasing an autocue that’s run away with itself. A chunk of his chat may be commentary on minutiae or much needed repetition; and my blurry eyed mornings are ambushed with angst-fuelled need for confirmations of the day’s proceedings (appeased by a daily morale boosting, any-changes-made and fantastic email from his teacher. Isaac’s waking words so often are urgent dictation-style variations of, “Have you encountered the email yet, father? Keep your eyes peeled for it, please. I’ll accept a screen shot if you’ve departed before it lands in your inbox.”) Every day needs a beginning, middle and end; and will be executed as such.
But much of his dialogue, whilst with a monologue bias, flexes into curiosity, explaining, amusing and articulating. Questions, questions, questions. He echoes ever so slightly the stereotype of a monosyllabic 15-year-old male, stubborn in different ways, stubbly for sure, contented bedroom dweller, definitely. Yet I’d fathom that much more talk flows from Isaac than your typical teen – and fairly fluently – in many, many unexpected ways.
One being how he proactively communicates with the elder generation. He calls grandparents daily (woe betide they’re busy) earnestly ticking off self-taught questions about their day, state-of-mind, plans and thoughts. Small part script and routine, big part affection, these have fast become Isaac created fixtures in the family fabric.
Sloppy son that I am, Isaac keeping us abreast balances out my keeping in touch failings. Oh yay, oh yay, Oi vay – Isaac logs this microcosm of Jewish cultural life like a zealous Jewish Chronicle cub reporter. From (all) health updates to the download on Bridge pairings and partnerships and general community chatter.
This expands into his more general rolling news regurgitation, reported incessantly, done with meaning and heart if not a little interruption – and to anyone in his orbit. Out it comes, complete with “such a shames,” “RIPs”, “very rares” and “natural causes I’m assuming” caveats on the fairly morbid nature of it all. I can see Isaac’s brain tick as he unpicks the confusing ball of wool of a Monarch’s or aging politician’s death from a ghastly gangland murder or gut wrenching tragedies like the Turkish and Syrian earthquakes.
It’s like a Reuters feed without the edit but with a lot of conscience. And with comprehension in the slower lane of his racing brain, a reflection of his learning too. PhD level photographic memory of information viewed or read, ability to decipher forever difficult but improving daily. He generates topics for interaction, the earnestness adorable and he has currency for communication, but when, where and how they are delivered is the never-ending work in progress.
Isaac is so often the conversation starter and finisher, with realms of information delivery and light-hearted news leading the way too; when a family friend is greeted with a very polite “hello, how are you, lovely to see you… today is the shared birthday of Jason Derullo and his ex-partner – fun fact. Would you like to hear more fun facts?” you can but beam.
Plus we now have football too; something to be tackled in a future blog post, such is its impact on a previously missing (and discussed) father and son pursuit. His leftfield foray into it is again particular to Isaac. He relentlessly asks who supports whom and why; every single person he knows, and I know. Always questioning who people’s teams are, whether they have one or not, irrespective of age or gender, highlights Isaac’s progressive and fresh view on life as well as his autism (retaining verbal information can be an autistic challenge, that I ironically, keep on forgetting versus written and visual facts that superglue to his mind from one glimpse. So, his blurting of scores and fixtures resembles the most comprehensive football compendium, whereas people’s teams and more abstract football details need querying and saying over and over – the repetition giving him reassurance too.
Emphasizing his unique approach is – contrary to his statistical knowledge and love of predictions – a disinterest in watching such is the haywire, full of variables nature of football. Tactics, noise, fluidity, you name it, a rigid mindset can find a game of football all a bit rogue and abstract. Not to mention the physical challenge of playing.
However, my sheer joy at the connection football is fostering between myself and Isaac, and its social element for him and a wider peer group, cannot be understated.
Talking of connections, much of this emanates from neurotypical cousins and autistic school friends alike and WhatsApp relationships; a great exchange mechanism with the only downside being delays in replies.
In fact, in a tough old world where neurotypicals and the neurodivergent rub up along each other, the frictions and sparks of which set fire on social media, it’s up to him – and, if not more, us – how a general mixing with all folk settles. Whatever, my pride in him peaked at Passover this year – the annual feast to commemorate the exodus and liberation of the Jewish people. The modern day spiritual and highly sociable interpretation is not a particularly autism friendly affair. The forced but giggle fuelled silences as we read our way through stories of bondage as Jews escaped Egypt thousands of years ago; the clatter and clutter of symbolic foods being shared around and spluttered upon; chit and chat, shouts and sing-songs; stopping and starting stories and catching up, picking up where family left off wherever and whenever. Heaving tables of wine, toys depicting plagues, and the whole house visually distorted to make space for this special occasion.
