I sat at a table in the gym at my son’s school. At the other tables, there were a dog groomer, a police detective, someone from the state park maintenance crew, an archaeologist, and other community members. We were there for career day.
My topic was AI.
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I was listening to a podcast recently about a woman in her seventies, semi-retired, describing a life built around boards and civic connections and a career that had opened into something expansive in its later years. She sounded settled in a way that felt earned, like she had arrived somewhere she had been moving toward for a long time.
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I read about a hundred books a year. Most of them are audiobooks, which I get for free through the local library. It’s one of those habits that has been with me since I was young, the library as a place, the books as company. My goddaughter is also a reader, and a few months ago we got her a library card. Usually she reserves books online and I pick them up on my way back from school drop-off. But occasionally we’ll go together to browse.
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A few years ago, we did genetic testing for the first time. An exome sequencing — not the full genome, but a significant portion of it. They found a variation in the PRICKLE1 gene, which is associated with epilepsy. It looked like it might be something.
It wasn’t.
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I’ve noticed it for a few years now.
He’ll say something, or try out a joke, or make an observation about something we’re watching, and then he’ll look at me. Not a glance. A look. He holds it for a beat longer than most people would, waiting for something to come back.
I noticed it gradually, the way you notice most things about your kids. Not a single moment but a pattern that eventually became impossible to miss.
I tested it once or twice. Not in a mean way. There were moments where I could smile without making eye contact, could let the beat pass without responding, and I’d feel him still looking. Holding. Waiting. A few seconds longer than felt accidental.
I asked him about it once. Why do you do that?
He didn’t know. That’s true for a lot of things he does when you ask him why. The awareness required to answer that kind of question hasn’t fully arrived yet, and may take time, and may look different when it does.
So I’ve been left to wonder on my own.
Part of it is probably simple. He wants to see if he made me laugh. He wants to know what I think about what he just said. That’s not unusual for a teenager, or for anyone. We look at the people who matter to us to see how we’re landing.
But I carry my own history into everything I observe, and I can’t always separate what I’m seeing from what I’m afraid of seeing.
I was made to feel small. Not by one thing, but by enough things over enough years that I spent a long time wondering if I mattered. If I was visible. If anyone was actually registering that I was in the room. I know what it feels like to look for confirmation that you exist, and I know how much energy that takes, and I know what it costs over time.
When I see my son hold that look, I feel two things at once.
I want him to feel seen by me. That part is easy. I am always looking. I notice everything. He does not have to wonder whether I’m paying attention, whether his jokes land with me, whether I think what he said was interesting or funny or true. I am here. I see him.
But I also want more than that for him.
The world was not built for him. That’s something I’ve written about before and something I think about constantly. People with his needs are often invisible in the systems and spaces they move through. He has to work harder to be noticed, harder to be understood, harder to be taken at full value rather than reduced to what he struggles with.
He is so much more than what he struggles with.
He is kind and funny and specific and stubborn in the best way. He has opinions about hockey teams and strong feelings about Fortnite and he named our dog after a winning moment in a video game. He looks at his father to see if a joke landed, and when it does, the satisfaction on his face is complete.
I don’t want that looking to come from the same place mine did. I don’t want him scanning faces for proof that he’s real. I want him to know, without having to check, that he is seen.
Not for what he carries. For who he is.
Maybe that’s all he’s doing when he looks at me. Maybe he just wants to see me laugh. Maybe it’s nothing more than that, and I’m the one making it heavy.
I hope so.
But I keep looking back.