Adam: Fathering an Autistic Son & International Travel With 2 Kids

This is an AI-generated transcript, so consider it a loose approximation of the audio.

Michael Williams (00:04.268)
Welcome to DadPod. I'm Mike. And I'm Luke. We're friends here in Madison, and we both have kids. And at least for us, becoming a dad has been transformational. We talk to all sorts of dads in all sorts of situations to learn from their unique challenges, lessons, and evolutions. The goal is simple. Learn from each other to become better dads. If you dig it, please find us on Apple or Spotify and click

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Michael Williams (00:38.784)
Okay, today on the podcast we have Adam, and we're going to dig into the theme of giving birth and having young kids in London, moving the family then back to America, then across America, and finally digging into what it is like parenting an autistic child.

We're going to cover a lot of miles, literally and figuratively, and we're going to learn from Adam's experience where he's gotten it right, where he has learned things and has room to improve and how his unique experience is helping him evolve as a dad. So two big topics. And as a reminder for everyone, no one here is an expert, but we're here because

We want to learn, we want to engage, and we ultimately want to get better as dads. I have known Adam since somewhere around 2006. So we've grown together from fake adults in college to hopefully more real adults and dads together.

You, Adam, have traveled with kids and with family, including on trips with other people who did not have kids. And your family has faced its own unique challenges that we'll dig into. But all along the way through those ups and downs, you've always maintained a great pride election toward life.

Even in what I would call the, when you were in the ring or of being on some of these trips that we took where you were one of the only, only people with kids. So you had to get up in the morning and I've always appreciated that about you. Adam has two sons, a wife, a huge ass Turkish dog, and you and your wife are both working professionals have been for much of that time.

Michael Williams (03:05.248)
I am excited to dig in. Is there anything that I missed? I think that about sums it up. I'll just log off now. for that. Great. So big picture. How would you describe your overall father and strategy? What are your top three to five things that you think about prioritizing as a dad toward your sons, toward your family?

Yeah, I one of the things that I like to think about with that is, and again, claiming no expertise here and I have a lot to continue to learn. I like to think that there are so many times that the right answer is to do nothing, which sometimes can be the easiest or the most difficult thing to do. So I really consciously try to let both kids make mistakes, try new things.

screw it up, learn from it, try it again, and try not to rush to intervene. I do certainly love to engage and play with them directly, but it's also really important to me that they learn how to make their own fun and experience boredom on occasion. I think a lot of growth can happen. A lot of ingenuity comes from having the time to actually think about stuff. And I don't want our kids

if we can help it get so overloaded with activities that they don't have time to be a kid. We're still ahead of most of those days, but I know that pressure will continue to come as they get older. Another thing I really think about a lot is, you know, it's definitely not our job to be our kid's friend, and it's not necessarily responsibility, you one, two, or three. However, I do, over time, hope that I

make them comfortable enough with me that they can feel okay coming to me with any news, good or bad, without fear of reprisal as well. You know, I also don't want to shield them from consequences. So one of the things that we'll talk about with Arlo with, you know, using bad words or something like that is, you know, for the most part, you can say what you want to say at home. However, not everybody else is going to appreciate the way that you're talking. And, you know, if you get in trouble for

Michael Williams (05:31.234)
that's on you. Another one that comes to mind is really around food. We're definitely not a clean plate club household. And my family very much was growing up. And I definitely still have some learning to do with with how I manage my own food intake. But yeah, so there's a we're trying to be very careful about how we talk about food with our kids and

The extra challenge with that then is when they don't want to eat when it's dinner time, and then they want to take a whole plate of food to bed with them because they're finally hungry at eight o 'clock at night. So still some growth to do on all of those things, but I think maybe the final one that comes to mind there is trying to promote more intrinsic motivation. So I know some of the parenting resources that I've come across and meshed with over the years have really encouraged

Instead of using language around, know, I'm proud of you for that outcome you achieved more of a, you know, expressing like, I'm always proud of you, but you must be proud of yourself and, you know, praising the work more than the outcome. must be, you must have worked really hard on that. That must have felt so creative, things like that. To dive into a couple of these, to go back, you talked about doing nothing.

in certain situations. I, I definitely see that as a very, I think, important and critical question to ask, especially in today's kind of parenting environment. I'm interested how you've calibrated when that is the right approach with your partner. Yeah, great question. And we haven't always, and that, you know, that can be a source of, of tension on occasion too. So, you

An easy example that would come to mind would be, you know, when we are dealing with bath time or another instance where both kids are interacting directly. So, you know, a lot of times the younger one will want to climb all over the older one when they're on the couch watching a video or something. And, you know, even though you can tell Oscar, the autistic one, is uncomfortable with Arlo climbing all over him, I might be not the first one to jump in there.

