My husband and I are the sometimes proud, sometimes mortified parents of a four-and-a-half-year-old boy, Jonah, who has autism. Jonah is a bright, mischievous, caring and defiant boy. We love it and are managing our somewhat unusual lives quite well. However, with autism, everything can seem like a challenge: meals, bath time, car rides, birthday parties, you name it.

Among other things, Jonah doesn’t speak and doesn’t understand normal social cues. He will walk up to a stranger in the park and look in his picnic basket. He will climb down a playground slide not realizing if a child is about to slide right into him. Every time he hears the song “Happy Birthday to You,” he marches to the place of honor, ready to blow out the candles and smash the cake. When he is impeded, distracted or diverted from these activities, the likely result is a tantrum. And when the tantrum is in public, there’s usually the added amusement of stars, angry glares, and disapproving looks from strangers. I could go on… but this article is not about what autism is, or how difficult it is, or why its occurrence has reached epidemic proportions. It is about the advantages of autism. And really, there are several.

I have to admit it up front: I’m only being half funny when I say that we intend to capitalize on any and all emerging abilities of the sages, like in the Vegas scene from Rain Man, but that doesn’t mean it seems. likely since they say only 10% of autistics have these abilities. Oh good. I guess making ridiculous amounts of money by counting cards isn’t everything. The good thing is that there are other things that we can enjoy at this time.

One is innocence. While other kids his age have “passed on” to superheroes and swords, our son still loves bubbles and blocks. While his peers have dumped traditional children’s songs for pop music, Jonah still happily requests “Wheels on the Bus” and does all the hand motions, too. He doesn’t watch commercials and then demand whatever toy, gadget, or breakfast cereal is advertised. He doesn’t understand the concept of Christmas or birthdays, at least not the way other kids do, so he’s perfectly happy with a few toys and something nice to eat.

When our son is fully amused, there is no one so uninhibitedly delighted. A joyful Jonah is a beautiful sight. He’s never embarrassed or self-conscious about what he’s doing, and it shows. What you get is a child who is largely unaffected by most of the things that can’t help but affect other children’s consciences: bad news on TV, anxiety about Daddy going to work, fear of the bogeyman underneath. bed. In a sense, autism shields you from many of the normal worries, apprehensions, and insecurities of a nearly five-year-old.

Plus, people have told us it’s especially entertaining to watch, and we can see why; the way he interacts with his surroundings is undeniably interesting. We consider it an advantage to have a child who sees the world through a different lens. He puts his fingers to his eyes to capture an interesting image or tilts his head to the side and looks at things from an angle. He adores kaleidoscopes, spinning toys, and lanterns, and he seems to see them in ways the rest of us can’t. He teaches us to stop, look, and listen to things in a way that has never occurred to us before.

There are advantages, even, in its silence. Although we’d love for him to learn to speak and we’re doing everything we can to help him learn to communicate verbally, it’s nice to know that you’re not going to start yelling obscenities at the mall or call the police and tell them our house is shot up. You can persevere at the light switch by turning it on and off a thousand times, but we are never subjected to endless repetitions of movie quotes, nursery rhymes, or some random snippet of something you heard on TV.

In fact, we’ve found that for every challenge we face with Jonah, we’re presented with an unexpected, precious, and often funny gift. Gifts are what keep us going as, as with everything in life, they balance out the bad and show us our child and our situation in a beautiful and ever-changing light.

And perhaps that balance really is the greatest gift of all.