DOD82: The Neurospice of Life

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Tom: Dear Old Dads, the family podcast that diverges from the norm. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:39 Thomas: Uh, yeah.

0:00:40 Eli: Feel like I've used that before. Ooh, woo, woo!

0:00:42 Thomas: I got no I'm, I just, we

0:00:43 Eli: Gotta do the...

0:00:43 Thomas: Simultaneously both realize we don't have anything for this bit, like, this is I know it's low stakes, but I don't have a normal human response to it. Like, how's it going on a podcast? I, uh, I'm doing well, Tom, how are you doing? Yeah, we've

0:00:46 Eli: Yeah.

0:00:55 Tom: Well, you could have told me that like 70 episodes ago. You know, like 70 episodes ago would have been the time to say, hey, let's

0:01:01 Thomas: Been covering it with humor this whole time. And then we ran out of jokes and then we're like, fuck humans,

0:01:05 Tom: Try a different intro. Yeah.

0:01:09 Eli: NP it up, guys. You know that thing that's awkward moment at every beginning of this American life where Ira Glass is like, I'm joined, of course, as always, by the wonderful and hilarious Tom Curry. Tom, Tom, welcome, welcome to the show. Right, like he just turned in the studio and saw them sitting there. We could do that, right? Or me and Thomas could complicate our names to the extent that everyone just sort of stays silent like a normal NPR reporter, right. Lakshmi Susing and everyone's like, yep, absolutely. As a white person, loved that. I understood it and I'm not going to say it wrong. So here's what happened in Yemen.

0:01:48 Eli: I'm just saying there's a lot of white fear on NPR. If you listen for it, there's lot of way. That was actually their original post colonic before news of the world was there's a lot of white fear here but they uh they turned it off and hey Tom. Tom, you know the only things worse than the white fear on NPR's collection

0:02:00 Tom: Yeah. Yeah is is it the awkward silence after that little bit? I think it's

0:02:07 Eli: It was, it was the awkward silence Thomas left, but second to that, second to the, that the only that ruins our podcast more than me is the auto ads. Yes, if you haven't heard one, one already, you'll be hearing one soon, podcast listener. These auto ads are the unskippable YouTube clips of our podcast. They're here to make sure that you never follow a thought or a sentence without a weird local shampoo commercial, at least in my case. But you can avoid avoid those shampoo.

0:02:35 Tom: Wait a

0:02:35 Thomas: Local, local, local shampoo,

0:02:36 Tom: A minute, there's such a thing as local shampoo?

0:02:38 Eli: Yes,

0:02:38 Thomas: Local shampoo in your area.

0:02:40 Eli: Yes, it's a New Jersey lady and she's she's, making like, she's like Bev's shampoo. You know, when you're washing your hair and you're like, Like, I don't smell like a dog that just done been groomed. Well, come on down to Bev's Shampoo. We're going to scrub -a -dub -dup, two men in a tub. Don't get me started on that story. Anyways, my ad will appear nine times in this podcast. So long! But you can avoid that. You cannot hear about Bev and her dog shampoo by going over to patreon.com/dearolddads and giving us as little as a dollar a show. Not only will you get an extended version of the show with a little parenting story at the end of every single episode, but but you'll also get a commercial-free version of the show. You'll hear the show pristine, prime, exactly the way it was intended to be heard. And did I mention you can use that RSS feed on any podcast player, except for Stitcher, because they just collapsed. Eat shit, motherfuckers.

0:03:35 Thomas: Finally

0:03:37 Tom: Told Eli, you, you recently got some news about Max.

0:03:41 Eli: Yes, I did. So I am very excited and very pleased to say that I no longer need pussyfoot around. My son has his official and medical autism diagnosis. Yeah.

0:03:52 Thomas: Oh, was that Darth Vader? Oh, no, it's a crowd. Okay. I was like, did he have autism? I did. Yeah. Now that makes sense, actually.

0:03:59 Eli: Yeah. No, Darth Vader Vader would Luke, my arm feels weird with this material. Is there like a shirt that doesn't feel awful I could wear?

0:04:16 Tom: Luke, I've memorized the train schedule in London.

0:04:20 Eli: Honestly, I'm so glad that people with autism don't have forced choke powers, because many of the autistic people in my life would have killed me by the chewing sounds I make alone. Like, I know for sure I have been forced thrown by my babysitter long ago I

0:04:30 Thomas: Oh, yeah.

0:04:31 Tom: Wait a minute Now, I We, I don't want to derail here, but are you an open mouth chewer, Eli Bosnick?

0:04:39 Thomas: Mouth is as open as his cabinets, apparently. Picture his mouth as a kitchen that he's in charge of.

0:04:44 Tom: Please, please, like, I, I'm about to find out if I'm losing a friend is what's happening right now, here on air.

0:04:50 Eli: Yeah, Well, Buckle in, man, get ready for some fucking we all became from stardust moment, because it's interesting, this is actually a perfect metaphor for the autism, right? Because the most autism in my family starts with Anna's grandfather, who you can find videos of on the internet, and he's like a concentrated autism you spray into a room to, like, disable everyone for a bank heist, all the way down to my son and his current diagnosis, that's true of my family and chewing with your mouth open. My grandmother might as well have put food in her mouth, opened, opened her mouth as wide as possible, and then punched that food to liquid with her bare hands, and then swallowed it. And now here I am on the bottom of the evolutionary chain, definitely still chewing with my mouth open a little bit.

0:05:04 Thomas: Wow.

0:05:22 Tom: No, don't be that.

0:05:34 Eli: To chew with my math closed, Tom, and it feels insane. It feels like I'm doing some kind of weird face the whole time, like I'M PRESSING MY LIPS TOGETHER IN DESPERATE HOPE THAT A MOUSE I'M TRYING TO KILL IN THERE WON'T GET OUT. So, yeah, I, you know, I am who I am.

