What a difficult day. DH's birthday - I've been up since 3 am with baby. Am tired, hormonal and cheesed off. Pg with dc7. Four of our six children are autistic and at church on Sunday the most highly strung of them dropped his cake and was incredibly distressed. Group of people stood nearby laughed at him very heartily. DS shouted at them that it was funny, the ringleader said
'Oh yes it is!'
Everyone laughed even more and DS was distraught. He is really anxious and dislikes not being able to control situations. He's only 5 and as I said, very highly strung. We've been to other churches before and dc's SN issues have led to us being excluded. Our church is usually great, but I was utterly furious with this woman who has made snide remarks before. It's not common knowledge what our children's issues are, but it's obvious that something is different about them.
We emailed our pastor and his wife about it and they came to visit tonight. I was really annoyed that he brought his Bible with him and started reading passages about sin and forgiveness. I was cross because that part can wait, my son's needs come first. He didn't seem able to understand that it was irritating to sit and listen to a collection of verses about how St Paul says we are all sinners and how we need to forgive others in the same way that God has forgiven us.
Fine. But not at this point. I told him that what she had done was horrible and in effect constituted a hate crime and that I planned to make her aware of this. He was worried about this creating unpleasantness and being inflammatory. That's when I got really annoyed. I told him that I thought that was completely unfair, since it meant that her needs came before my son's (in that she wasn't offended by being told what her behaviour amounted to).
My attitude and response was that this is basically tough. She has the life experience and maturity to deal with this, my little son who was upset all day Sunday does not. We clashed quite badly and my asthma started to play up and so I called and end to the conversation. I think I've offended him, but surely if God sent me my son then it's my duty to protect him rather than be guided by passages on forgiveness. I also think I caused offence when I said that many other passages in the Bible could be applied to this situation, not just those which induce a level of passivity and which pacify people who are justifiably angry.
Also offended my DH as he didn't say much in support of my arguments. I love going to Church. I just love my children more. I know they can seem hard work, but they are largely misunderstood. If you've got to the end of this then I salute you. Just had to write it down.