My Boys Dont Need To Change Society Does

my boys don’t need to change

society does imagine being 20 years old

giving birth to your first child a

beautiful baby boy

curly hair rosy red cheeks absolute

perfection

it feels good right imagine after 18

months being told that he’s a test deck

imagine at 21 years old a single mom

having a second perfect beautiful baby

boy the image of his big brother

to be told after nearly two years that

he is also autistic

two gifts with their two gifts

how common is it to have two autistic

children

based on a recent study by the american

academy of pediatrics

approximately 10 percent of families

will have more than one child with

diagnosed asd

now imagine how you would feel when you

read from research that the average life

expectancy for these two beautiful

boys is only 36 years of age

just how would that fail

imagine the horror when you read on to

find out that this is because

of what society imposes upon them both

how you have to suppress how they have

to suppress themselves so much

just to fit in this needs to change

and it will change hi

i’m yumi hardy and welcome to my ted

talk those two beautiful boys

they are my beautiful boys mason and

noah

all of what i just talked about that is

my life

i am part of that ten percent i’m here

today

standing in this red dot for my sons

my boys don’t need to change society

does

we can’t start a fire without a spark so

today

i am that spark let’s go back

to february 2017. the 17th to be exact

i had just turned 20 the week before and

now i was in hospital being handed the

greatest gift of my life

my first son mason a curly haired

bundle of pure perfection his dad and i

were overjoyed

completely in love and completely over

the men

being a mom was definitely my calling

the months passed and mason continued to

grow

all was well up until he was around 18

months old

i noticed mason’s lack of speech mason

didn’t try to say

mama or dada he was silent while inside

i was screaming

every day was a battle of willingham to

say something

anything but no words ever came

i was internally crumbling i did what

any other parent is told not to do

and googled my concerns obviously

autism was the constant word that kept

reappearing

mason was ticking a lot of the boxes

mason lined up any object in the house

he could find

he color-coded the baubles from our

christmas tree and i remember being

mesmerized by what he was doing

in fact so much so i even went to get my

mom to show her exactly what he was up

to

he used to spend a round and a round

sometimes for an hour

and he loved routine from a young age

i had to explain our plans day to day in

advance to mason

otherwise he would most definitely fall

out with me

i voiced my concerns to my health

visitor who quickly referred him to

where he needed to be

mason went to speech and language

therapy but didn’t partake in any

activity

getting mason’s attention for long

periods of time can be difficult

so the speech therapist definitely had

her work cut out for her

a couple of months before mason’s second

birthday he began to talk

completely on his own his first words

were colours but not just your standard

blue or red no mason was saying things

like

cyan and burgundy how did he even know

this was beyond me

mason started talking from that point on

and has never stopped since

he’s constantly telling me facts about

microsoft windows

or when the first driver was invented

mason taught himself to read soon after

his second birthday

mason taught himself spanish before he

turned free

he taught himself to play songs such as

twinkle twinkle little star on his

keyboard

and one day we were driving past the

transmission tire and out of the blue he

says

look mummy it’s the eiffel tower

that’s just a brief insight into his

wonderful mind

mind blown right mason was officially

diagnosed with asd in november 2019.

