The second interview
I didn’t post this right away because I was a bit frustrated with how the interview came out. They wanted it early in the day so they had time to edit it for the news…it was too early for our brains to work properly and it just wasn’t terribly smooth and by the time we saw it we were exhausted and weren’t looking at it objectively.
Although I really liked the introductory sentence, the phrase “battle” with the disorder made me a little unhappy. *cringe* The fact they put “Has an autistic son” under our names (the neurodiversity phrasing instead of the “cure” phrasing) was a good thing, although I sort of doubt it was intentional. lol.
I mostly wanted our last names left out of it so I could share it on the internet and I don’t use last names out in cyberspace. I guess I should have phrased it differently. It is sort of because of the stigma of autism, but it is mostly because dh is on a job search and we want his publications and professional stuff to come up on google searches instead of an interview on autism.
The guy that did the interview seemed like what he was wanting was for us to say how autism (negatively) affected our marriage, which is a good angle to go with because 80% of people end up divorced when their child is diagnosed with autism. (and it isn’t a statistic that is quoted as often as many others) However, our marriage is really good, and if anything it has brought us closer together. I guess being a good partnership isn’t very exciting. lol. About the only thing we could say as far as stresses on our marriage was the financial stress. (If we made 100K a year our lifestyle wouldn’t even change much because all of the sliding scale amounts would just keep sliding up. It is sort of depressing.)
I loved the shots of Zach playing with Zane. That was great and made it all worth it.
I think you guys did a great job. Neither of you appeared nervous at all. Good job. The picture of “one tooth missing” Zane is adorable.
You all did great! No matter what you would have said about “stigma” or “battles” they would have spun it that way though – Sean says in news pieces they have a Good Guy and a Bad Guy. In this one, they wanted big awful autism to be The Bad Guy. You guys mitigated that pretty well, I think!
Bravo!
And it goes without saying that Zane is adorable – and you guys looked great too!
It’s great!! You and Zach both did a great job – you looked/sounded happy and coherent (you know, not like your lives are ruined or something) and I think you put a great “face” on what a real family is like in this situation. I think it was a very positive piece. And fun to see all of you in action!
That is depressing to think about the sliding scale thing. Thank goodness you get the aid right now and are able to get these resources for Zane.
Neat! I think y’all did great. It’s fun to hear real voices after so many years of reading your words.
Well, that’s the media, good news is no news they want to hear! Off to watch! I hope Zane is feeling better by now.
I thought you and Zach did great, but I would’ve liked to hear more of the interview and less of the voice-over. And I agree, it’s so neat to hear your voices!