0:05:46 Tom: I had an assistant at one of my jobs, that, that I had the job before I had last, I had this guy named John, and was hired as my assistant, and he officed inside my office, so I had a fairly big office, had room for two desks in it, within, and the first week I was like, all right, John, there's a new rule, you are not allowed to take lunch in this office, like, because you can't keep your mouth shut while you eat, and I can't work with you right now, like, I can't, like, you're just not allowed to be in here while, if you want a snack, you need to leave the room. It was so much, it was so fucking bad. What?

0:06:17 Thomas: Wow. Well,

0:06:18 Eli: Yeah, the first couple episodes of GAM, I think it's the first 10 or 15 I eat during the show. Like, Like, if people listen back, I ate on the air.

0:06:25 Tom: The fuck what what what

0:06:29 Eli: I would just, like, have a thing. I had a big container of peanuts. And then Heath and Noah were like, it's actually the craziest thing that you would actually think that's fine. It's the craziest possible thing.

0:06:23 Thomas: Yeah. I remember that yeah

0:06:30 Tom: Are you doing that

0:06:38 Thomas: It is he's not wrong, yeah.

0:06:39 Tom: Is Insane that is

0:06:41 Eli: No if you listen in the early episodes, I'm like, occasionally I'll come in for a joke being like, oh yeah, so what I think is, and that's because Noah and Heath are just working till four in the morning to cut out my chewing sounds. I

0:06:55 Tom: Is that because you had never, uh, ever heard a production of anything in your life before, that you thought that this would be okay, like, what, what world?

0:07:03 Eli: Figured maybe they were eating. I ate a bowl of soup on air once, and I've, I really I I thought Noah was gonna kill him.

0:07:05 Thomas: Tom, there are some people who just were raised with a certain self-esteem where they're like, oh, I shouldn't be making mouth sounds, and never now, now,

0:07:12 Tom: Bowl of soup. This is all this episode is about now.

0:07:19 Thomas: You're making this up. Yeah.

0:07:20 Tom: I

0:07:18 Eli: No,

0:07:20 Thomas: Yeah. No way.

0:07:21 Eli: Will call no illusions in as a special witness.

0:07:23 Thomas: Hold

0:07:23 Eli: Yeah, because he did like an intervention on me, he was like, hey man, um, we talked about the peanuts, and I, I want to be clear that it wasn't about the texture of the food, um, I was listening over your, your audio, and you sort of do, like, a right.

0:07:39 Thomas: On. Oh yeah. Yeah. So this was the like, oh, you, you don't want to crunch in the mic. So you're like, I got it.

0:07:43 Eli: That's what I thought it was. I was I was like, so

0:07:44 Tom: You went to slurping. You, you thought slurping would be an improvement. There's no defense here. What you,

0:07:48 Eli: In my defense, which is none, in my defense, I was, like, nothing quieter than soup. It's a liquid. It's the quietest food. It's that or marshmallows, and I can't have marshmallows.

0:08:03 Tom: Why? Okay. Cecil and I once years and years and years ago, the beginning of Cogdiss, we had this guy on that won some like atheist podcasting award and he came on and that fucking guy ate a bowl of cereal while we interviewed him about his pot. Yeah, absolutely.

0:08:05 Eli: Mm -hmm.

0:08:19 Thomas: No. Oh.

0:08:21 Tom: We ended that interview early and we We never answered another email that guy ever sent us again. That guy is as dead to me as an ex -girlfriend. Like he's gone. Like it does. It does not exist and will not exist again forever.

0:08:26 Eli: Ha, ha, ha. Mm -huh.

0:08:26 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Look, I, I know I probably have said this before there, Tom, I forget what you refer to your self -esteem as, but I think there are good reasons to not have too much self -esteem. I'll just say, I think there are, There are, there actually just heard a science -y thingy the other day in an article that was like, yeah, people who actually feel, um, about they do fucking bad shit, you know, like naturally their self -esteem is lower. It's like one of those obvious things, but you're like, well, yeah, but that's like you want someone to feel bad if they do something bad. Isn't that a pretty like key ingredient of society? Like you wouldn't want somebody to be missing that. But I think as a consequence, that means you're going to feel mad because like people mess up all the time. And so all this is to say, you know, you don't want to have the level of self -esteem that would have you eating soup on the air. That's all.

0:09:21 Tom: Yeah.

0:09:14 Eli: Mm -uh. I disagree. I disagree that soup was delicious.

0:09:24 Thomas: No, the cereal is. Oh, my God. Out. Number The of times that I do interviews, if you just do, if you just interview people you don't know from time to time, which I guess all three of us do really, that's of people who have no regard for, it's one thing I get called like, oh, but you're the audio stickler. Thomas, you're the audio sticker. You'll notice if there's a fly and And it's like, yeah, no, I get that. That's on me. I don't mind being the asshole and asking like, hey, just for me, because I want good audio. There's so much that's a dude eating cereal into the mic. And then someone's like God, Thomas and his audio, all he cares. Yeah, man, don't eat cereal into a mic on a show. I feel like that's not a me thing.

0:09:35 Tom: Yeah.

0:10:04 Eli: Yeah. Send out an email to new God awful movies guests. That's like, Hey, thanks so much for being on the show. This is what the show's about because sometimes, and I do mean more than friends, we've had people be like, so are we watching the movie? And I'm like, wow. So you just set aside a Sunday with no prior information, huh?

0:10:25 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:25 Eli: So we have this email, it's like, here's what the shell is and here's what we do. And the, like, technical specifications through trial and error must seem insane to a decent human being, right? Like, if you're a decent human being and you get our booking email, you must be like, hey, did you ever book, like, just a tiger? Because it seems like maybe a tiger is a previous guest right, you must have internet speed that allows you to speak, please do not attempt to log into the Zencaster call using

0:10:45 Thomas: Yeah oh my god sure

0:10:53 Tom: No

0:10:54 Thomas: To to argue with noah for that one by the way it was That's a real Thomas Jefferson, John Adam's moment with the internet speed stipulation of that, publication that, you that you guys did that, that little internet help. I imagine Noah really had to bargain you down into M BPS. You know, he's like, well, okay, hold on. We can't, no, no one has that amount of bandwidth. There's no way.