And in previous years, just as we hear of the Holy One’s “Outstretched arm” of power in the story of Exodus, Isaac has kept his own arm’s length distance from the mayhem. Accepting Isaac not needing to sit through tales of Jewish liberation was… liberating.
But this year, with a place for him at the head of the table, he sat and held court like the mini-patriarch he is (of a sizable extended family, it must be stressed). Autism acceptance at this religious event had acquired a godlike status. With neurotypical cousins, each having their own WhatsApp and real life fostered relationship with Isaac, effortlessly shifting in and out of his patter and probing. More one way, with many, many jokes, riffing on rappers and music, recollections (I’d hear in passing) like “on this day in 2016 I travelled on the, what I can only describe as yet-to-be-refurbished 1996 rolling stock”, and I know not what else. Isaac fitted in whilst they let him stand out. He joined in the communal reading, and like a stand up doing three gigs on a roaring Saturday night, took breaks, before returning to be part of it, each time replenished and ready for more. Arriving in a onesie, post bath, his denouement, “I’m back, guys! So, Arsenal predictions please Max, because you support them, yes?!”
Our 2023 story of Passover was, revelatory. I told him how proud I was of him, and he was pleased as punch. Isaac’s autism identity not diminished with his independence shining in this controlled – and slightly tailored for him – space.
Which is actually the finest of balances, and hard to wrestle with. Because whilst, as I’ve demonstrated, Isaac can talk (and talk and talk) for himself brilliantly, attempting his own agency comes with challenges; perhaps specific to his autism, perhaps specific to his personality, probably specific to both.
Isaac and independence are where we are at. What it means, the here and now, the hopes and dreams, the fears and unknowns. Some things remain certain, inherent in him and always addressable. Anxiety, need for routine and impulsivity. Sensory seeking and when and how to regulate. Gross and fine motor skills, body awareness and coordination.
But Isaac is circling the plughole of a choppy childhood. Into an adulthood that may be as confronting as it is enticing.
Crucially, Isaac knows independence – of some sort – is his north star. And, like some sort of employee owned social enterprise with spurious rules, is working out what is means and how he owns it. Him and us. (He knows – and approves – that I write this blog. Reading the odd paragraph, picking out factual inaccuracies about trains, dates or details I’ve recorded. Hi Isaac, if you’re reading.)
It’s all counterintuitive when I compare to my memories of stepping out into the big, wide world. He yearns independence and adulthood but demands me or my wife, Eliza, are by his side. I’m pushed (to the limit) to arrange a meet up with a schoolfriend with the mum’s permission and presence, vital. Who he calls and when, with discussions dissected, and updates reported to me verbatim. A blanket refusal to accept someone is too busy to speak, and letting them when they do, can be problematic. Though his sociability and empathy are sky high.
Going out alone actually means me or Eliza ten steps back at best, with Isaac, resembling an arctic explorer, freighted with headphones and phone and travel pass in front and backpacks sending his flighty self off-balance. Determinedly staring right-left-right for traffic. Complications around the concept of money- and zero materialistic interest despite food anyway – calling for our assistance in shops.
All in all, the neurotypical how-to text of teenage rebellion and responsibility is redundant in many ways. Such as the blank page on his unusual but respectable “burning sense of moral justice” as described by one of his teachers. Recently he informed us that he was “deleting TikTok due to some very inappropriate content that I must condemn. I mean consent is important, and I believe jokes and pictures about people may impact them negatively. Also, there was a joke about Gary Glitter. Awful!”
Half of me is reassured by this brutally honest and inflexible view of the world. The other half, naturally, wishes him to somehow access the innate inference-full lifestyle so many find easy and take for granted. Navigate the platforms and find his own way, tap into a street smartness that a playground might hand him sans set in stone instructions.
I’m far from dropping teenagers into a sewer of immoral abyss here, but the unspoken social rules ranging from ease of chat, to differentiating dialogue from elders, to rule bending, are independent traits Isaac finds trying at best. It makes me concerned for him now and in the future.
