AUTISTIC MONKEY

‘John got ISS’, my son was quick to say as I walked in the door this afternoon.

‘Why?’, I asked. This was nothing new as his friend seemed to be getting into trouble quite often. At least it wasn’t as severe as the time when he threw a desk at a teacher last year, albeit at a different school.

‘He called us ‘autistic monkey’…as a joke’, he replied.

‘That’s stupid! You should go stick up for him and tell the AP that it was a joke’, I felt it absurd that someone should have to serve in-school suspension for a day as a result of a non-issue. There were bullies running around school tormenting other students, but teachers were more concerned with something they heard as part of a conversation, in passing. Completely out of context.

‘It won’t matter ‘cause he already served his time’, he explained.

I was still unclear as to how this came about and probed further. It turns out the three friends were sitting outside during lunch, discussing ‘something about life’ when John shot out with ‘Shut up autistic monkey!’. They all then broke into a laughter. It’s what teenagers do, I thought. And I recalled the times I would joke around as a teenager, way back ‘in the old days’.

‘Don’t use ‘autistic’ as an insult’, a teacher who happened to be passing by saw them laughing and heard the ‘insult’. Clearly, they were not insulted. But it seems these days anything passes as an insult. And I wonder when did we lose that thick skin of defense? The one, when I was growing up, when as teenagers we said such things as ‘that’s so retarded’. My son informed me that also counts as an offense. When did we start taking everything so seriously, forgetting to laugh and smile along the way?

It appears that as time moved forward, we as a society moved backwards in certain respects. We have become too focused on every word that people say, using it against them any chance we get and which benefits us most. Sometimes it’s as simple as someone looking at us the ‘wrong’ way that causes us to call out injustice.

We often turn to social media to vent to strangers, when all we really desire is to have someone nearby listen and try to understand what we are going through. Except that those people are too busy with their own virtual friends to have time for us who are sitting right next to them.

Having grown up in an age before social media, I often wonder how my life would have been different. I also wonder how my children’s lives would be different had they not known of the Internet or being able to connect with people online. Arguments can be made for the good and bad in both cases.

Certainly, being able to form friendships with people on the other side of the world expands out social circle. But it can also cause us to lose sight of those people who live in our own cities, and especially in our own homes. Perhaps if we simply take a moment to ‘chill’, as my son tells me, instead of jumping to conclusions and seeing everything as an insult, we would all be able to live a more focused and fulfilling life.