The Nature of Things

Liam is completely unencumbered by thoughts of what other people might think about him. This fact offers him a special kind of freedom that most of us don’t get to enjoy. He acts how he wants when he wants, and there is no social norm that is going to get in his way. If he wants to start dancing in the middle of a restaurant because he likes the music, he will do it until we make him sit down. He will stand up on his chair, he will shriek loudly if he is mad or swipe a basket of french fries off the table, he will crawl under the table, he will let out a giant whoop when he’s excited and he will hit a complete stranger if they happen to be in the way when he is mad. He will stop these behaviors, not because he is making a spectacle of himself and he is suddenly feeling self conscious, but because we tell him to.

So, due to the fact that social norms are not on Liam’s radar, it makes for an interesting study in the old nature vs. nurture debate. The things Liam is into are not a product of his environment. The only thing that influences his likes and dislikes is his own perception of them.

Liam is a boy who loves trucks, tools, pink, construction equipment, trains, fire trucks, girl clothes, playing in water, pumpkins, fires, Popsicles, cooking, baking, riding his bike, the beach, dirt, sand, wearing his sister’s pink light up shoes, escalators, and elevators.

These are mostly boy things and Liam seems to be naturally drawn toward the masculine. But he is equally unapologetic about his affinity for feminine things. Liam takes a circus arts class and one day he chose to wear Claire’s pink satin shorts and her pink Ugg boots to the class. Laura, his therapist let him (and, I suspect, encouraged him to) wear these items because he just really wanted to. I picked him up from this class and when I got there is when I saw what he had on. Laura and I joked around about it, but most important of all, Liam was just so proud of what he was wearing. In his mind he wasn’t making a statement or bucking a trend. He just saw something he felt was novel and interesting to him and he felt special wearing it without any perception that pink is a girl color. Liam and I walked hand in hand from the studio down a busy Portland street to the car. At first I didn’t even realize that he was turning peoples’ heads but when I saw that people were staring at him, I surprised myself by not being self-conscious. In fact it was at that moment that I realized that Liam was helping me not care what anybody else thinks, just like he doesn’t care. I was proud of him (and a little proud of me).

Liam loves other kids and is always interested in what they are doing. He is not socially adept, partly because his lacking language skills hold him back and partly because he is just really unaware of the subtleties of human interaction. At a playground if Liam sees a group of kids playing basketball and he gets interested in it, he will just run into the middle of the game as if to say “Here I am. Can I play?” Even though he doesn’t have the slightest idea of how to play basketball. Interestingly, the other kids are usually too puzzled by this to be hostile toward him.

We all went to a potluck at Claire’s school for her last day of kindergarten. There were kindergarteners all around who were all more socially advanced than Liam. He was having a good time on the playground with the other kids, climbing trees and playing in the dirt. Then he noticed a group of older kids, first grade boys in another area of the playground. He grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward them saying “Friends? Friends?” I suddenly became aware that he was aware that this was more of a peer group for him. He is the one who decided this. No one had ever taught him to play with kids his own age and gender. I said “You can go over there if you want.” He walked over to the group of boys and started talking. I stood back and watched. When Liam talks, most people can’t really understand him. He says words and sentences but it doesn’t come out as normal speech. The boys looked at him puzzled at first and tried to ask him some questions but it was quickly clear to them that Liam was a little different and had some challenges, and they were cautiously curious about him. This was cut short as the boys were called to line up to go back in to class. To the boys’ amusement, Liam fell right in line with them. I went over to get him. “Time to say goodbye to your friends, buddy.” I said.
“Bye friends.” Said Liam.

So Liam’s lack of awareness of social norms got me to thinking, “Is this a deficit or a gift?” He clearly has limits in how he can interact with people, but these limits allow him to make his presence and desires known in ways that may be intimidating for most people. If I were to go to a party where I didn’t know anyone but had a strong desire to interact with the people there, I couldn’t just interject myself right into the middle of a conversation (at least not before several beers). I would try more subtle, learned, socially acceptable ways. Since Liam doesn’t have those filters, he can just insert himself into a situation without anticipating rejection. He just assumes that everyone wants to play with him. If he doesn’t get a desired response from someone, he will move on. He doesn’t take it personally and it doesn’t deter him from trying again another time. There are people who have embraced him and others who could not deal with him. For us it would be a gamble, but for Liam there is no ego attached to it.

This has also made me wonder about Liam’s future. We had a Sonrise program instructor come for a few days to do some training with us for Liam’s program. Her name was Suzanne and she was a very warm, open person. After the training I was driving her to the airport and we got o talking. I said, “You know, I really worry about Liam’s future.”
“In what way?” She said.
“Well, there is a chance that he may always have the challenges he has now, I hope not and I think not, but if he does, he is the perfect victim and we won’t always be there to protect him.”
“I would challenge you not to think that way. It’s dangerous.”
I thought, “What? Isn’t it more dangerous not to be realistic?” “What do you mean?” I said.
“All thoughts actually have energy. If you keep negative thoughts, that energy can make those negative thoughts come true. The same is true with positive thoughts. When you think of Liam you have to realize that he has already shown that he is perfectly capable of taking care of himself.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Look at the people Liam has brought into his life. He has known what he needed from the day he was born, from before he was born, and he has you and Angie and Claire and all these wonderful people in his life here to help him. Do you think that was an accident? I believe that Liam will always bring the people into his life that he needs whether he is disabled or not. We all do when we are open to it. Liam couldn’t be more open to it.”

I still think of those words any time I am feeling anxiety about Liam’s future and it really helps set my mind at ease. It also makes me think about human nature in general and how ironic it is that it is human nature to progress, and invent, and innovate, and expand our societies to the point where we create artificial barriers to the very nature that compels us to create them. Liam’s disengagement from those barriers is the thing that makes him free to be a human in purest form. It’s not always easy for him or for us, but I have to envy him just a little.