Mafe Maria: Personal stories by autism parent mentor, Maria Stultz

I hope que no me jodas!

Thanks to a mini lecture a stranger gave Joaquin upon hearing that he never wants to go school, Bollo and I have been having several interesting conversations on the subject. The experience gave me a chance to gently open his mind and hopefully wiggle some beliefs that are stopping him from pursuing beautiful expansive opportunities at a great “unschooling school” we’ve been following for the last 12 months.

This morning he claims: I WILL NEVER GO TO COLLEGE! –his plan is to stay home making art and selling it on etsy (so we’ve been talking about what kind of dedication he needs to put on his project in order to produce the kind of art that will make him some money). And that got us talking about college being one of the happiest times in my life because of the independence, freedom, newness, variety, and all the universe of people I met. We talked about hormones, and how they’ll create change in him, will make his wings flap and see his parents with less shine than now, how he will want to fly out of the nest and stop receiving direction from us; he will want freedom and independence.

He wanted specific examples of this, and so I told him about the mildly challenging time I spent at home right after graduating, with my mom’s “get a job” energy upon me. Joaquin wanted to talk a lot about that, what it looked like, what it felt like. He shoots a few hoops on his basketball thing and after reflecting a bit tells me:

“I hope que no me jodas like Nani did back then.”

HA! HA! HA! If there is something I know for sure about this little man that currently lives with me is this: HE WILL FLY out of this nest (when he’s ready).

'I will never move out', signed by Joaquin on Feb 5, 2014

Yeah, right… ;)

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