World Autism Awareness Day

We used to light our front porch blue for World Autism Awareness Day. It felt like a beautiful way to help celebrate that a member of our family has autism. We were shouting to the world that we love him and think he’s the greatest! Over time, we stopped doing it – I think mostly because Mikey got older and we felt more confident that he understood he had autism and that we were super proud to be his family. No lights needed.

Now-a-days people are so aware of autism here in the United States that there is controversy over what color we wear, what symbol we display and whether to donate to Autism Speaks at all.  Autism Speaks has responded to genuine critiques from within the adult autism community…they have made changes to respond to the needs of people coping with autism.

That said, all along they have been a driving force in getting funding for autism research when no one else was paying attention.  That research has and will continue to provide insight into better ways to help kids and families struggling with autism.  They have not been perfect, but the world is more aware of autism because of their work. You will see other references to Autism Speaks in future blog entries. I’ll try to remember to link back to this post, but if you’re bothered by our support for the organization, just skip these posts. Or, you can feel free to share your opposing thoughts in the comments.

My Most Sincere Hope

I hope that good people with good intentions will not shy away from trying to help because they fear being criticized.  Just because you can’t do everything, doesn’t mean you can’t do something to help others. On this World Autism Awareness Day, I’m wishing that our world keeps providing more options for people on the spectrum and keeps listening to their feedback on how we can do better. I give sincere thanks to the folks who were fighting this fight early on…I don’t envy the trail you needed to blaze, but I’m so grateful you tried to help!