We exist in a world that wants to erase difference instead of embrace it. Kids like ours - neurodivergent and disabled - live in a world which refuses to understand them; instead of leaning into curiosity, and learning about their disabilities, they are frequently met with indifference, ridicule, and a refusal to acknowledge the fullness of their humanity. Autistic, non-verbal, and living with cerebral palsy, Victor Perez, a 17-year-old teenage boy, desperately needed support - instead, within a matter of seconds, police fired shots — despite his family pleading for them to stop.

I spent time reading about Victor, I did not want my only remembrance of his young life linked to this tragic ending: “Victor loved watching professional wrestling, eating fries and taking walks while holding his mother’s hand,” his aunt Ana Vazquez told AP News, “ Those police broke our family. There is no way to explain the pain that we are feeling right now. It’s like our hearts are kind of empty — it’s not full anymore.” I thought of our Nai when reading about Victor’s love for fries and holding his mother’s hands, the tenderness of those moments, an intimacy beyond words. Mamas like us know our children’s love transcends language.

My brain has always worked “differently”, and I was relieved to find a new level of self-acceptance after being diagnosed with ADHD in postpartum. Once we left the toddler years, we learned that our son, W, also had ADHD. This added another layer to developing new strategies and tools as a family. At times it can feel like double the chaos, but being on this journey with W has also helped in two ways: 1) having a kid who is also neurodivergent has allowed me to see ADHD behaviors and tendencies from an outside perspective and 2) it has motivated me to keep trying new tools and skills so that W can grow up practicing them from an early age. Living in a household where two out of three people are neurodivergent (W’s dad is the walking definition of executive function!), means that most of the decisions we make are based around our ADHD. And like many parents in our neurodivergent community, we have found that some of the things that work for our family may not “make sense” to more neurotypical folks.