Season’s greetings, friends and family! I am happy to report that, despite the challenges 2020 handed us, the Cariello family had a wonderful year. My husband Joe and I are doing well, and all five kids are happy, and healthy. Quarantine was a great opportunity to spend some real quality time together. We played lots […]
Forever Mother [ for·ev·er moth·er ]: a mother who will spend the rest of her life taking care of her child’s day-to-day financial and health care needs. She will arrange appointments, oversee medical care, and manage bank accounts long into his adulthood. I’m not sure when I started to think of myself this way. I guess it was […]
My name is Carrie, and I am raising a son with autism. It is exactly nothing and everything I ever imagined. The truth is, I’ve wished for a crystal ball ever since my son Jack was a toddler. I desperately wanted to see into his future. Would he speak in sentences? Would he be able […]
My son Jack has autism. He is sixteen. Autism is defined as a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech, and nonverbal communication. It is said people with autism lack empathy. It is said they have trouble making eye contact. It is said. Sometimes I wonder what it would be […]
When our family walks into a restaurant, people have been known to put down their forks, and watch us troop by them. Diners have also been known to request a different table once we sit down near them, but that’s another story altogether. When I see—and feel—their eyes on us, I wonder what they notice […]
I never thought it would come to this. That is the truth. I guess I always hoped for the best. I mean, a small part of me knew deep inside, but I never gave it a whole lot of thought. I didn’t think about it while I was researching preschools, or trying to read his […]
Hi. My name is Carrie. I have five kids, and my second son has autism. His name is Jack. He is sixteen years old. I don’t really care about what causes autism. I mean I do, a little bit. But mostly, I don’t. At this point, I’ve heard it all. I’ve heard autism is caused […]
To be clear, I did not go to medical school. I am not a doctor. I’ve never even played one on television. I am not educated in the world of neuroscience, or brain development, or psychology. Hi. My name is Carrie. I am a forty-five-almost-forty-six year old housewife with five kids. My husband Joe is […]
Dearest Mama, I enjoyed talking to you tonight, and meeting your little guy. While he darted in and out of line and dumped the Tic-Tacs all over the floor, you explained he has autism. I got very excited because I also have a son with autism. His name is Jack. He is sixteen. The hard […]
The especially fun thing about autism is the way it’s always presenting me with predicaments that I never, in my life, imagined. For example, how fast can you chase a toddler who figured out the lock on the front door, if you are wearing only a towel? How do you handle yourself when he fills […]