Ken and Susan, McLean Falls

McLean Falls are an iconic set of waterfalls in southern Otago. I hike 20 minutes through the bush to see them. It’s been raining so they are cascading beautifully and I am standing taking photos when a middle-aged woman asks if I would like her to take photos of me in front of it. We chat while she takes the photos and we, along with her husband, end up walking back from the waterfalls together. Ken and Susan (not their real names) are from Auckland and they are quite gregarious. Previously suffering from soul-crushing burnout, they have taken a three month pause on their life to travel the country by campervan—similar to what I’m doing. When Ken hears that I studied psychology he chuckles deeply and calls out to Susan, who is standing on a bridge photographing the stream 

“That’ll be why she’s talking to us then. She saw you!”

Susan thinks this is hilarious and agrees maybe so. We talk about my plans for my psychology degree and, like so many others, they begin to open up about deep and painful topics. They tell me that they have seen many psychologists because their son has autism. This includes one who made them deeply uncomfortable when he told them to keep a close eye on their son because the boy was so beautiful that pedophiles that would like him. This makes my skin crawl. Susan mentions that they have a 22 year old daughter. Cheerily, I say

“Oh I’m 22, I could be your daughter!”

When Susan replies, something about the way she says it reminds me of my mother.

“She won’t talk to us. Says we’re not her family.” 

When I ask why, she explains that her daughter was in a toxic relationship with a boy she moved to Dunedin with and that over the course of the relationship, she talked to Ken and Susan less and spent more time with her ex-boyfriend’s parents. Whatever went wrong in that time period is still wrong but I don’t ask more questions about it. I don’t know much about families where a child has autism, only what Paolo has told me, but I imagine that parenting—stressful in the best of times—would be tough. I can imagine that a young girl growing up in such a household might feel at times overlooked or second place to her brother’s problems. I could see where this might make her vulnerable to manipulation. And I can see how two parents who have done the best they can could feel defensive if a child shared their feelings of frustration and hurt over not receiving the attention they needed at certain times. I open my mouth to say something, to walk them through this process of empathizing with their daughter’s feelings without seeing it as an attack on their parenting, when Susan adds that her daughter is studying to be a pilot. I say nothing and we arrive to the carpark where we part ways. They gave me the name of their travel Facebook page so, after thinking it over for a few days, I send them a message. I validate their struggles as parents and then explain that their daughter only sees life as she has experienced it. I ask them to look through her perspective and imagine what it might be like to see life through her eyes.

Well, I regret saying anything to Ken and Susan. They then sent me a letter that they had drafted to ask my opinion on it before they sent it. I wasn’t prepared for how angry I would feel; wasn’t prepared to take the time to walk them through why their letter was problematic and—frustrated and upset—I signed off on something that probably hurt someone. I’ve received an almost identical letter from my father and it made me furious. 

After twelve paragraphs of talking about himself, my father ends by asking to move forward. To which I thought: 

Oh you want to move forward, do you? That would be so convenient, wouldn’t it? You want to move forward when we haven’t even begun to talk about what was wrong? When you haven’t changed? Fuck that.

The phrasing of this letter suggests it was written by Susan so I suppose that’s also who I’m communicating with on Facebook. After an entire page of talking about herself, she ends by asking what her daughter needs. 

I know it would probably not be received very well if I type back STOP TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF! What is SHE mad about? Why is SHE hurting? and I am suddenly too angry to even try to think about how to phrase it to get Susan to think of these questions herself. I wish I’d taken a time-out to process that anger. I wish I had asked for more information so that I could talk to these people correctly, so that I left their lives and their relationship with their daughter better. Instead I think I made it worse. Instead I write I think that is a beautiful letter and I hope it starts the conversation you want. 

I justified it at the time. I thought I don’t know them or their situation. I don’t know what it’s like to have a child with a disability or be in a family with someone who has a disability. I don’t know the details of this situation. Maybe this letter is perfectly acceptable in the context of their family. But over and over, my brain keeps returning to this: if she is angry enough to not talk to them, there is something wrong. And they haven’t solved anything by talking about themselves. 

I wish that I hadn’t said anything. I shouldn’t have involved myself in a parent-child conflict. But life is about learning and I have learned my lesson: that this is an area where I have the potential to do more harm than good.