0:11:09 Eli: That yeah exactly right let's be realistic Yeah, but that, that email that we sent out to people is, is now, like, it went from like a cute little three paragraphs to like 97 paragraphs. One, one of the things that we had to put in recently was, and by quiet room, we do not mean a room in which someone else is watching television quietly, yeah fucking friends in the back Back to the autism So My son has autism, uh So anyways, back to that, uh, we finally had our appointment with a developmental pediatrician, you know, my son, and for those of you have been following along with this show, you have sort of followed along with his journey, uh, since Max was 18 months old. That's when we got him his first assessment because we noticed a little bit of a speech delay. EEI, early intervention, which is an incredible service, by the way, diagnosed him with that speech delay.

We got him speech therapy, which he has been in since he was 18 months old. We also got him occupational therapy and all sorts of other cool stuff that he works on, people to help him out in every way, shape and form. But we had not actually ever seen a doctor, right? Because to get a, um, diagnosis, you need either a developmental pediatrician or a childhood psychologist, um, it's tricky which one of those you want to go to because it depends on the services, um, yeah

0:11:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:31 Tom: Wait

0:11:46 Thomas: What were we even talking about? Okay.

0:12:41 Tom: A minute you you can can also get tiktok I think tiktak can also diagnose you

0:12:44 Thomas: Yep. Yep.

0:12:43 Eli: You can also get TikTok Yeah, no We tried giving him Tiktak and uh, he just threw it away and wanted to play with marbles some more, so yeah, that was on us. Um, we did that and finally got an appointment with a really, really amazing developmental mental pediatrician. And by the way, if you haven't been on the journey of, like, bad kind of half -assing at doctors and then had a good doctor, oh, my man, you love no one more in the world than a doctor who hears a sentence you just said and responds in kind. Oh, is there a better feeling? Is there better feeling in the universe than saying words and a guy being like, oh, no, I acknowledge the words you just set, and here's an answer to those words

0:12:44 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, OK.

0:13:10 Thomas: Oh God.

0:13:20 Tom: I'm going to need their number. There are none of those here in Illinois that I found.

0:13:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:20 Eli: Yeah. No you don't have any Chicago.

0:13:24 Thomas: I I need that. That, but for literally any job that anyone else does ever. It's

0:13:29 Eli: Got this amazing doctor. It was like a 10 month out appointment. And the lady was like, yeah, but you know, we do have cancellations so you can call and check. And I was like cool. How often do I call and cheque? And she was like what? I was like how often can I call in cheque if you have cancellation so that You will not be mad at me. And she was like, once a week. And so I just called her once a week's from three months ago, called her every single morning, Monday morning at 9 a.m. To the extent that she was like, hi, Eli, and I was like, hey, and she was like, I've got good news for you this time, and I was like, look at that.

0:13:42 Tom: Every hour, every half hour.

0:14:00 Tom: And I could have called you with that news, but I waited anyway for you to call Me. Me that's that's

0:14:01 Eli: So she knew she she knew she was getting the call, you know the

0:14:06 Tom: A good system

0:14:06 Thomas: I That question question from Eli of look, how often am I allowed to do this? You know, that famous scene in no country for old men where he comes in and it's just the gas station attendant. And Like, how what's the most you ever lost on a coin toss? And the guy has this creepy, horrible scene where he has no real idea of the stakes, but he kind of is figuring out. That's every time Eli has this interaction.

0:14:28 Thomas: So how many times am I allowed to call? And she has no idea.

0:14:28 Eli: Yep. What is the amount?

0:14:32 Thomas: She doesn't know. And she's like, well, what do you mean? I mean, like, what are you talking about? And that answer, if it was once a minute, Eli would have done that forever.

0:14:33 Eli: Yeah. Have done it. Absolutely. Yep. Just said a little thing and spark can't

0:14:45 Tom: But I Do I do have to return real quick to the to the weird immutable law that I guess phones at doctor's offices, the only ring in, they cannot ring out, they cannot it's impossible for them to do. It's yeah, it's, it I don't understand that phenomenon but it's

0:14:56 Eli: Ring out. It's actually physically impossible. Yeah. Yeah. Also, all of them have a menu that's recently been updated. All of them are like, please options have changed. If

0:15:03 Thomas: Oh, yeah. God, I'm so fucking sick of that.

0:15:03 Tom: Well That's because their call volume is higher than normal.

0:15:08 Thomas: Yeah, I was going to Add that. No way.

0:15:09 Tom: Oh. Yeah, yeah.

0:15:10 Eli: You're A doctor or pharmacy, go ahead and press one, because we'll answer your call like a human being. If you're a patient, fuck you. Are you ready for some wild ass options? If you need a pharmacy to come to your house and put you in a chair and then dunk you in the the water, press 37. If you know your party's extension, no, you fucking don't, anyways leave a message with this answering service, we'll get right back to you, I'm sure.

0:15:34 Tom: And we'll never tell you, even after we connect you, so you can't know it next time

0:15:42 Eli: We will. It's

0:15:42 Thomas: I Remember The one time I for some reason did know the party's extension, like one time in my life, and then I was like, wait, do I just, dot do I push those buttons, when do you do that, how do you do, I do.

0:15:53 Eli: So beautiful Yeah.

0:15:53 Thomas: I push it right away, I do, I push pound, what does that mean, enter it now, what like I just push it, like while you're talking, while the robot is talking, I just push it, I just pushed three numbers, is that, I've never figured out, honestly didn't get through.

0:16:05 Eli: Amazing would it be if the robot was like, wow, rude, you know. What now? I'm not going to connect you, it's

0:16:05 Thomas: True Yeah.

