April is autism awareness month and these are my two children—who have autism.
I could tell you a million incredible qualities about my kids. Like how they don’t lie and their default is happiness. How they are filled with curiosity and live without fear.
But arguably their most important quality is their inability to judge. Because of autism, they don’t see differences in skin color, religion, or gender. They willingly offer the same kind of acceptance that most people spend their entire lives searching for.
So now I’m begging the world to return the favor.
Educate your children. Educate yourself. Break bread with those who look different than you. Invite children like mine over to play—and then, employ them. The only way we’ll ever achieve true inclusion is through radical empathy.
And the only way we’ll know we’ve succeeded is if one day moms like me don’t have to write posts like this because all minds are valued equally.
Autism doesn’t make a person different or less.
It just makes them our best teachers on kindness.
To More Love,
Stephanie
