Saturday, my friend Sharon called. She’s an old friend from college, we talk a couple of times a year. She and her family are coming to our area Easter Sunday weekend, and she was going to stay at our house. When I spoke with her last week, she thought that maybe our family and hers (she has two teens) could do something in New York together. I said I’d have to figure out an activity that would work for all of us, as Max didn’t like anything too noisy or crowded and sometimes wigs out.
So, she called back Saturday to say that she was probably going to stay in a hotel, and then we could maybe do an activity near our home. “You have enough stress already, you don’t need us at your house,” she said. Then she told me she’d been reading my blog, and she loved a recent video I put up with my little girl singing on our porch swing, Max sitting beside her. “He looks so happy!” she said, her voice full of pity. “You can tell he’s such a happy little boy!”
Those words make me cringe.
I know she means well, obviously. And Max is a cheerful kid (even when he’s getting OT, as he is in this photo). But whenever anyone says “He looks so happy!”—and people say it all the time—to me it’s like they’re basically saying, “It’s a good thing he’s happy because look at how much is wrong with him.”
Sometimes, I’ll catch people staring when Max drools. That’s when I get the Pity Stare. Which can make me feel even worse than the Pity Comment.
I know exactly what my problem with pity is. It makes me hyper-aware that Max has special needs, and that I am not like other moms out there. And I just don’t need to be reminded of that.
Have you experienced the same?
Ellen blogs daily over at To The Max.