0:16:08 Tom: Have Have you, you guys have you ever conference called in two parties? Because they wouldn't, I, this the other day, I've, I've done this a couple of times trying to get services for Hayley recently, so but I had to get like some approval or some fucking number, I don't remember what it was, from my insurance company, they had to give me some fucking labyrinthine 46 digit alphanumeric combo, and they, like, I called them up and they're like, yeah, we can only give that to like the physician or whatever, the doctor, the pharmacy, whoever the fuck it was, I was like, oh okay, so I called up the pharmacy and I'm like, yeah I guess they can only give this number to you, and they're like, yeah we actually can't take that number from them, they have to have permission to talk to you, I was like, hang on a minute, and I'm just like, we're gonna do this, like, sir, we can't, I'm like, I'm putting you on hold, and then I called and I conferenced in the insurance company and the doctor, i'mlike hey you two chuckleheads, figure this out, we're on the phone right now, i'mike I got the insurance company, I gotthe doctor, and they were both like shocked, like nobody had ever solved this mystery before, they'relike well we put up literally impenetrable barriers and you just, nobody, uses the conference feature on the phone.

So it immediately was solved. Had another issue where they couldn't get anything done. And I was like, great, I'm going to get on the foam with the insurance company and drive to the doctor's office and hand them the telephone. And so I got on the bone and like, you have a 20 minute wait. And I'm like, cool. GPS says I'll be there in 21 minutes. I

0:17:25 Tom: Just hopped in the car, drove to the doc's office and they were like, okay, can we help you? I'm Like, yeah, I got my insurance company on the fun. This is Alan. Here you go, Alan. Talk to Jane. Can get anything done with these fucking assholes.

0:17:25 Eli: Perfect Yeah a lot of time you have to to do that kind of stuff, the, you have to jump through, like, again, often think about, like, what are the things that'll be crazy to try to describe to our kids, right? Great example is like buying drugs, right? You used to go to a guy's house you didn't know, and maybe sit in a car with him in a parking lot, and then you would give him money and he would give you weed.

Like, gonna be so hard, because our kids can go to the fucking Dispensatron 3000 and be like, well I really want to get Ooky Cookie, but it makes me a little too hungry, do you have have any Stinker Minker, and they'll be like, oh yeah, no, we just got Stinker Maker, and let's get you an eighth of that for fucking half the price, what Eli used to pay for a bag of seeds, but one of them will be like, because again, the generations are are so much earlier than they used to, like, it is only a matter of time before universal health care and sort of a cleaning up of the medical system in this country takes place, and I think in 40 or 50 years it will be impossible, impossible to convey to young people. Like, no, show a deductible. No, you

0:18:08 Tom: Oh, I

0:18:31 Eli: Got to listen. All right. That's the money you pay before they pay.

0:18:32 Tom: Hope you're right. I don't think you're You're right, though.

0:18:31 Thomas: God Yeah, this Is Eli also thinks there won't be gender in like three years. It's It's I I wish you, you were, were right.

0:18:38 Tom: I know.

0:18:40 Thomas: But it's Yeah, it's Just not Quite

0:18:38 Eli: I'm also, I'm nailing it. I've nailed it all so far. Everyone who argues with me on serious inquiries only turns out to be a right-wing lunatic and there won't be gender in three years. I'll just say, I back to the main story. So we get an appointment with this doctor and he is so wonderful. So listening. So one of the things that comes up in Max's assessments that has come up many times is like Max is capable. So incredibly capable, so smart, so brilliant, so wonderful, but like, if you don't want to do something, he's not going to do it. And in previous, um, they've been like, Max, stop doing that super chill thing you're doing over there.

Come put put these three blocks on this square mat. I know my son could put those three blocks on that square mat and do it backwards with his eyes closed. He doesn't want to. You're not motivating him. This doctor was the first professional, again, besides his speech therapist and his OT therapist and his other therapists who have been doing such an amazing job. This was the person who was like, hey, Matt, like ask the second time instead of just checking a box is like incapable of seeing squares.

0:18:47 Tom: My

0:18:50 Thomas: True. I Get back to the main story here.

0:19:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:43 Eli: Right. So Max did the full test and the doctor to just listen to what we had to say, answered our questions, also answered my concerns. So like one of the concerns that I've had throughout Max's life, because we didn't have a diagnosis and we've just been like neuro spicy ha ha ha, right, and sort of trying, because the other thing is like you don't want to put labels on a kid.

But as someone who doesn't have um this kind of disability in my household or in my family in other places, um, I'm pretty ignorant as to like what does it it mean to be autistic, right? Like we have lots of listeners who are autistic, but I've never been like, cool, so how did you rate on the child autism scale? I'm just trying to Get a little beat on my kid here, and I'm trying to figure out because you seem pretty tight and I just want to make sure. Oh, only A 28, huh? When my son scored a 30, so I'm not gonna count on him being as cool as you, right? So like there's just like a tremendous amount of education that I don't have, and like I read books, but again, books are written from wildly different perspectives, and and nobody's like, hey, but this is the book for Eli whose kid is exactly as autistic as mine is.

And of course the internet is filled with both horrible legions of bullshit lies, and also people who are just like, look, you're gonna have to understand one thing right now, your child will eat you if you fall asleep in front of him, okay, that's just a fact of life, all right, you gotta get yourself with it right now. Now let us pray. So, and this doctor was incredible about answering my concerns and alleviating my, for lack word, fears, right?

Because truth of the matter is, as we've realized Mac's delays over his childhood, I have had a lot of anxiety about like, know, I want him to have the best possible life. Kind of life is he going to be able to have? What are his social interactions going to look like? What is his working environment going to feel like? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. What is this schooling going to me like?

And this doctor was so incredibly comforting and realistic and empathetic with me. You know, it's so rare as a parent to get empathy, right? And I get why, right, when you're a medical professional, you kind of got a dragnet, just the facts, right. You can't really always cater to my insane, it needs to be exactly 70 degrees in his room, Jewish worries.

Stories he, but was incredibly wonderful at sort of explaining where Max is and what kind of therapies will help Max and things that we can do to help Max. And yeah, just a wonderful experience, and again, I, you, I aim to make this a comedy show, right. Goal My was to create a show where we come on and we tell like funny stories about parenting.