When, in an act of forwardness and flirtation I’d have dreamt about experiencing at 15, an unknown girl asked Isaac for “his snap” (can I have your number in old language) on a school ice skating trip, he was disturbed and outraged to the point of grabbing his teacher, saying that “there was an emergency! This girl was polite but it’s clearly a breach of information, it’s strictly wrong to exchange data in this way. Something must be done!”
As is their way, Isaac was talked down from sitting astride atop his moral high horse by his teachers, to the point that they translated for Isaac this social situation into a simply positive experience. Satisfaction all round when all explained.
This tactic used is a feature of his school’s wider strategy and curriculum that emboldens the position we find ourselves in. A positive approach with a power and progressive nature, saving Isaac and setting him on the independent track. My worries wane with school at the wheel. Driving him forward now and for the next four years.
Isaac’s ‘certificate of excellence in travel training and independently walking to the café’ is as key to his learning as English functional skills (he’s just passed entry 2 with 20/20, at his pace, he flourishes, the ceiling ever raised). With citizenship, finance and cooking, as important as the conventional subjects. Developing at his own speed, whatever qualifications.
A holistic plan putting him in pole position when he’s 19 to face the world in a fearless yet promising way. It is, everything.
Left to me, isolated thoughts about his independence and, of course, the future, trigger a little fret and fear and mollycoddling of Isaac. I’ll always feel haunted by his early childhood – which we talk about with him – when communication was hard, repetition a survival mechanism, tears a torture. And years on, there are echoes that may not be every day, but do and will always occur – the anxiety of a life not always going to plan, how he feels illness more intently, a temperature burning him up more, sensory extremity, hard to explain himself when in a pit of despair. A groan from his sick bed may be an octave lower, but it still puts me on a helpless, high alert.
But Isaac’s schooling success coupled with my observations of him as he socialises and delights people, provide me with the most comfortable of blankets his path is forming. A squiggly one, far from linear, but with aspirations abounding.
There are, no doubt, despite his toolbox of independence being well-equipped, some missing constituent nuts and bolts. But how many are as a result of kitting it out through a neurotypical lens, and how many are survival skills that are non-negotiables?
After all, the world, on a good day, has many doors ajar. Apprenticeships at Transport for London – that his school are already moulding him for – are realistic and less about qualifications and more about vocation and passion and trust. With transport still his unreconstructed numero uno enthusiasm, he’ll lose me with talk of rules and regulations, SPADs (no, not what I thought either – Signals Passed at Danger, apparently), AWS, driver calls of ‘tea and biscuits’; information that is critical and comes easily and adoringly to him. A day behind the scenes at King’s Cross was glorious and successful, with Isaac announcing train arrivals and more.
Going broader, his tech talents, ever more ingenious content creation, editing and filming abilities, and YouTube followers of well over a thousand, mean positive career paths multiply. As with so many marginalised groups, when you can ‘see it, you can be it’. Train enthusiasts, Francis Bourgeois and Geoff Marshall, make a living in this area. They know Isaac, converse with him, big up his content. On screen he has that magnetic force of personality to articulate the rush of a train whizzing by, or to effuse about historical facts, stories and secrets of underground stations. (My capacity is merely as a driver, at best a runner, on these train mini-film sets he creates, produces, directs and edits. Isaac’s request for my attendance a demonstration of his, perhaps, atypical need for ‘adult’ security).
In 2021, a journalist, Nicole Krueger, reported on the many jobs there will be in the years to come that we don’t even know exist yet. Shifts in technology, skills, and the need to always adapt and learn, put Isaac in a solid place. His school are purpose building a young man fit for a future best served by his abilities and awareness of himself and identity. Complementing this is the fact that he takes time to teach himself too; predominantly, in fact, when it comes to digital expertise and black box thinking.
As the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik, says in his new book, The Real Work, “we overrate masters and underrate mastery.” Taking tests is a default that is actually trumped by “the flow” – when someone, in their element, develops and learns from within, and is nurtured by understanding mentors.
This objectivity has pulled my subjective take on independence and its flexible meaning plus fear of the future into a place of hope and happiness. I’ve never been a helicopter parent (maybe a train one!). But as I grapple with independence, and therefore Isaac’s next steps, his personality in a world that is better placed to harness it, has a decent chance to thrive. And that’s something he’ll want to talk, and talk, and talk about.
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