for a moment time froze i cried

a lot of tears with the doctors not

because i was ashamed

or anything of the sort because i was

afraid of the world that we live in

and what exactly that would mean for my

son

mason is the most innocent selfless

loving little boy who thinks that a

stranger he meets in the street is his

absolute best friend forever

as his mother i worried about things

like education his relationships outside

of our family

and even silly things like would he ever

become a father himself

in november of 2017 the 13th to be exact

i had just been blessed with another son

my beautiful noah

throughout my pregnancy with my second

son the boy’s dad and i ended our

relationship

so i was now facing this motherhood

thing of my own

scary but i was determined

was the image of his big brother he was

a smiley baby

he loved to dance and was always

giggling

noah worried me a lot quicker than mason

did when it came to milestones

noah didn’t ever wave he didn’t point

and he never spoke

again i went to my health visitor and

noah has also been referred to where he

needs to be

however with koved things have not been

moving as quickly as he did with his

older brother

and he is still yet to receive his asd

diagnosis professionally

but being here before i know in my heart

without an official piece of paper

that noah is also autistic

people say that having a non-verbal

child means you never know what they are

thinking or feeling

but that couldn’t be further from the

truth i know just by looking at noah’s

eyes

when he feels anxious upset or if he’s

happy

those big bright eyes tell me absolutely

everything i need to know and more

after all our eyes are the windows to

our souls

and this is most definitely the case

with noah

we still communicate this way because at

this present moment in time

noah isn’t able to have a conversation

or explain what he wants to be verbally

but as i stand on this red dot today he

has started to try and communicate with

words

and loves nothing more than singing his

alphabet on repeat

he is so proud of himself each and every

time that my heart could burst

people used to say that noah would never

talk yet now he’s singing

i always knew that noah would talk that

he would do it whenever he was ready

imagine a world where you have to time

picking your son up from nursery

to be the last parent in the queue

because his nursery teacher is

constantly telling you that he is

disrupting the class imagine a world

where your son’s nursery teacher asks

that he be picked up one hour after you

drop him off

yes one hour imagine your son

coming home from school and telling you

that no one wanted to play with him

today

and how that makes him feel upset well i

don’t have to imagine it because it

happened to us

mason wasn’t treated equally mason was

treated like an outsider

oh your son is different we just don’t

know what to do with him

you’re right my son is different and the

most beautiful of ways

what if teachers were trained to accept

children for who they are

to embrace their gift what if teachers

had empathy

let’s fight for a world where this

becomes the new normal

let’s not accept one of our sessions or

remarks about our child

let’s fight for all of our children’s

rights each child is beautiful in their

own way

and each child should be included

imagine going into a supermarket your

autistic child having a meltdown due to

the noise of the crowds

imagine other shoppers staring

whispering

shaking their heads and giving dirty

locks in your direction

again i don’t have to imagine that it

happens to me all the time

i have had people judge me because i’m a

young mom and i should be able to

control my child

i’ve had people judge me because i must

be a bad parent

otherwise my child wouldn’t misbehave

what if people took a step back stepped

back and instead of a dirty luck

how about a reassuring smile how about

for one minute thinking

i don’t know what’s going on there i

don’t walk that path

when my son is having a meltdown he

isn’t misbehaving

he is having sensory overload give him

some space

accept him encourage him

shops should all have autism friendly

times all shops

instead it’s a case of this being a big

deal if a shop has it in place

this shouldn’t be the case it should

become the norm

do you see how the world is it’s not

made for boys like mine

judgment is constant imagine a world

where autism

was accepted without any negative

connotations

society expects people with asd to

suppress who they are just in order to

fit into their world

but what about just accepting their

gifts

the likes of albert einstein isaac

newton thomas jefferson

andy warhol lewis carl and mozart were

all said to be autistic

and only just recently elon musk

well just imagine we as a society

suppress these brilliant minds

we need to start embracing the gift of

autism

my sons shouldn’t have to reach their

36th birthday and think

i’ve made it the biggest cause of death

and autistic people is depression

why because they feel so exhausted and

so not worthy of day-to-day life because

of what society tells them

to do well i’m here to tell any autistic

person

listening to this speech including my

two sons

don’t fit in stand out be who you are

because your gifts are worth sharing

with the world and i also say this

i’m so sorry that we are still living in

a world where this is still an issue

but i will fight for the rest of my life

to help make a change

please if you’re listening join me in

this fight

i want a world where i can grow old with

my two sons

i want a world where people with asd are

treated just like everyone else

instead of being so quick to judge as a

society we should be quicker to help

spread love and treat people with

kindness mason and noah

thank you for choosing me to be your

mummy thank you both for teaching me to

look at the word through your eyes

and even a few bits of spanish here and

there you have both taught me so much

and are the absolute loves of my life

what could

you do today to be part of that change