Stop Labeling Children

Cedar. Boho Girl. Boho Boy.

I feel I know them personally. I have been following Boho girl’s blog for years. When I discovered her, she was long into her blogging journey. The first post I read was about her becoming a mother. I found out in just one post that she was not the biological mother and that she had gone through a long and hard fertility journey that didn’t work out. I went through her blog archives because I wanted to know about her story. If you want to read it for yourself, you can do it so here.

You can also read her blog previous to becoming a mother here.

The Boho family in a recent pic

They decided to adopt and were lucky enough to share the pregnancy with the biological mother. She also shared on the blog the emotional story of their flight to be with the biological mother when she was in labour and their first few days with Cedar.

Since then, I have been religiously following her blog. I feel like I know Cedar as I have seen pictures of him and hearing about his growing up since he was a newborn. He reminds me so much of my own son. Their beautiful round faces are alike and they are both very sensitive souls. I love looking at pictures of Cedar and hearing about their experiences, before with a newborn, now with a toddler. But I also liked Denise’s (Boho girl) posts. I admire her because she is so true to herself and she really honours her feelings. And that is the best way to live. Is not something I do, and I wish I could. I love how she is a creative person and has so many creative friends. I crave for friends like that.

I am subscribed to her blog and I read every single thing she writes. Today I saw she had a new post called “Surrendering”. Because she is so connected to her emotions and doesn’t hide from them, she is always going through stages of self-discovery and adaptation to what life brings her, so the title didn’t surprise me. Then I started reading and I heard myself gasp and welled up.

I wish I was as good writer as she is, but I’m not. I struggle to communicate feelings, even when I write. So I will leave you with her words, because, even though it doesn’t contain good news, it has a strong and beautiful message.

Most of my life, especially in my adult life, I have resisted the idea of labels. I felt they placed people in a box and the concept of boxing anyone in didn’t quite resonate or feel good in my bones. Intuitively I knew we were all unique and our experiences were unique and being open to others ideas, experiences meant deeper growth and a life of possibility. I feared the limited-ness and the feeling of being controlled and my free spirit ached for the freedom beyond boundaries.

This is what my husband and I are moving through with Cedar. A label. A diagnosis. Our resistance to this label. Our relief upon the awareness of this label. Our confusion. Our clarity. Our “aha…this makes sense”. Our fears. Our projections. A sudden awareness of our expectations of Cedar.  Releasing those expectations. Our surrendering to needing help and guidance. Our tears. Or more like…sobs. Our awakening of being chosen to parent him. Our confidence. Our lack of confidence. Our free spirits so deeply wanting to intuit everything he needs. Our surrendering to the fact that we cannot intuit his needs every moment, especially when we are learning his brain and every cell in his body receives information different than ours.

Asperger’s Syndrome. High functioning Autism. Low Spectrum. Sensory Processing Disorder.

Surrendering