The Very Public Eye

I took Ben to grocery shop at the local super center last weekend, and, unfortunately, noticed the same thing I usually notice: the staring.  It wasn't very bad that day, as he didn't throw any tantrums, but it did happen.  And it did bother me.

Walking through the parking lot holding my hand and sitting in the grocery cart with a juice box, Ben usually looks just like a non-Autistic kid.  He doesn't stim (flap or rock repetitively).  He smiles and talks and tells me which groceries he likes and which he doesn't. 

Sometimes, when the bustle and noise of Wal-Mart are just too much for him, he shrieks and throws tantrums or puts his hands over his ears and cries, but that isn't what happened this time.  On this particular day, he hummed.  Mozart and "Peter and the Wolf".  Loudly.  Throughout the whole entire store.  And he pretended the bananas were musical instruments.

People did stare, both at Ben and at me.  I suppose, if you aren't familiar with Ben and have never encountered a pre-schooler who loudly hums classical music while pretending a banana is a flute, that you might take a second look.  I might take a second look.  Heck, there was a woman there with a large blue and pink weave that was pretty startling, and I certainly took a second look at that, but I didn't stare at her until she left the aisle.  And when I saw her again five minutes later, I didn't stare again the entire length of the aisle.  It's not polite, and while I am hardly Miss Manners all the time, I know how uncomfortable it is to be stared at and I try to be mindful.  What people wear or what their kids do really is their own business.

Thankfully, Ben doesn't seem to notice, but that doesn't make it all right to do it.  He is a child.  And while he may not be infatuated with Spider Man and doesn't sit in the cart clutching Buzz Lightyear, he likes what he likes and those things just happen to be musical instruments.  It might be a little odd for a four-year-old to be immersed in pretending to play a bassoon, but it's not a harmful interest.  And the humming of Mozart may have been a bit loud at times, but we weren't in a library and he did not scream or get upset one single time.  I would not think a thing about it except that people stare.

And, really,  I still don't.  We nurture that interest, just as we would if it were soccer or dirt bikes or Buzz Lightyear.

This is when that "Didn't your mother teach you not to stare?" T-shirt would really come in handy.