Have you ever started out in one place, and wound up somewhere else that you didn’t want to be? I have. Jobs, spouses and the responsibility of elderly family members often take us places where we don’t want to go, much less spend time in. The good news is that I’ve adjusted, in part because I know that it is a temporary state of existence. The bad news is that many times our children don’t have the same opportunity.

My transition to a far-from-the-city suburb was gradual, yet inexorable. Now that I’m married with a child on the autism spectrum, my career is temporarily on hold. My days are filled volunteering in the classroom and preparing for the next IEP. For entertainment, my husband and I traverse the local home improvement store, or attend our son’s school Trivia Night or hang out in someone’s backyard for BBQ, beer and a game of washers (which is similar to horseshoes, but you use those little rings that go under your kitchen faucet instead). I watch baseball instead of going to theaters, art galleries and swanky client dinners. The focus of my admiration has shifted from renowned journalists, scientists and authors. My new hero is the lady down the street who somehow gets all four of her children fed, bathed and in bed by 7 p.m.

But what lies beyond our comfortable little enclave just across the county line is much more difficult to accept. There I meet people who more often than not don’t know the names of their elected officials or how to speak without using  language laced with double-negatives. If I look hard enough, I can find myself steps away from an underworld filled with meth labs, sexual predators and gang members who recruit insecure and unsuspecting youths. I can visit prisons, mental institutions, and all of those other places where society places people who don’t fit in.

Autism is the least of my worries.

I simply cannot let autism become the boss of me, my son or my family. It will not stand in the way of teaching my son the social skills, communication skills and abilities to make his own good choices and healthy relationships and consequently, his own success in life. He will understand how not to be a victim. And I shall not fail. To do so would be to consign my son to a life without options, and I never want him to feel trapped in a situation that he never bargained for.

I wish I were smart enough to find a cure for autism, but I’m not. That only leaves one thing: good old fashioned parenting. Because I am going to raise my son, not fix him.

Please come with me, and bring all of your best ideas.

L. Mae Wilkinson