But I wanted to tell this story even though it's not necessarily like slap your knees hilarious, because I think when people get a diagnosis for their kid or hear about their parents getting a diagnosis, because this, again, I know that we have we autistic have listeners with autism, this sort of sad moment or this horrific moment or a moment of disappointment or a moment of shock or shame, or, you know, people go through all sorts of different emotions.

And I'm not shaming anyone for what they personally went through. But I want to share this experience because it was relief for me to know that sort of what's going on with my son, and also what the next steps were in helping him have the best, most happy life and the best most happy opportunities. And don't know, I think as a parent, a lot of the time when you're in these moments, you sort of feel like you need to have the right reaction, right? Right.

What is the proper reaction to have? What's the good reaction to have? Because, you know, you couldn't possibly be like disappointed or worried, that would be a bad thing, because then you would feel badly about your kid, and you're supposed to love your kid, and it gets into this really mixed up, horrible, emotional place. But I wanted to share it because I am excited at this new opportunity to help Max out.

I'm excited for all the shenanigans, the daily phone calls to come when it comes to getting him the the services he needs, but also to share the fact that like parenting, parenting Max always has been and always will be joyful, even and including this diagnosis, right? It is a part of who he is. Um, I said, the day I got the diagnosis, you, it was there, but it still hits heavy, right.

It is, it is, uh, it's a big moment where you get the final answer of like, yes, this is a thing. And this is something that your family's going to be dealing with moving forward. You know, you have those negative nagging thoughts. Will they have a normal life? Oh gosh, I want him to be happy. I want them to be happy.

I had a thought that really helped me, that really like blew the top of my head off, which is sort of like you suspect, right, that the the indelicate language when this thing comes up is, what kind of life is my kid going to have? Are they going to have a full and happy life? Right, the metaphor that I like to use is, um, ever have a friend who has really thick glasses, right, and you don't realize until

0:20:22 Thomas: Yeah. Have

0:20:29 Tom: Family

0:24:27 Eli: You try on their glasses that they have really thick classes, right?

0:24:31 Tom: Refers to that as dad. They

0:24:33 Eli: Exactly. Dad, right, exactly, and

0:24:34 Thomas: You seen the logo to our show, everybody? That guy.

0:24:37 Tom: Yeah I pay the premium so that my glasses don't look like Mr. Magoo. So So, yeah.

0:24:42 Eli: Well, But but when you have that moment with a friend, right, you say like, like, oh my gosh, you're blind as a bat, right? It's a fun moment. It's a non-moment between two friends, right, because that person always just wears glasses, right. You don't go like, oh, well, no, I'm sorry, Tom actually has pretty severe vision loss. But there's that heavy mood to it, right. You know, based on where your kid's diagnosis is or how your kid was diagnosed. And so having that thought of like, hey, we're just getting my kid some glasses, and my kid will have these aids, have these things that help him through his life so that he can have maximum flourishing, maximum happiness. And it will probably be when and how he chooses to share with people that they will realize he needs glasses in the first place.

We're not going to pretend he doesn't need glasses, right? We're not going have him bumping into walls and being like, such a clumsy kid. He's a big fan of the Western wall and the kissing of that, the old Jewish tradition, so that's why he's bumping in. You don't want to be in denial, but there is also a really, really important thing you can do for people in your life, which is when they have a disability, not making the things that will help them burdens.

Making them as normative as possible. I've used, use the metaphor in other places, you know, pick up your cane, pick up your crutches, but also put on your glasses. And I'm, I'm excited for this opportunity to help my son put on his glasses.

0:25:04 Tom: Right. Right.

0:26:11 Tom: Household, I can relate so much. Like I can really so much, and I don't, like I'm not super comfortable sort of divulging the specifics. But all, all of the people in my house are neurodivergent. So all of them have some amount of neurodiversity. They all have IEPs or 504 plans, one or the other, to help and aid them and provide them services. And a couple of things like really occurred to me, like right off the bat, when you're talking, and that is that like diagnosis that you got for Max doesn't change anything about what you already knew about Max, like you already knew Max, you knew his heart, you knew who he was, you, but the diagnosis isn't inconsequential either, because what the diagnosis does is it opens a door that allows you to better understand and get services.

0:26:44 Eli: Exactly. Mm-hmm.

0:26:57 Tom: So Max is doesn't change from that diagnosis. We already knew who Max was, you know, was no part of you. I'm certain that was surprised by this diagnosis. You weren't like, what's really like, Of course not. Right. I know this about you. Like, the diagnosis didn't change Max and that label, that label, diagnostic what it does though, is it does like a really important thing for you is it allows you guys to become educated.

And this is something that like, I've gone through the process of living in this house and trying to better understand and love the people that I, that I have in my home is it allows you to understand people and become educated, not just like medically on what's going on, but now you also have a label that lets you understand and research and read and hear the different experiences of people who have that diagnosis.

And then you can say, "Okay, I'm worried about what this is going to mean for Max and for the rest of his life, but I've read a hundred stories, or I've joined this support group, or I've looked a subreddit." Or I've read the research that includes like stories of people. It lets you connect like not just to like this diagnosis as like a series of like symptoms and ailments, like a medical thing, but it will let you connect also. And I'm sure you've already done this, but let you conect to a community now and

0:27:08 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:28:13 Tom: Not just of like the people who have that diagnosis, but people who are related to those people. And that, for me, has really helped me to understand and appreciate and empathize with the people in my home that have neurodivergencies.

0:28:27 Eli: Yeah. And I apologize because this isn't funny, but like, right um, after we got the diagnosis, everyone was like, Hey, there's this thing called the Friday group in your community that you should go to. And I was like. Oh, it's like a parent group for that. Like, I don't know about socialization and what if we don't live in the right thing? Literally one of the thoughts I had was like, what if Max isn't autistic enough? And they're like, you get out of here with your fucking, your kid talks, you piece of shit. This gold bricker walks. And I was like I'm so sorry. But I went and it was truly short of like the conventions where I have gotten to meet listeners. It was one ofthe most wonderful rooms I've been in. Like I had no bits, right? Right. Me and Anna got in the car afterwards and I was like, well, that was better than our wildest dreams of a supportive community.

