To the parents sitting next to us at Sesame Street Live last night…
I hope y’all had a wonderful time watching the show. Wasn’t it cute?! It was a lot shorter than I thought it would be, but I thought it was a really cute show for kids. Your little one looked like she was loving it!
I hope you will talk to your older girls about why it was rude for them to keep staring and shooting snide looks at my son all night. Yes– he is 12 and still loves Sesame Street. He loves Elmo and was hoping to get to see Zoe and Rocco last night during the show- he gets such a kick out of all the Elmo and Rocco bits from the TV show.
You see, my son is on the autism spectrum, and it’s pretty common for those on the spectrum to like things that may seem too “young” for them. However, I learned a long time ago to stop wondering whether his interests were age appropriate for him and instead just focus on whether something is “happiness appropriate“. Sesame Street and Elmo make my son extremely happy; he normally hates dancing and singing, but he was dancing and singing like crazy last night!! My son has had a really rough year, but last night he was laughing, singing, dancing, and smiling more than I’ve seen in months. That’s why it irritated me so much when I caught your girls gawking at him, whispering to each other as they looked at him, and even smirking at the fact that a kid his age was having so much fun at a Sesame Street show.
I wanted to shoot them a dirty look, but I didn’t. I’m adult, and they’re kids. And it occurred to me that perhaps you didn’t even realize what they were doing; you were pretty busy with your toddler. However, when my son smiled and said hi to them when he caught them looking at him during intermission and they just stared back at him without speaking or smiling, it was *really* hard for me not to say something. My son doesn’t always pick up on social cues, thankfully, so he didn’t notice that they were being rude. I decided to just talk to him and distract him from them before he realized they were silently judging him.
I really, really hope you see this and decide to take this opportunity to educate your children about special needs kids and talk to them about treating others with kindness. And if you noticed their behavior and said nothing? Shame on you.
