Front Seat Connections

There we sat together in the car, Dawson and me, enjoying a newfound experience.

At 11 years old, Dawson had recently met the height and weight requirements to safely ride in the front seat. This was only his second time sitting beside me, but I already noticed something different about these drives. The conversations felt easier. More open. More like we were just two people moving through the same moment together.

Maybe it was because we weren’t separated by a seat behind me. Maybe it was just part of him growing up. Either way, I found myself really appreciating this short drive home.

That afternoon, Dawson had come with me to my office to help for a bit. We were on our fifteen-minute drive home through town, his favorite songs playing through Spotify. He was picking them one by one, completely content, mostly quiet as he listened.

About halfway home, he turned to me and asked a question I wasn’t expecting.

“Mom, is it hard to raise a child who has autism?”

It caught me off guard.

Not because I had never thought about it before, but because I wasn’t expecting it from him. His tone was calm and curious, like he was trying to understand something bigger than himself, not asking from a place of worry.

I remember pausing for a moment.

As parents, you don’t always get much time between a question and your response. I wanted to be honest, but I also wanted my answer to feel safe for him to hear.

When I finally spoke, I told him yes. Parenting is hard in general, and this adds a unique component.

But not in the way a person might expect.

Yes, because parenting him has meant learning things I didn’t know I would need to learn. Things like preparing for changes in routine that can shift an entire day, helping him navigate social situations that don’t come naturally to him, and advocating in spaces where I’ve had to help others see him more clearly.

And as I was saying it out loud, I found myself realizing something in real time.

The hardest part of parenting a child with autism isn’t my child with autism.

At home, we know him.

We understand what his behavior is communicating, even when he doesn’t say it directly. We know when he’s getting overwhelmed before he reaches that point. We know the difference between “can’t” and “won’t” for him, even when it looks the same from the outside.

That understanding didn’t happen overnight. It was built over some hard years of learning together as a family. His dad, brother, Dawson and I have all adjusted and adapted in our own ways because we know what helps him feel grounded and understood.

Home has become a place where he doesn’t have to work so hard just to exist comfortably. He is understood, accepted, and loved exactly as he is.

The hardest part isn’t home.

The hardest part is helping him move through spaces where that understanding isn’t already there.

It’s wondering if people will take the time to really see him before making assumptions.

It’s hoping the adults and children who are in his life as well as strangers will recognize the full child standing in front of them, not just the moments when things are hard.

It’s knowing the world doesn’t always give him the same grace he experiences at home.

As I was thinking all of that, I also realized something else.

What stayed with me most wasn’t even the answer to his question.

It was the fact that he asked it at all.

Because he wasn’t asking if autism made his life harder.

He was trying to understand how his life impacts the people around him.

That kind of question says a lot. More than I think he even realized in that moment.

It showed curiosity. It showed empathy. And it showed me that he is already beginning to understand himself in a deeper way.

For years, we’ve helped Dawson understand the world around him. Somewhere in that drive home, I caught a glimpse of him starting to understand his place within it.

Is parenting a child with autism hard? Yes.

There are different layers to it. Different kinds of planning. Different kinds of worry. Different kinds of learning.

But what I hope he always knows is this:

The hardest parts have never been about who he is.

They come from wanting to make sure the world sees him the way we do.

And if that drive home taught me anything, it’s that he’s already becoming someone who is learning how to see himself clearly too.