0:29:10 Tom: Oh, hell yeah.

0:29:11 Eli: Right. And she was like. Right. And I was, like, cool, that ruled. And the woman who founded it, Alma, who is so sweet, like founded this group because she was a 20-year-old mother and these resources didn't exist. She had nobody to talk to. Facebook didn't even exist. And so she just started this thing and, like, you see how much it means to people and how much help people get from it and it's just, again, like, I, I cannot, it's not funny and I apologize, but it's just, I cannot express how grateful I am to live when I do and to have the man, I mean, I could spend an entire, we could do a whole episode called "The Privilege of Eli's Experience," but, like, truly, like, like, as to lucky as we are is just mind-blowing, mind-blowingly lucky compared other families.

0:29:56 Thomas: Yeah, you know, I want to throw it out because it's actually coincidental. This had nothing, there was no planning, but the recent Serious Inquiries Only was about exactly this thing. I had Dr. Alan Smirbeck, Stormy Decisus on talking about like, what does a diagnosis mean? And actually it's a lot of, Tom, it's almost kind of exactly what you just said. Also kind Arlo tested recently, actually. And so this is just for the show. It's just for a bit, but I had him test.

Them tested recently and that we had a, whoever the evaluator is. I don't, I actually like outside of Kaiser, I think. I don't know how that fucking shit works. Mental health does kind of suck. So they probably had some, they, they probably contract with somebody or whatever, but she was awesome.

She talked to me for a long time because I just had a lot of questions and I just want to like like, slightly, I don't know, boast a little as a parent, because it was 100% exactly what I thought. To your point, Eli, which I'm sure was the same with you. It's like, oh, yeah, I know exactly my kid. Had this fear. Maybe you had this too, Eli. I had this fear that I was just missing something.

0:30:57 Eli: Yes.

0:30:57 Thomas: You know, I have this fear that, like, what if I'm wrong? Like, what if we're going to do this test? And they'll be like, he'll be something I didn't know or And because Arlo's been really interesting because he He has had a couple of qualities that have seemed like on the spectrum, but a bunch of qualities that are the opposite of like literally not. And I don't mean this in a, like a good or bad sense.

Just like if it asks you, Hey, is, he do pretend? Cause a lot of autistic children, they can't really pretend, you know, you, you ask them like, Hey. Is this a dinosaur? And they're like, no, it's a wood block. You know, like they can'T do that. Arlo is the opposite of that. Like he's, he's and above just stuff like that, where it was giving me real mixed signals of like, well, I don't, it's interesting.

There's this one thing over here where it's like, yeah, I kinda, okay. I could see it there. And then there's this, this other group of stuff. That's like more stuff where I couldn't see it. And so I was just, you know, a little anxious about all that. I was like, am I, you know what's this going to be? Am I missing something?

Am I, amI looking through rose colored glasses, you Know, and it's going to to be, the, the evaluator is going to tell me a bunch of, stuff you I was missing because I just love Arlo too much. And I wasn't really thinking, you now, and now it turns out, I don't love Arla too much, I knew I love

0:32:08 Eli: I mean, I could have told you that, Thomas.

0:32:08 Tom: Yeah.

0:32:08 Thomas: Him the right amount. No, Arlo is the best. And I am so just happy because it's exactly what I thought, like, oh yeah, she, she identified the the same exact couple areas. And she's like, yeah, he's possibly at a deficit there. And what was useful about not only that conversation with her, but with the episode of Serious Inquiries Only, it's been really interesting to think about.

And I'd love your guys' thoughts on it, because we are, I think, in an age where there's so much of the, I don't know what the right word word is, like pressure, or so much of the zeitgeist is everybody's, there's no normal, everybody's something, and it's all, you know, all that kind of stuff, which is great, which and fantastic, everybody's the same, neurodivergent is whatever, it doesn't matter, but when you get something like this it is interesting, because the way they phrase it is, well, yeah, we're only going to diagnose him if it's like him problems.

Like if he's behind, not learning how to speak or read or whatever or something, then yeah, he'll get a diagnosis, because like the definition of diagnosis in this case is, yeah, is it causing him issues that you would need to address?

You at it from that perspective, it was a really mixed feeling for me, because normally my feeling is, okay, whatever he has, my job as a parent is, yeah, that's fine, that's him, I love him, he's that's who he is, but it was kind of weird, it was, it was not exactly how I expected it, because it was more like, well, no, if I give him a thing, like if there's an area where he gets anything, it's because he will need help, so not like a negative thing, like, oh, there's something wrong with him, but it is a thing of like, well, know, he does need resources though, to do your point, so it's like I had to do this shift in my mind where I was like, like, oh, I do need to treat this like something I need to help with, you know what I mean? I

0:33:55 Tom: There's a couple of things in there that I want to touch on. And one of them I have a direct experience to, that parents can, especially with the autism piece, depending on how approach the process of evaluation and an attempt toward diagnosis, the parents can really greatly influence whether or not you get a diagnosis for something like autism. Because it's a spectrum disorder, because it presents, Eli, as you noted, it presents in so many different ways. Like when you joke, like, is he autistic enough, you know, for this group? It's this wild variation, this big continuum, this big spectrum. And will say from personal experience that there is a vast difference in the way that autism can be approached by an evaluating or diagnostic professional, and that a motivated parent can skew the result of that if are motivated to do so. They can skewer in either direction if

0:34:51 Eli: Yeah, well, and Thomas speak to this as well. So much of the test is the doctor asking, does he do this at home? Can he do that? Can he, can he do it at home, can you do that, so yeah, I mean, if you've got your mindset set on stuff it's will definitely influence the outcome. One of the things that I appreciated so much about this doctor is that when I said things like, no, he can do that, or yes, he can doing that, like, he didn't just check, I said it earlier, he didn't just check a box. He was like, oh, okay, well then let me try again and and see him do it, and then he did, and he was like, oh yeah, look at that, there he goes right

0:34:57 Tom: Right.

0:35:15 Tom: Let's Let's see him do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right.

