I
grew up in an atmosphere
of rules and order. We arrived
places early and left if other
people were late. My mother
cleaned and volunteered while
my father went to work; she served dinner every night at six. I was 14 before I
got even a whiff of Pink Floyd or The
Who (like an archaeologist, I thought
I’d discovered a brand-new culture),
because my parents didn’t allow rock
music in the house.
To say that I was the black sheep
doesn’t do our situation justice. I was
like an armadillo born into a family of pedigreed Labradors. My sister—a buoyant teenager who staged
sleepovers where girls fixed one another’s hair and watched Ice Castles—
thrived in our suburban Minnesota
fortress. Meanwhile, I grew moody and
depressed. I starved myself, dated older
men, hitched rides into the city with
strangers.
It’s an old story. But I didn’t know
that back then.
At 15 I left home and took a job as a
waitress in a freeway-exit hotel. Over
three years I rolled from one squalid
little apartment to another, keeping
my mother awake to pray for my safety
countless nights. When I told my father
I wanted to study literature and become a writer, you might have thought
he heard pole dancer. He told me my
plan was crazy—I’d only wind up poor
and disappointed—then enrolled me in
an accounting program instead. I lasted
one semester before dropping out.
I constantly befriended people my
parents disapproved of. Potheads,
bikers, Democrats. One Thanksgiving
came completely undone when, over a
beautifully roasted turkey, the topic of
gays in the military came up. I called my
father’s position (against) pure bigotry
and was banished for several hours,
then invited back on the condition that
I keep my fanatical left-wing views to
myself.
Does it come as a surprise that I went
out and found a liberal anarchist to
marry? Probably not.
few months after completing the liberal
arts degree my father and I eventually
agreed upon—and developed a style
of parenting utterly unlike the one I’d
grown up with. Mine was a laissez-faire approach. Meals happened when
people got hungry. Our household ran
virtually without schedules. No topic
was off-limits. If someone was listening
to music so loud the neighbors complained, it was likely to be me.
The mother of three, I remained my
parents’ wild child.
his is what haunts me,
as my father and I drive
past red barns and metal
silos that gleam in the
morning light. It’s possible—probable, it seems to me as the
miles mount—that I did this. Maybe my
erratic life contributed to the ruin of my
older son.
Andrew was born bright-eyed and
precocious. The Anarchist and I felt
vindicated: our ill-advised coupling had
produced stellar results. Three years
later, when Andrew was diagnosed
with autism, a syndrome characterized
by withdrawal and disordered development, we fit this fact neatly into our
worldview. Our son would excel, not
despite but because of his alien qualities. We had both been there ourselves,
different and misunderstood. The key
T
GRANDFATHER KNO WS BEST Irwin Boris with grandsons Andrew, front,and Maxwell in 1991.
to raising Andrew, we believed, was to
embrace his differences and allow him
absolute freedom—from expectations
and from societal norms.
Andrew was socially awkward but
able to function in school so long as he
had extra time and help. We worked
with him at home using biofeedback,
music therapy, nutritional intervention, and a holistic program called
Brain Gym, which practitioners told us
would help strengthen his superior cerebellum. Throughout his grade-school
years, our methods appeared to work.
Andrew was eccentric yet well liked,
as charmingly odd as an elf. Painfully
shy and slow to speak, Andrew became
nevertheless a pro juggler and a junior-high chess champion. When he performed well at either, he would lower
his eyes and flash a crooked smile.
So when the Anarchist eventually
took off on a yearlong bender (an event
my father had predicted), I continued
much as before: the whimsical, peripatetic mother of children ages 12, 10, and
5. No one could tell me what to do.
For six years we managed. My children united, the two boys close despite
their differences and cooperative in
taking care of their little sister. Together
our family moved through three states
as I signed on for one low-paying teaching job after another. Finally, nearing
40, I gave up on academe and moved
