Summmmertime, and the livin' . . . (Part 2)

For the most part, our summertime this year been easy. But there's a final verse to Gershwin and Heyward's tune that has resonated mournfully across the season:

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky.

But until that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy and mammy standing by.

This summer has been marked by that excruciating reality that no matter how watchfully we stand by, there is still the chance that something will go horribly wrong before our kids take to the sky.

Every week there seems to be a new version of every parent's nightmare: losing a child because you allowed him walk a few blocks alone in one of the safest neighborhoods in the city, or sent her to summer leadership camp on an idyllic island in one of the safest countries in the world, or let your adult child exercise his right to live independently, even if that meant living on the street. The names that accompany these losses are specific: Leiby Kletzky, Utoya, and Kelly Thomas.  But the loss in every case has in it something mythic: the theft of a child, the slaughter of the innocents, the parent who outlives their progeny.

Our girl wants so desperately to be able to go out on her own, down the block to the corner store or around the corner to the newsstand to buy her favorite spearmint gum. This summer we have taken the small step of letting her go on her own from a cab into the building where her summer technology class is, but we are far from letting her head out onto the streets alone.

Last week a colleague and I were talking about how I was spending my summer — camped out on the Upper West Side having meetings or working on my laptop while our girl takes her technology workshops. We live just far enough away that it doesn't make sense for me to drop her off, go home or to my office, and come back to get her later. When my colleague asked how old our girl is, I shared that she's thirteen.

Without a pause, he went on to tell me about how years ago he let his seven-year-old walk to the bus on her own in the East Village, and take the bus across town to her school.  He said he would trail her down the street far enough away that she didn't notice him, but that he had to let her go on her own.  That, he told me, was the same year that six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared in our neighborhood. His daughter, now forty, was a schoolmate of Etan's. As with Leiby Kletzky, Etan had begged to go out on his own, and the day he went missing was his first time out alone. Unlike Leiby, Etan has never been found.

I took my colleague's comment to suggest that the world is a scary place but that perhaps I should be giving a thirteen-year-old more freedom.  Perhaps, as with the super-safe playgrounds that seem to promote anxiety disorders, that there is more danger in our levels of caution than there would be in having more faith in our kids and in our neighbors.

But somehow we're not there yet.  We're still daddy and mammy standing by.


The copyright for the lyrics to "Summertime" is held by © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., EMI Music Publishing. Used here under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law.

Summmmertime, and the livin' is . . .

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Oh, your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby,
Don't you cry.

—Gershwin and Heyward*

Full-on summertime has arrived at Autism's Edges and this year the livin' is easy. And not because our girl's daddy's rich, or her mama good lookin'.  This year the livin' is easy because, for the very first time since our girl was diagnosed, we've found a summer activity that works brilliantly for her.

If you've been visiting Autism's Edges over the years, you know that we've tried a lot of things: day camps, inclusion programs, and horseback riding therapy camp. For the most part,"camp" has been a word associated with misery. With experiences that ranged from mixed to awful, in the past two summers we had opted to go with Camp Dad, using the summers to hone some math and reading skills, but missing out on the essential peer social skills activities that camp settings provide. For spectrumy kids like ours, who don't have an extended school year (or the daddy who's rich or a mamma who's good lookin'!), summertime livin' isn't always so easy.

Electronic hand puppets. Facilitated

by Becky Heritage at the Tech Kids

Unlimited Workshop. The eyes lights up 

when you close the circuits.

But this summer is different thanks to the amazing work of Beth Rosenberg, and her teams of technology educators who put on week long Tech Kids Unlimited workshops. Last week our girl took part in a computer animation and electronic puppet workshop held at the Jewish Community Center on Manhattan's Upper West Side.  

And this coming week, she'll head downtown to Pace University for a video game design workshop.  In just one short week, twenty hours all totaled, workshop participants made electronic puppets and "bugs" where they learned about circuitry, and short animated videos where they learned the fundamentals of animated movement, as well as programs like iMovie and iStopMotion.

One of the secrets to the success of Beth's workshops is that she programs the week with some of the finest tech education talent in the city, including Becky Heritage, who worked with the kids on electronic puppets; Gabriella Levine, who worked with the kids on making "Blinky bugs," whose antenna cause their eyes to light up; and Ardina Greco and Mark Dzula, both of whom are doctoral candidates at Columbia University and art educators extraordinaire. Along with amazing volunteers, the ratio of adults to kids in the room is more or less one to one, which is the golden ratio for our girl.

The electronic puppets, facilitated by Becky Heritage, was the week's first activity, and one of my personal favorites: the eyes light up when you put the hands together and close the circuits. Seems the perfect metaphor for what happens with our kids in these workshops: help them put their hands together, close the circuits, and see their eyes light up!

Our girl made this short, but epic, film:

The Battle for Love on Vimeo.

For the first summer in a very long time, we've arrived at a feeling that Gershwin and Heyward captured . . .

One of these mornings

You’re goin’ to rise up singing


Then you’ll spread your wings

And you’ll take to the sky.

•   •   •

* Postscript: The show tune Summertime was written by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Dorothy Heyward, and DuBose Heyward. Don't you love the fact that like most great works of life and art, it was a team project? The copyright for the lyrics is held by © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., EMI Music Publishing. Used here under the fair use provisions of U.S. copyright law.