Michael Williams (07:51.914)
and kind of pull him off. Cause I want Oscar to continue to fend for himself for lack of better term. And I think for the most part, you and my wife and I are on the same page with a lot of that. think sometimes I might have a slightly higher threshold for letting them work it out if there's no physical violence involved. think one of the interesting fault lines, and at least in my family is I'm the oldest child.

My wife is the youngest of four. when there's conflict, even physical conflict, I usually side with my, just let them work it out. Yeah. And that's interesting. We're both the youngest in our family. So I wonder how that plays in there too. Yeah. And my, my, my wife isn't, isn't always as, as a willing to let it play out, even if there's some, some tears involved.

And I know she can beat you up anyway, so you're going to respect her in that situation. It's really, it's awkward when everybody's crying, you know, those are the weird situations. Is there a specific way that you stay out of it? And not just the, not just any conflict, but you mentioned letting the kids take it to failure, so to speak, or, know, let

And I really struggle with this because we can see the crash before it happens. Is there any specific way that you have found to help yourself hold back? think mostly just consciously reminding myself in the moment that they need to learn from this. Again, when physical danger is not a part of it. But, you know, if they're struggling

color in the lines or anything like that. They don't need me to fix it for them. So kind of figuring out how important is the thing. You know, I also will maybe a similar vein, always try to avoid using the phrase, are you okay? And so if there is a fall or something, I just try to be a stone face that's possible and let the kid react first.

Michael Williams (10:17.932)
so that I don't manufacture a situation in which they're like, shit, actually I'm not okay. I'm gonna cry for help now. Unless it's like a real gusher, right? then he's gonna be like, shit. Yeah, that has happened. Then it's time to move quickly. So of anyone that I know,

You and Angie have done some of the most international family travel. There's the five years in London, but you've also been to Slovenia. We met up there with a group of friends while Angie was pregnant. You joined our group in Portugal with a young toddler. You have been to Mexico with two kids and multiple other families on that

We went to Italy together. That was great too. A lot of people would claim that the travel challenges, especially international travel in particular, are not worth it. So to start, how do you and Angie talk about these decisions when you're deciding the next one? The dream is to always go without kids.

And it doesn't usually happen that way. But more seriously, it's not always for us anymore. So the most recent international trip we took was to Mexico. And we knew that that was going to be a hard trip. That there were going to be a lot of joyful moments that came out of it, but there was going to be challenges that came along with that.

that hopefully would also help provide some core memories for the kids. And they're now old enough that they're going to start remembering some of these things

Michael Williams (12:20.726)
So that's, that's part of the mindset is it's not just about us anymore. The other piece of that is, you know, going back to doing international flights with little kids. It sounds really daunting. think you've both done it at this point as well. And I'd love your take on this too. But for us, a lot of the conversation is we're not going to think about it as we have to fly across an ocean with a kid. We're going to think about it as we need to get into the taxi to the airport.

That's all we have to think about right now. Once that's done, all we have to think about is getting through the security line. That's it. Don't worry about whatever additional steps have to come, break it into manageable chunks. Anyone can get a kid through an airport security line. It's going to be annoying. Highly recommend TSA PreCheck because you can take kids right through that and you don't have to take off all their shoes and stuff. So breaking it into chunks.

And it's not going to be as good or as bad as you think. It probably has some other thoughts there, but I'll stop now. How do you make sure that it ends and you want to do it again?

I think you have to keep your expectations in check. think that goes back to, it's not just about you as the grownup anymore. So I think my barometer of a successful trip is not as much of a, did I have a blast on that trip? I'll find a way to make some fun. I'm not too worried about that for myself, but you know, do we have a plan

handling meltdowns because they're gonna happen. We try to divide and conquer as much as possible where one parent is focused on one kid for 100 % of their focus instead of having both parents give partial focus to both kids. So that's, I remember seeing some advice one time like a Lifehacker article or something about if you can manage it, if you're flying with two kids, each parent fly separately,

Michael Williams (14:32.27)
book separate flights and take one kid each, because then the kid gets 100 % of your attention. You can have one person get there early and pick up the rental car with the other kid and things like that too. But otherwise you slip into divided attention and then that ends up building stress. So in any case, just having a plan for how you're going to handle some of those more stressful moments. But also at the end of the day, just making sure that you talk through and think back to

Regardless of how shitty that particular day was, something joyful happened. Can we at least remember that and make that be the thought that we fall asleep with. Was there a particular trip or experience when you had this realization that travel might not just be for you and Angie?

I would say, I mean, the most recent example of that was Mexico when we did that trip just back in August. And it was a very conscious conversation then. I think in terms of some of the earlier trips, the conversation was more around reprioritizing what a successful trip was. Even if the kids were too young to have any active memory of being there, it was just that I'm a big food guy.

And so for me coming to terms with the fact that like I might not get to try every local specialty or go to nearly as many truly special restaurants or bars and things like that that I might have in the past. I think that was probably one of my biggest adjustments. You know, I'm the guy who hates to waste a meal on a trip. If I eat a cold sandwich, it sucks.

That makes total sense. guess my question would be, again, I think your mindsets here are really interesting. I think a lot of people look at this stage of life and travel and they say it's not worth it, right? It's too hard. So I think the interesting, like for me, like hearing you talk through this, the interesting question is how did you say it's going to be different? I'm not going to get all those things I'm used to getting. I'm going have to shift my expectations, but it's still worth it. When and how did you arrive to that conclusion with your partner? I think would be

Michael Williams (16:44.94)
the kind of interesting and maybe different conclusion that you guys have come to compared to other folks. Yeah. I think a lot of the travel has been to see people that are important to us. So that has ended up being a lot of the drive that through COVID and international moves and all of that, we haven't done in recent years.

as much personal travel, just picking a place and going to it for the hell of it, just for ourselves. And so maybe that has, you know, the parenting challenges has been a part of why we haven't done as much of that because it's going to be hard. You know, we don't go camping a lot because Oscar is an elopement risk. And if we are just in a big open space.

that's just not gonna go well for us. there are certain types of trips that we just don't really do, at least not as a family with all four of us. But when the opportunity comes up to spend some quality time with people that we've known for a long time and are really important to us, that I think ends up being a huge priority to maintain those friendships. That's really cool. That's really cool. That almost speaks

whether it's intentionally or accidentally reinforcing one of those values of how to invest in friendship over time. That's cool. Yeah, I'll be honest. The realization for me that the travel was no longer focused on me was a very painful and drawn out realization. That happened in Portugal this summer, I witnessed some of that. Yeah, so we spent a month in Portugal.

the family. was, I was working part time. It took me at least two weeks to fully acknowledge or in realize, like realize that then start acknowledging internalizing that the joy was going to shift and be through the child and that, that it wasn't just about me getting a cortado.

Michael Williams (19:09.78)
on a moment's notice anymore. I don't know if I could have realized that beforehand or fully internalized that if someone told me. It seems obvious after the fact,

I look back on the trip and I'm not sure if it was totally worth it in itself, in a vacuum. But where I landed on it was that was all of the practice reps so that future trips are really great. I learned a lot. I'm able to, I think, project a little bit more forward.

how to make a trip great in the family context, but it was brutal. Yeah. Yeah. mean, to, for listeners, I was on part of that trip. My family overlapped for about two weeks and, I, we've, so our kids are two and, or excuse me, three and five, our two kids are three and five. So a little bit older. And I think one of the things Adam, you said that really resonated with me is

One of the keys to getting joy out of travel is to shift expectations very tangibly. Like within a day, you know, as an as a young adult traveling around wherever it's like, I'm to do this, I'm gonna do this. I'm solving for serendipity. my God, there's these new people who, you know, are really interesting. It's like as a, as a, as a partner with two little kids, it's like calling it a fucking win if we make it to the playground down the street and back without a major meltdown.

Yeah. You're still going to the grocery store every day. Exactly. And it is worth it, right? Like it really is worth it. There is joy. There are those other things. But had my mindset not, you know, and to Mike's point, I struggled with it a lot. was resentful for a period of that time because, you you travel to do these things that it was kind of taken from me. But it's like, well, we got to start someplace. To your point, you got to start like getting the get in the taxi.

Michael Williams (21:23.234)
Get on the plane. We train ourselves how to do this now so we can, you know, it's fully normalized so we can do the crazy traveling as I get older. But yeah, I just, I think this part of your life is so interesting, Adam, because it seems almost, it seems like you and Angie didn't struggle with these decisions. They were, they almost came naturally to you and for myself, and it sounds like for Mike, there was like real angst and agita trying to, trying to deal with it, you know?

Well, lot of it happened by accident for us, right? And it ended up working out well in that sense that, you know, had we had we already had a newborn and then moved to London, right. We might not have done that move. Would we have done transatlantic flights with newborns once or twice a year for several years if it wasn't specifically to fly home to show off grandkids to grandparents? Probably not. But it's well.

grandparents need to see their grandkids and they're not going to keep flying to London. So it just, it just has to happen. And, so it's, yeah, some of that just happened by accident. And then you realize it can be a lot more doable than it feels like. And you find out along the way that they're perfect little cupholders, know, otherwise you would have never known that. Do you and Angie have a specific rhythm?

And I'm interested specifically when you look back, you, early on, you had kids, a lot of your friends did not. So you're on these trips or you're out and you're mingling with people who have no idea what you're going through and what it takes for you to be there. Was there specific agreements or strategies that you and Angie did to be able

do that stuff with us, you know, and enjoy it. And, you know, like, how did you make it as good as possible for the two of you? One trip that comes to mind for that was that first Portugal trip when I think, you know, we were one of two families that had one little kid with us at that point. And I think they were, had what, 10 or 12 people, 12 adults or something on that trip, two little kids.

Michael Williams (23:48.142)
I think the conversation going into that was, I'm just going to be exhausted at the end of this, but it's going to be worth it. And I'm going to stay up until 2 a every night and get up at 6 a every morning, both for the sake of my friendships and for the sake of my marriage. I knew it wasn't fair to expect Angie to do the early mornings every day. And I didn't want to miss out on that friend time. So was

I'm just going to live on three or four hours of sleep. I can handle that for several days and I can sleep when I get home. Some of that was that mindset. In general, we'll often take turns on taking a sleep -in day. So that's either in travel or at home. It's a great way to give the other parent a break. So I might take the kids out of the house solo for the morning and let Angie get some rest, catch up on reading.

resort herself that way too. I like I missed part of your question there as I went on the tangent, but that was some of it by and large was at least for me consciously deciding these are a few things that are important for me on this trip. And these are some conscious sacrifices that I'm going to make, namely sleep and mental well -being. I am surprised how many parents I've come across

that don't do the sleep trade thing, particularly with newborns, where they might have the child in the room with them. And we didn't, but it was across the hall, but you know, every so often it was like, yo, you got to go to the basement so you can get a good

And then, you know, I'll go the next night. We, but like, we need a reboot. would, during very difficult times, we would send someone away to go, Hey, go get a good night's rest.

Michael Williams (25:56.082)
And I think that was Angie's Mother's Day present one year was we just got her a hotel room for herself in London for a night or two. Because, yeah, even if you're in the house, you can still hear the crying and you just don't get the yeah, you don't get the mental break. If you even if you're not the one actively doing the parenting, but you know something is going wrong, doing the reps in your Yeah, exactly. She was like, how about a week?

If she would have taken a week, I would have let her. We are sending my wife to a hotel in a couple of weeks here and got her a spa and she's just going to be probably take her quilt or whatever that she's working on and she gets she gets 24 hours of just solo. Not far enough that she has to worry about how dad's doing or anything like that, but also far enough that it's well out of earshot.

So I'm excited for her to do that. Glad you're doing that. That's great. So let's shift topics here. And I want to talk specifically about your experience as a dad with an autistic child. So I want to start off with for any dad or any really any person that has limited or no experience with interacting with autistic children.

What is the first big main message that you would tell them? I would say, when you're dealing with the parents of an autistic child, and you are that friend, I think it's fantastic and you should be empathetic towards those parents, but they do not need your sympathy, most likely.

that there are a lot of things and as the famous cliche saying goes, if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. So the other piece is to just try to avoid making any assumptions about what things might be like. So for us, I can only speak to our personal experience and our experience with Oscar.

Michael Williams (28:23.008)
and again, claiming no expertise on this topic. But there are things with Oscar that are just more challenging. And there are some activities that are just not in the cards for us right now, I won't say forever, but just not with where things are at at the moment. Other things are a lot easier. And we'll joke about that and try to remind ourselves of that too. Oscar doesn't fight bedtime. That's great. We keep his routine pretty consistent.

When it's time to go to bed, he's just like, all right, peace. Good night. I'm in my room now. I'll see you in morning. Happy to be here. And that's great. Versus, you know, we also joke around with our younger one who is a very avid talker that Arlo reminds us of the hidden advantages of having a nonverbal child. So in that, in general, I would say, you know, be empathetic, but you know, be careful

the sympathy and again, just try to avoid assumptions. What would you tell someone who, who's sort of a new dad to, to autism or to, you know, to an autistic child? think the first thing I'd say is take the time to mourn. And what I mean by that, like don't mourn the diagnosis. There's nothing wrong with that. And it can be a gift in a lot of cases, but I do think it's okay. And this is something that I definitely went through.

to mourn the loss of what you expected parenthood to be like. We joke around that the worst thing autism did to us was rob us of an adorable British accent. We left England when an Oscar was maybe about three years old. And by that point, if he were on a neurotypical path, he would have had an adorable little British accent that he might still have today. So we missed out on

And that fucking sucks. otherwise, like I had never thought of that, and I will definitely be mourning that today. And then we can all be angry about it. It used to come out every once in a while in some of the words that he would use. So if you if you drop something on the floor, he might say no. So you could catch little hints of it. But but yeah, I think it's I think it's OK. And as a parent, you should.

Michael Williams (30:48.94)
take that time to mourn the losing the expectations that, you know, so that's when we had to find our feet. You know, we, for us, it was definitely not a surprise by the time we got his diagnosis. It was just giving, giving language to what we were already consciously experiencing, but we still cried that whole car ride home just because we were

okay, this is not at all surprising. That's what we expected to get. Why are we feeling this way right now? But, you know, then you, you find some resources and you get on your feet and you remember that it's not actually a bad thing. just is. Yeah. It's interesting. You mentioned that I have experienced multiple moments of intense emotion during my path as a dad.

where that isn't good emotion, isn't bad emotion, but mass just, it's a wave of pure emotion that generally for me gets expressed as crying or watery eyes, which is not something that I spent most of my life engaging with and probably actively resisted. And this idea for me of

Crying means something bad happened. It's sort of crying and bad of detached. They've disentangled. And just the weight of these moments where your perspective or you realize your experience is shifting.

has led to me crying more. So Kelsey likes to say there's that data in our TV commercials. The body boys inherited the the weepy gene. We cry all the time. It's just always been that way. You all just need to catch up as it should be. So you have one autistic son and one son who is not autistic. So you've been able to see both of those.

Michael Williams (32:59.998)
worlds as much as one example allows you to see each world. So when it comes to specifically being a dad to an autistic child, what for you has been uniquely rewarding and also uniquely challenging on your experience? think some of the challenging pieces have been, and a lot of it ends up just being on the selfish side, right?

I want to have a conversation with my kid and I don't really get to do that. I believe that will happen, but even if it doesn't, that's OK. And it's hard to fully engage in the community in the ways that we would like to. Because. Oscar is an elopement risk. You know he might if we don't hold his hand in public, there is always that chance that he is going to take off running and create risk that way.

You we had a major scare with that last summer that I can talk about if helpful as well. The, you know, there are other challenging aspects of it as well, but you flip that over to the rewarding side. And I never expected to, to your point, be brought to tears by watching a kid drink from a straw. Oscar was, I think, over four years old, the first time he actively drank from a straw. And turns out that's an entirely internal muscle motion.

You can't just teach someone how to drink from a straw. Eventually, they have to make that connection that, you know, if I make this muscle motion inside my body, then the liquid will come from the container into my mouth. So when Oscar just one day picked up his brother's water bottle and started drinking from the straw, and he would never do that until that moment, I was like literally in tears because that was just so cool to see. So

one example, but a lot of the extra rewarding things when they do hit a milestone or when they do something funny or when you see Oscar's personality really shine, then it ends up being so, so cool to see that. And that is so rewarding. And, not again to say that we're just trying to measure everything by, you know, hitting milestones and all of that. But those

Michael Williams (35:28.12)
That's one example where just that holy shit moment. This was so cool. I think the other really rewarding piece is seeing the impact that it has on Harlow, the brother, where he already at five years old is just such an empathetic person. I mean, he screams a lot in things too, but that's cool. But he has so many little moments of advocacy.

for his brother. And it's, you know, we'll see the ways that that impacts his life over time, but already starting to see how that's just his normal, right? That having a mostly nonverbal brother around, he doesn't know any different and he doesn't judge Oscar. He doesn't make fun of Oscar. It's just his brother and that's just the

life is and it's really cool to see how that helps turn him into a more fun person

What has your experience been like with your broader families? So I imagine, or I'm imagining what it, what is it like when a grandparent finds out that they're now grandparent to an autistic child and what, what that experience is like. I'm just, I'm just curious kind of how, you've engaged, how they've engaged you with.

the unique care or knowledge that they need to bring to the relationship. I would say both of our families have been very supportive. And for my parents, as one example, where getting that formal diagnosis and having the term to use for it just helped answer a lot of questions that might have come up where

Michael Williams (37:33.958)
They understood that it wasn't about our lax parenting style, why certain behaviors were the way they were, that there needed to be some extra flexibility on some of that type of thing. Not that they were real sticklers about that type of thing before either. They were pretty open about that type of stuff. Mealtime, Oscar is not one to sit in his chair for the whole meal

sit, you eat all of his food and use utensils and not make a mess. He's going to take a few bites, do a few laps around the house, come back and take a few more bites, and we'll wash his hands like 15 times during one meal because he likes to eat with his hands. So that's one where, you know, in the past, if we didn't have that diagnosis, then maybe they would have been like, you need to help Oscar sit in his chair. You know, maybe you just need

firmer boundaries and that'll fix itself. So that helped alleviate a lot of that. But they were also really great about diving into some resources. So I would proactively get links to interesting articles from my dad who really would started to dig in and figure out what this all meant. And, you know, there was a really great podcast episode on the podcast, Uniquely Human.

I highly recommend that as a resource for parents. There's a great book, great podcast on that. And it turns out that Oscar is what they call a gestalt language processor. So he'll process language in chunks of phrases that in his mind basically exist as one unit instead of as an entire sentence of separate words. So a lot of our work with him is helping to separate out those words and show him all the different ways that he can use language.

So there was a really, really great podcast episode about that. And we sent that around to our families and they all actually listened to it. then they'll help interact with Oscar in that way now too. So that's been really great to see. Did you hit any bumps along the way or I'm imagining at Christmas or something like that where sometimes blood pressures can be elevated. If there's a lot of people around, there's a lot of bodies in one space.

Michael Williams (39:57.708)
Was there anything?

that you've had to either prepare for or learn to, you know, learn to deal with in family situations like that? Yeah. Tell me more. Yeah, Christmas is my mom's Super Bowl. And, you know, she puts up multiple trees with a lot of breakable ornaments and decorations and nutcrackers and

little ceramic village houses all over the place. The tradition of opening presents is a drawn out experience where we open them one at a time and go around the room. So it is a extravaganza of sensory overloads for an autistic child with sensory seeking behaviors.

Yeah, so we've had to make a lot of adjustments over the years that feel like second nature at this point, but we'll help bring Oscar to the present opening time, but he won't stick around for long, and that's okay. He'll help open a few presents, and then he needs a break. He needs to run around. And it's much more accepted now than it might have been in the early days that it's okay if not everybody is sitting down for this entire activity and things like

My mom's a lot better at keeping some of the breakable stuff either out of circulation or at least more out of reach than it might otherwise have been in the past. But we still have lots of challenges with taking ornaments off the tree and stuff like that. And that's just to say at Christmas time. so yeah, those things definitely do come up. A lot of stressful moments will happen and it usually turns into a conversation of

Michael Williams (41:58.57)
Only so much we can do here. You know, we'll, keep working on redirecting the behavior, but this is just what's going to happen right now. At some point I want to have a compilation or competition of Christmas decorators because your mom, Superbowl contender, there's another friend's mom who also is a, I think a four tree Christmas contender.

And I, for a while, thought that this is like a, you know, like a generation past or like an older, you know, grandparent age, early grandparent age type of thing. It is not. I have found peers who also are three tree, four tree Christmas contenders. And at some point these, this needs to be compiled for the broader populations to understand what goes on in some houses.

It's a trip. Yeah, my mom's only a three tree household. So maybe your friend's mom hasn't been, but they are big trees though, and they are stocked with ornaments. There's the tree that you're not allowed to touch anything on. And then there is the tree in the basement that has all the ornaments that we made growing up. who cares what happens to Cubic feet of Christmas. We also need a box count. How many boxes of ornaments? One of the things

It's just so clear listening to you talk, how thoughtful, how invested, kind of the, you know, just hearing you use, you know, the language you use talking about how intentional you are. it's just really clear that you put a ton of effort into being a great dad to both your kids and have put a ton of effort into being a great dad for, for your autistic son.

I'm wondering in all of this, how do you think about taking care of yourself? Where does that fit in for

Michael Williams (44:06.217)
Usually between the hours of 10 PM and 1130 at night. No, I think that's an area for growth, both for myself and for my wife. It's something we talk about. Neither of us take enough time for that. You know, we get time to enjoy some quiet time together in the evenings when we finally wrestle the younger one.

into bedtime. And, you know, we've got hobbies that we'll explore. I get a lot of mental solitude from cooking. So I do scratch cooking pretty much every night of the week. And that's at least 30 minutes to an hour that for the most part, I am zoned in on putting a damn good meal together and that

that gets me a good little mental break and scratches a creative itch and stuff like that too. But yeah, I think that's also an area that is lacking and eventually is gonna catch up with me and I need to invest a lot more there. So open to suggestions from yourselves and your intrepid listeners.

What are two or three resources that you would recommend to a dad who is starting their journey with an autistic child? Like what has been the most helpful in your particular experience? My personal bias will come through here. Others will steer people in different directions. For us, after some of the initial

recommendations that we might've gotten that turned out not, from our doctor and things that turned out not to be the directions that we wanted to take things. And I can get more specific with that, but we started to find more resources to actually hear from autistic adults. So for example, there's a great, very active, very large Facebook group. I believe it's called Autism Inclusivity, where

Michael Williams (46:18.828)
You know, either neurotypical or autistic parents can ask questions about what their kids might be going through and get input from autistic adults based on their experience as a kid and what might've been going through their head at that age, you know, when XYZ challenge was coming up. I, that channel or that group can also devolve into vitriol pretty rapidly as well.

keep your guard up when you're reading through there. But that overall has been a great source of information for us. And there's a number of other websites that I don't actively read as much as I should that are maintained by autistic adults writing about their experiences as well. I mentioned that podcast of Uniquely Human. I've not actually gotten around to reading that book, but I've heard great things about it. But the podcast itself has had some really great episodes.

There was also a parenting group and a class that we took while we were still in DC with two fantastic women that brought a class. I believe it's all virtual now. They might still do it in person. And it's about this concept of raising orchids. So they use the metaphor that some kids are like dandelions and can pretty much thrive in any environment.

some kids are like orchids, that they might require very specific environments, but when cultivated properly, for lack of a better term here, they can still turn into an absolutely gorgeous flower, right? So that's not just a resource for autism, but for any other challenges that a parent might be facing.

So yeah, I think it's called Raising Orchids. That was another really helpful class that helped us with our approach with parenting too. You have mentioned Oscar has a wide range of scenarios with which his life could play out in terms of the support he needs. the just, you know, he could become

Michael Williams (48:42.548)
lack of a better term, like a fully functional, independent adult who can operate on his own to, he may need the support of, of living with you for, for his life. So, so there's a wide range and you don't know what the future will be. How do you deal with that ambiguity? Because for something as important,

as your child, that ambiguity could be crushing for some. Yeah. How do you deal with that? Yeah, I think it's, I wish I had a more concise answer for that. But I think with anything else with parenting, it's, you could say the, ask the same question about any kid who's more neuro -typical as well. They could turn into,

you know, a total deadbeat who never gets a job and moves out of your house. They could cure cancer. Who knows? The best that any of us can do is prepare them for the next day and try to steer them along the right path and raise good, thoughtful people. So in that sense, it's not that different. It can feel different. And then as soon as you start to unpack it, you're like, that's actually, I have the same questions

my neurotypical kid too. So that's even though, yes, it's more likely that Oscar will be living with us into adulthood. Not a guarantee. That again has its advantages too. That some of the early childhood joy that a lot of kids grow out of.

Maybe that means that Oscar just won't grow out of that. And we'll get to see the world through his eyes for a lot more years than the average parent might. Also, cocaine. One of the things that I'm taking away from this discussion is, so I have never met my biological

Michael Williams (51:01.534)
And to some people that is a crazy concept. But to me it's not even really a blip on the radar. It's my life as it's just my life. You know what I mean? Like it's not a factor. the reason I mention that is as again as a friend to someone with an autistic child,

that I have, I can get fall into this trap of your experiences somehow different from mine as a parent, but they're, they're the same. There's, you don't know any different experience and it's not a, it's not like an affliction. You know what I mean? There's this, I'm trying to process in real time this and identify

I can sometimes think of your experience as unique when it is not that unique. Every parenting experience is unique. It is not more unique than that. It also, just, it highlights what I think, at least to me, is one of the most mind fucking or mind bending part of being a parent, which is we can't really help ourselves. We're going to put our whole

selves into these tiny little creatures. And at the end of the day, we have almost zero control over who they're going to be. It's fucking terrifying. Like we choose to do it. That's terrifying. We're going to keep doing it. And I think what Mike, what you're rubbing up into is like, that is the fundamental choice. And it's not that different. Depending on who your kid is. Yeah.

Fully agree. So, last question for you is what advice do you have for any future dads, any people getting ready to become a dad, any dad that's in it right now? What would you leave them with today? You gotta laugh. I don't know. That's the best I'm coming up with right now.

Michael Williams (53:26.274)
Find a way with your partner and everybody else in your life. I like following funny parenting stuff on social media that I can commiserate with the hard parts and laugh at how ridiculous so many things are. Like, my kid went to bed with a cantaloupe last night. Arlo snuggled with a cantaloupe under his blanket the entire night.

He came in to say hi to us in our bed at four o 'clock this morning and sleep in our bed for a few minutes. And he brought the cantaloupe with him. And then he went back to his bed and took the cantaloupe too. So like, you gotta, you gotta let that funny stuff be funny. It just, there's going to be so many hard parts that happen. Like I talked about with the sales career, if the no's hurt more than the yes's feel good, it's a downward spiral. If you can't find a way to laugh at

hilarious stuff that your kids do, then that's going to be a problem. Well, thank you, Adam. This has been really great. have always admired the, there's a simple elegance that you live with amid the chaos of, that life always brings, having a career, moving, for people in the family.

I've always appreciated that and getting to learn a sliver of where that comes from has been really cool and I am appreciative of you sharing today. This has been a blast. Thanks for letting me share. Thank you, Adam. Before you bounce, I have a quick favor. Please subscribe to the pod. Not only does Luke love juicing those numbers, but it really does help put this thing in front of more dads.

And Mike, on the other hand, just loves juicing. We also now run a listener community on WhatsApp. To join, visit dadpod .fm and you'll see the delicious link at the top of the homepage. Come on in, baby. We'd love to have