0:35:21 Thomas: The certainly the the initial consultation was basically all just us answering questions, but the test itself was a good three hours of the doctor just doing stuff with Arlo. Um, think there is obviously some amount of like I could have you given answers to change that, but she spent a lot of time directly with him, which I think is good, cause I, feel you, like the three of us are pretty dialed into our kids. We know there's a lot of parents out there who are not dialed in to their kids. So you wouldn' want the diagnosis to, to rest too heavily on that, but inevitably it has to.

0:35:50 Eli: Thomas's dad would have gotten him diagnosed with like Hodgkin's lymphoma or something, just I don't know he's um his skin is orange and he won't do his errands, I don' know I

0:35:55 Thomas: He's starting chemo tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. He has been kind of a dick lately. So he's yeah. He is on chemo starting tomorrow. High diagnosis. Yeah, but

0:36:03 Eli: Hate him is that a thing, what does he got that, I, I hate him, I don't like him, he

0:36:09 Tom: Well, bring it up because my experience, one of my, one OF my kids was evaluated twice, once by a doctor who specialized in autism and, you know, to your point, spent a tremendous amount of time, hours, performing an in -person evaluation and did find autism, which I strongly suspected would be the result. I didn't feel that they autism. And the second result, which was motivated differently, and I wasn't present for the examination, all of a sudden did find autism. That Right. Examination took much, much less time, I'm to understand, and was, you sought sought out by somebody who is more, uh, lax in their methodology. Right. So just bring that up that the, the parents in these, because, because again, like this is a, an experiential diagnosis. Like what is the experience of being Max? You know, what is the experienceof being, you know, my kid? What is the experienced of being Arlo? That experience is not a blood draw.

0:36:29 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, especially at the at the age, depending on how little there it's like you can't get. She did ask me stuff like, oh, was this after she's like, was This normal for him? Was this a pretty normal thing? And of course, my mind is like, Oh, shit. What? What did he do? Is that fuck? And so I was like, What do you mean? Is this no, I was I was like, she's like, oh, well, some parents will tell me, oh he normally is way, you know, more open or he normally is, you Know, because kids do react differently to strangers. That's actually, you know, every parent knows this.

Like sometimes your kid just locks up or doesn't and that can be notable in this case because like Phoebe, we have a hell of a time with the things we've taken Phoebe to because she's a lockup child. She's a the minute there's a stranger or doctor. She is a statue. She doesn't actually exist. She so like kind of anxious or it's hard actually to evaluate really anything with her because that's entirely parent -based for now, you Arlo is not like that. So maybe easier for him because he's so, he's so open to strangers in a way. And that was, by the way, one of the items on the list that I was worried about. She, when she asked me like what I was concerned about, I was like, Like, yeah, he doesn't have a sense of danger, like, at all.

0:37:17 Tom: You right, right. Mm-hmm. Right.

0:38:23 Eli: Seems, uh, pretty lurable. Lurable, I would say, is uh, I

0:38:28 Thomas: Yeah, don't spread it around.

0:38:28 Tom: Just keeps saying, white van, white van. I don't know. He's, yeah.

0:38:31 Thomas: Yeah, the other day he left the house and, like. Took out a mortgage. Like, he just goes and does. He just goes in the world. He just does stuff. It's crazy.

0:38:39 Eli: Not, to distract, but I love u and Lydia's posts about him trying to escape the house and you guys being like, "Hey, you gotta stop," and him being like, "I got this, okay," I don't understand what you don't understand, this, look it's an Uber pool, there will be an Uber driver and another person on the way to this heroin den, I don't know what to tell you

0:38:39 Thomas: Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Look, it's Liam's bachelor party. He's one of my friends in the, in the daycare. I, we can't, I can't miss this. It, it is remarkable because he's not, he answers in a very, God, I don't know what the word is. It's not that he doesn't knowwhat he's doing. It's really, he just has a set of characteristics that I am not used to because it's sort of, he's sortof like a delightful rapscallion about it. Like he's like an old timey movie where the criminals, you don't even know what they're doing, but it's not anything bad. They're just like, ah, you, you rascals. And then they put them in like a one old time he prisons. It's like that. He's like, ah, OK, I know I shouldn't leave. And you're like, are you going to not leave? I don't know.

0:39:02 Eli: I'm not missing this don't know is

0:39:38 Thomas: He might. He might not.

0:39:38 Eli: There a pie on a windowsill?

0:39:43 Tom: You, Eli, another thing that you, you sort of like touched on that I think is really important, maybe this is a whole episode, is that, um, there is a, I don't know, I think there's like a a tension sometimes that can arise when our kids turn out to have issues or to be people that we did not expect.

And to have, you challenges that we did not anticipate when, I think a lot of us, when we first envisioned having kids, we envisioned having kids that are going to be in some way, some like perfect amalgamation of ourselves. Like, oh, we're going to have like a little mini me, or I'm going to do this, I'm like this, perfect, like little person.

And then, you know, they end up being exactly who they are, which is going to to be, you know, somebody who maybe has a neurodivergence or a physical concern, or interests even that diverge from our interests. And then we have to, we're faced with this moment where we have to confront that, like, wow, this is this person that I love so, so deeply, and I had expectations of what maybe parenting was going to be about, or feel about, or maybe who my kids would grow into.

Now there's this difference. Now there's... there's like difference there. And doesn't actually impact at all, for most of us, I think, at least on this show, like it doesn't impact how much we love them, but it may impact sort of like our vision for what life with them might look like. Yeah.

0:41:01 Eli: Yeah, absolutely

0:41:02 Thomas: There's also a problem, I think, that where maybe your kid, by the way, is similar to you, but you are kind of blind to what you are. You know, like there's There's that fear, too, where actually I think Stormy, again, Dr. Decisis over there, has kind of talked about how it can be interesting with a lot of these very things, Tom, to your point, a lot of them that are parent survey based kind of questions that you have to ask a family, of, again, autism is highly heritable, so you sometimes have to to ask people who don't make any eye contact, "Hey, does your kid make the normal amount of eye contact?" And it's like, ah, yeah, that's honestly, that's a story that they've told.

0:41:12 Tom: Right.

0:41:38 Eli: They're like Yep. A solid zero. He used

0:41:39 Tom: Not As

0:41:43 Thomas: It's like the

0:41:43 Eli: To make Niagara contact, but we told him, you got to cut that shit out. It's weird.

0:41:46 Thomas: Normal about, yeah.

0:41:47 Tom: A normal Amount, right, right.

0:41:48 Thomas: Yeah, it's kind of, it'S interesting, you know, like how much of it is that? And that does go to show like how much of this is truly just, no value judgment to it. Like if we were a society of that, that of exactly all of that person, we'd be like, yeah, that's the normal amount of eye contact. It is interesting. That only stretches so far.

Cause you know, like when you run into stuff where it's like, well, we need to get help so that Arlo can learn to, to, say his words better or whatever, the few things that he needs help with. I think those are, those are valuable things. And there'd be no point in saying, oh no, he doesn't have to change at all or, or work on anything.

And that was one thing that I found fascinating again, again, again, it could just be me and where I was coming from, because I, I strongly had this feeling that whatever Arlo was, whatever they said, I, my job as a parent is to, of course, accept it. And that's what it is, you know, like to do my best to get whatever help he needs or not.

Like if the help Arlo would need is me not fucking treating him any differently or treating him, or me accommodating how I need to, whatever it is. You know, that's my point. And,

0:42:47 Tom: Right.

0:42:47 Thomas: So, but what was interesting is, so he didn't get the diagnosis. I don't know if I told you that, but like he had a few things, but she said ultimately now, especially because of the family history of ADD, ADHD, she was like, yeah, those things actually fit with ADHD. So he doesn't have a diagnosis, but he didn't have a diagnoses. But she did say like, you know, you, you may want to check back in a few years.

Like if there's these areas, this was the interesting part. She's like, Yeah, if there're these areas that he hasn't progressed on, like he's still behind in any of these little things, then maybe check again. And it's possible because he's a four-year-old boy, you Know, it's hard, you know?

It's hard to know like, oh, how much of this is a four year old boy and how much of it is, you Maybe if if he doesn't get out of that phase, so so, to speak, then maybe that that means, oh, he did have autism, but it just wasn't really diagnosable because of, you know, how, how he was. She's saying there's a possibility.

Um, and so I was like, oh okay, that feels interesting to me because right away in my mind, I'm like, Oh, well then I need to make sure to work with him on the following things. And that felt somewhat icky to me in a weird way. Cause I was, like, wait, am I trying to like get him to pass the autism test? You know, like, am I trying to, like you feed him the answer key so they or something, you know?

Didn't feels a little like that. Like, am I trying to get my son to not fail autism test or something? And doesn't that feel weird? But then I, and I literally asked her that because it was concerning me. I was like, does that, I don't know how to think about this. And she's like, well, yeah, I mean, again, the diagnosis will only be there if it's something that's causing him issues. And so, yeah.

0:44:17 Tom: No.

0:44:18 Thomas: Like I'm gonna want him to not have issues with learning certain certain things. You Like I'm know, either there's certain speech things that he's a little behind on. Like, yeah, I'm gonna want to help them with that. There's no reason I wouldn't. So I don't know if that makes, resonates with, with either of you gents, but it was just this weird feeling of like, how much am I allowed to try to like, hope we pass the test next time by working on these things, you now? Sounds weird.

0:44:39 Eli: Yeah, no. So for us, we actually had a very similar thing, which is on the child autism scale, Max scored a 30. So zero, no autism, none at all. 60, all the autism. You're actually autism incorporated. 30 is official autism and Max scored A30. So I was like, nailed it, just got in. Yeah, it was like a real slide for home situation.

0:44:57 Thomas: Really? Wow. Yeah,

0:45:02 Tom: Well, like I said before, like we, we know who our kids are and there's also like a recognition, I think that has to be addressed that, you Know, having a diagnosis is one of the gatekeeping steps that allows you to gain access to really substantial services, you Now, so it's not, it's okay to be like, yeah, look, I know my kid needs help, and I know that this is a label that I want to make sure it's applied accurately because it's important that it be accurate, but also I know what help they're going to need, and I know I'm only going to be able to walk into a school and get an IEP or a 504 plan if I have something more than, yeah but I mean look at him, yeah look at them, you know, come on.

0:45:16 Eli: Yeah. Absolutely. Right. Okay. I'm going to put, I'm gonna put a marble race on YouTube. Look at that. You're telling me. Come on.

0:45:50 Thomas: Are

0:45:59 Eli: All right, gentlemen. Well, with all that said, I am going to start a movement that convinces as people that vacuum cleaners cause autism in children. We're calling ourselves the anti -vax movement.

0:46:14 Thomas: Man,

0:46:21 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:47:00 Thomas: A real, like, Thomas Jefferson fucking, uh, the other guy that's the other guy you argued with. No. The other, no, never mind, damn it, I almost. Had the reference. No, you should know it from 1776, right, Eli? Come on, that's a musical, you know, musical, no.

0:47:05 Eli: Washington his slaves yes alexander hamilton aaron

0:47:15 Thomas: The guy he argues with, the, the fucking Feeney from. Feene. No, Feeny. Who's Feeny? Who's the guy, fucking Feeny from, now I have to know this.

0:47:18 Eli: Burr aaron Burr miney moe zach

0:47:22 Tom: This is going nowhere and I love it.

0:47:24 Thomas: Now I have to know that.

0:47:24 Tom: Now I want it to keep

0:47:26 Thomas: The Feeny, from fucking, is it Saved by, no, not Saved By The Bell. Boy Meets World.

0:47:26 Tom: Going nowhere even if you know it. You can't say anything now, the

0:47:31 Thomas: No. Feeny played in 7076, the movie version. He plays the guy. They're also, John Adams. Yeah.

0:47:31 Eli: Morris zach morrison screech

0:47:37 Tom: Girl From