It was back-to-the-grind today, after a 3-day-weekend suspension of reality. Back to school (for Aidan), work (for me), and homeschool (for Nigel and me). And back to Nigel’s hourly teenage lament: Why me?

It’s not, as I initially thought, concerning his disdain of having autism/being autistic. At least not yet – I’m sure that will come up in another year or so. His “why me?” does not extend to big-picture malaise at this point. Right now he’s more put out by two things: getting a problem wrong on his schoolwork and having to pick up after himself. And I’ve heard “why me” enough times to wonder if it’s simply echolalia. He heard it somewhere and he keeps repeating it.

In a sense, why me? is typical – a declaration of universal teenage angst. I distinctly recall moaning it as a teenager when I had to switch high schools in the middle of junior year. Or when I felt a big zit forming (which was far too often). But I wouldn’t question why me? if I missed a homework problem, and especially not about picking up after myself. What is up with that? The schoolwork I can understand. It’s not a self-esteem issue with him. He’s not saying “Why me?” because he thinks he’s not smart enough. He’s saying “Why me?” because he doesn’t want to do the work over again. He already did it. He hated it the first time. His hand still hurts, and he doesn’t want to do it again.

We get the why-me?s in adulthood too, of course. When we get in a car accident or get a speeding ticket. When we lose our job. When a spouse leaves, can’t deal, or dies and we have to raise children alone. When we get cancer. When our child is diagnosed with autism. When we think we’ve accepted the autism but our child’s school has called us at work three times in one week to tell us that our child needs to be picked up because of behavioral issues and so we ask, why me? Why me?

I’m sure that in the mind of an autistic fourteen-year-old, his why-me?s are just as valid as an adult’s. Picking up after himself on a daily basis is just like having to do schoolwork over again. He just did it, and now he has to do it again. Why me becomes a refrain, a battle cry even. His autistic mind cannot accept the fact that picking up after ourselves is part of daily life. It is a life in which he craves social interaction, but not society. Not with its standards and expectations. He doesn’t understand why these things must be so, nor does he care. When I maintain that we pick up after ourselves because we are not animals, he retorts, “But we descended from apes!” I don’t see a way out of this one, even after I point out that not everyone agrees with that theory.

“Then we should have robots do the picking up,” he says with certainty, convinced that this straightforward idea solves everything and should be implemented immediately. As if it were feasible.  As if we had a robot just taking up space in the hall closet, and it was a simple matter of just taking it out and turning it on, and it would be programmed to pick things up and put them where they belong. Who are we, the Jetsons? Are we living on the Sci-Fi Channel? Is it 2409?

I just have one more question. Why me?