It’s personal…so I can only tell utter and complete strangers, if that makes sense.

Posted January 25, 2013 23 Comments by Amber Perea

Photo Credit: Bornpowerful.com

***Anyone that follows my blog-or even catches one from time to time-knows by now that I am honest to a verging-on-unpopular-fault when it comes to the challenges I and my family have been facing recently concerning my son and his development. So with this post be warned, I am going to be just as honest and my thoughts may not be well received. But they are how I feel and I did warn you ahead of time.***

While I was driving home today from therapy I was attempting to mentally write my next blog post. Am I the only one that does that? Let me just start out by saying that this blog has been nothing short of a saving grace for me recently. With my overall lack of socializing and my husband being so resistant to discussing Jp’s issues, this has become a welcome place of expressing myself in a healthy way. A place to vent, to talk to others who have similar issues with their children and even just receive love and support from fellow moms. It has saved me from living in my head and dwelling. Which I tend to do when there is something weighing on my mind.

So today, radio blaring because Jp loves the beat in the backseat (he prefers Mumford and Sons, go figure), a thought occurred to me out of the blue. Out of nowhere I realized something peculiar with crystal clarity.

I haven’t told any of my friends about what has been going on with Jp. Not one.

I have talked to immediate family (which is only two people and I left it up to them whether or not they wanted to discuss it with their spouses) as there was Thanksgiving and Christmas and the fact that he was obviously behind was something that I felt the need to explain for whatever reason. But not a single, solitary one of our friends. I haven’t made one reference to therapy or speech on my Facebook. I haven’t had a play date with the ladies in awhile, either. We are the couple that has everyone over for everything. Barbecues, sporting events, holiday parties…everything. We have had one couple over for a football game in the last three months and I didn’t say one word. I did spend a portion of the evening evaluating her daughter’s speech to see just how far Jp was behind though. (Told you it was unpopular thinking)

I just realized, though wholly unintentionally, that I have been hiding.

Hiding because I didn’t know what to say. If I should say anything, if I should explain his delay, what I would say about it since we know so little. All I know is that he had a speech delay. Now it’s a receptive delay. Tomorrow it could change again for all I know.

And I think everyone is going to blame me.

There I said it. I said it, I said it, I said it. I think that everyone is going to think that it is all my fault. Before everyone becomes up in arms, I have to mention that we have an incredibly judgmental group of friends. I hear them gossiping about and judging everyone’s (who isn’t there, of course) parenting and relationship choices ALL OF THE TIME. This isn’t me being Carrie with her mom’s voice chanting, “They’re all gonna laugh at you” in my head. This is a cold, hard fact. My friends are uber judgmental. They are my friends and I love them without question but it is simply the truth.

So I haven’t said a word. Not one word.

And as the crazy thought popped into my head that I haven’t told anyone, a second even crazier than first thought followed it…

I haven’t told anyone except for a public blog that total strangers read.

I know that that seemed like an excessive amount of bold words but it was warranted. That was exactly the inflection in the sentence in my mind as I thought it. How strange is it that I haven’t told a single one of my friends but I talk about it so openly with complete strangers?

Though I have my reasons, it is still an odd thing to do. I repeat, I have my reasons. Once, a friend commented that she “felt sorry” for my son because I kept him “home all of the time like Boo Radley“. For those of you who aren’t into classic literature, he was a recluse bordering on agoraphobia. It has since been talked through and she felt as though I was attacking her parenting-which I wasn’t-by my inquiring if her infant was feeling better when she mentioned she was taking her to a football game. Three days after the child had been in the hospital. I was relieved that she felt better so quickly and here my friend was thinking I was “attacking” her ability to parent her child. Mind you, the Boo Radley comment was told to me through a mutual friend. Also mind you, this is not an episode of 16 and pregnant I am recounting for you. This actually happened. We are grown woman in our thirties. Sigh.

Reiterating once more, I have my reasons for my decision to keep it from them. But it is still weird. Even for someone as odd as myself. But I can’t help but think that I will be met with sympathy that I don’t want or need only to hear later that the time I had a glass of wine on my birthday at Bennihana’s when I was pregnant was brought up. Or the time I played water volleyball when I was pregnant even though everyone gave me a hard time. It’s water for Christmas sakes. Or the fact that I didn’t put him in daycare or classes to be socialized properly. Or that I actually allowed him to have all of his immunizations. Or that I let him watch television before the age of two.

Some days…most days…I blame myself. So why wouldn’t my friends?

The irony is that now I am becoming Boo Radley.

Childhood Development Parenting Parenting and Childhood Development friends hiding judgement mom parenting receptive language delay speech delay toddlers

Amber Perea View All →

I’m just living minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day.