Rites of Passage, Milestones, and Lawnmowers

I have a love hate relationship with rites of passage and milestones. Most of the time I hate them. They remind me of how “behind” J is, or how he’s just not like every other kid his age. I remember going to playgroups watching some babies walk and talk at ten months, their mothers proudly boasting their prodigy child’s accomplishments and then going home thinking, “My baby’s smart too. I know it. He’s just not doing those things right now.”

Milestones, physical abilities, rites of passage. They’re all really big things. Some parents hold their children back in school so their kids can have an almost full year advantage over the other kids in their grade. You now have kindergartners who are starting off kindergarten at six years old, who will turn seven just before school ends. Many times it’s because parents are making sure their kids have that extra developmental advantage to try out for school sports. So they can run faster and jump higher than the other kids in their grade.

While kids like J are still just getting the hang of running and jumping.

There’s prom and preschool graduation, learner’s permits and driver’s licenses. All dictated by the forces that be that they will happen at predetermined times and places. It’s part of our culture. They make blockbuster movies out of these sorts of things.

When J was a toddler, I asked J’s early intervention preschool teacher for developmental milestone charts–the kind the therapists used to assess toddlers when they’re looking for problems. She gave me three–one was for emotional development, the second for physical development, and the third for social development. J was behind in every single area, gaps of missing progress all over the charts. I would spread these charts out on our dining room table every few weeks, long bar graphs of data stretched out under month and year ranges. I would take a highlighter and highlight any milestone (always months after the suggested range) when it happened. I never celebrated them like other parents did. How fun is it to say to another parent, “My kid finally put two word sentences together!” when that parent’s kid has long past graduated two word sentences and now rattling off imaginative stories with another peer? I never “celebrated” J’s milestones with anyone. I’d keep them to myself and pull out the highlighter, thinking, “now if we just can get him to do x, y, and z, then maybe we’d be a little closer to catching up.”

Milestones now don’t happen as quickly and diversely as they do at the toddler stage (saying 5 words, saying 10 words, drinking from a straw, jumping on one foot…). Many of the milestones you reach at this age are social/emotional. And I know he’ll be behind on those as well–because, autism.

But this weekend we had a milestone happen and I’m pretty excited about it. And I’m excited to let people know about it. Maybe it’s because “mowing a lawn” won’t show up on any developmental checklist. There’s no “right age” to mowing a lawn. In fact, this weekend, I learned how to mow the lawn for the first time.

Steve gave me and J the tutorial, showed us the parts of the mower. He explained the automatic mode and how the mower shuts off as soon as you let go of the handle. We’d tried this with J last year, but it didn’t work. The mower was too loud. It was too heavy to push. Ultimately J was terrified of it. Even with J’s sound-cancelling headphones we couldn’t get him to touch the mower for more than a few seconds. He didn’t have the strength even to push the lawn mower forward or sustain the attention needed to be safe. But this year was a different story. His body and brain decided they were both ready. And with supervision he did it! And I had one of those giddy proud mom moments–where he’s actually doing something another kid his age would be doing. It’s even more amazing for me to think–all those things I know about J that most people don’t when they watch him–how big of a deal this really is. How his brain is always in sensory overload and how he’s regulating that better. How he’s maturing now to focus better and respect the machine. And to see the confidence in his face when he’s doing it. And best of all NO HEADPHONES!

So here is my proud rite of passage moment. I present to you J and the lawnmower: