Kentucky Fried Fuck Off

We are on our way to a sleepover at Grandma and Grandad's (the self same alleged grandparents who left us homeless by evicting us with one hours notice on that fateful St Patricks Day The Boy received his diagnosis).

I am not looking forward to this at all, and one doesn't have to be spiderman for the senses to tingle that he is not looking forward to it.  I am concerned; not that he will misbehave, not that Autistic Boy will take over; I am concerned that the stress of being back in this environment will prove too much for him and cause him to enter shut down.  I am prepared to leave very quickly.  We approach the door and enter.  He is, as ever, a star.

He is exquisitely behaved; polite, divine, endearing, loveable.  Everything he is and all that he can be. His charm is set to high.  We attend a showing of Peppa Pig's Party at the theatre. He joins in, asks intelligent questions, dances and thanks Grandma and Grandad for bringing him.

We start the journey home, which progresses relatively well until we reach the stop we need to get on to our homeward bound train. A notice tells us services have been suspended due to engineering works.  We had not factored this in to our plans.  Usually fastidious in my checks, this has passed me by.

The Boy is becoming increasingly irritated at the thought of not getting home.  A Sunday trade off that we have is, in exchange for him sitting to do his homework with no fuss, an hour playing on the Wii.  He is now, having completed his homework at Grandma and Grandad's and been delayed from the treasured treat by several hours, increasingly desperate to get home and play.

We all know this isn't going to go well, right? It didn't.

I suggest we go to KFC's to get him some of their variant forms of chicken testes.  He is not interested, but he is persuaded.  We go in. I bring him to a table.  Immediately, he shouts "for fuck's sake, why are we here?"

Eyes turn towards us.  I'm not particularly concerned; I'm used to this, and it doesn't embarrass me. I settle him with his sister and The Ex, and go to order. 

The queue is extremely long.  There is a man dithering about chicken at the front of the queue.  It has taken him several minutes to order very little.  I can see The Boy becoming slowly more agitated, and Lid is beginning her slow "poke poke" of him to solicit a reaction.  The Ex is struggling to contain them.  After what seems like an age, I am finally served.  I return to the table.

Faces like thunder look back at me. The Ex has partially turned his back on The Boy, for kicking him.  I muse to myself how little he "gets" this; that there is always going to be a trade off for going out at all, he just isn't usually there to suffer the consequences.

We eat. Ever so slowly, The Boy starts to stim gently.  He is tapping at the table, and making his "brrrrrrrrr, brrrrrrrrr" noises.  The Ex tells him to be quiet.  I attempt to distract him, but I know it is utterly futile.  I whisper to him, gently; I hold his hand and tell him to squeeze it.  Nothing is going to work.

It has been a long and tiring weekend for The Boy. He needs to release it and, as it happens, he's quite happy to do that in a public place.

He starts to swear, kicking and punching me.  I speak gently to him.  He can't hear me.

I become very aware that everyone's eyes are staring in our direction.  There are mumbles of how I am a bad parent; there are loud tuts and rolled eyes.  Can't I control him? What sort of a child is that?  Someone makes the mistake of saying that we are a god-less family. 

I flick my eyes up, and look directly at the perpetrator.  I speak, slowly, but loud enough for everyone to hear "You know, I was always under the impression that god was a forgiving sort; not one to judge children, especially disabled children. Maybe you're right about your retribution nonsense, because you have the ugliest baby I have ever seen. It should come with a warning."

I am gathering pace as I gather together my children and belongings.  Loudly, I tell The Boy that the diners have more than enjoyed the show of watching the disabled child have a meltdown, and that it is time for us to leave.  As we make our move towards the door, I see a middle aged woman rolling her eyes at us. 

I ask The Boy to wave at her and shout goodbye. Which he does.

Things do not improve whilst we wait for the train; if anything, they get a little worse.

The thing that you learn when you are parenting special children is to stop being embarrassed for you; to stop being embarrased for your child and to start feeling really embarrassed for those ignorant enough to stare; those who pass judgement and comment as if it is their right.  You get to the point where you stop feeling you have to justify their disability; you stop caring what everyone else thinks and you can just focus on what you're doing and making a passage out.  And it's right around then that you can confidently tell people to fuck right off; not as a reaction to your child's behaviour, but as a reaction to them invading your privacy.