A WAHumorous World

Got little kids? Do they KNOW what you do?

My youngest son is eight years old. He's also diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome/high functioning autism (some say they're different, some say they're the same thing, blah blah)with anxiety. He often becomes overwrought and fixates on things that worry him.
Even more than most people.

Until now, I took his confusion over what I do and his various tales at school as boyish imagination. It seems I've been an astronaut, a fireman and a toilet paper collector among others. I wonder though...is there really money in toilet paper?

This month, his class has been reading books from the Ramona series by Beverly Cleary. You might know them, they're about an impish little girl named Ramona, her family and friends. Well, the book he was assigned to read was about her father losing his job and its effect on the family. That all seemed innocent enough until one of his teachers suggested that his recent anxiety might be related to the subject of the book: The Father That Has No Job.

That's when I really realised that I was a Father Who Had No Job too.

Sure, I was aware that I wasn't employed full-time outside the house for a few years now. My son, however, was going by what other kids said about their dads, all those get-up-hop-into-a-suit-and-commute dads, those what-a-lousy-day-at-the-office dads, those this-is-how-I-make-a-living-which-therefore-defines-who-I-am dads.

I didn't fit that mold, so he had to have a cool comeback. "I dunno" definitely wouldn't cut it, so instead he painted the picture of me fighting fires on the moon by dumping lots of toilet paper on them.

I thought that telling him that I was a writer who worked at home would work for him. After all, I'm writing now and I have one book with another getting started. I've got articles posted everywhere but Smilin' Sam's Salami Shack And Article Directory, but I'll have one there too next week.

Ok, so next I'll try explaining the affiliate marketing stuff too. I can show him the checks as they arrive, even though some months still they make ME anxious. I can tell him that I'm a salesman that works on a computer. He knows there's an Internet and one day he'll probably use it to rule the world.

Yeah...I'll give that a shot. If that doesn't help, I may have to get more creative.
I just don't get why he wouldn't feel that a dad who's at home slurping coffee and semi-merrily doing laundry wearing a t-shirt and jeans when he returns from school
isn't better than a dad that drags into the house at suppertime with his shoulders slumped and his tie loosened to navel level, grumbling incoherently.

I think we're both a lot happier this way.