Summary: <p>We talk about our adult son, about being the autistic parent of a non-autistic child, about shaving Chad’s beard (hasn’t happened in decades, so there’s a price), nudity, and generally about what we want for our son’s future.</p> <p><strong>Transcript</strong></p> <p>K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about our amazing, beautiful, talented, wonderful, adorable, charming son. (laughs)</p> <p>C: Yeah? That one? Not the other one?</p> <p>K: Yeah, not the other one. We only have one son, but yes. He can be two different sons. He can be like, the exact-opposite-of-everything-I-said son, but right now, I am absolutely head over heels in love with our adult son. He recently turned 25, and I feel like a lot of what I’m in love with is the fact that he’s an adult.</p> <p>C: Uh-huh.</p> <p>K: Are you into it?</p> <p>C: Into him being a quarter century? Yeah.</p> <p>K: (laughs) So, he moved out when he was 20.</p> <p>C: No, it hasn’t been that long.</p> <p>K: Yeah, it has been.</p> <p>C: No, he was like 21 or 22.</p> <p>K: No, he was 20. </p> <p>C: Was he?</p> <p>K: Yes, because I remember the person he was dating.</p> <p>C: Uh-huh.</p> <p>K: And it was- I don’t want to go into any details because I don’t want to put anybody on blast.</p> <p>C: Okay. It was when he was 20.</p> <p>K: Yes. It was… </p> <p>C: Okay.</p> <p>K: It was significant. I’m doing vulgar hand gestures.</p> <p>C: Yeah, you’re doing a vulgar hand gesture of a two and a zero.</p> <p>K: (laughs) Of a one and a zero.</p> <p>C: Well, he didn’t move out when he was ten.</p> <p>K: (laughs) They know what vulgar hand gesture I’m doing.</p> <p>C: Yeah. If you don’t, don’t worry about it.</p> <p>K: Yeah. I’m doing the universal oomph oomph hand signal. The tchk tchk hand signal.</p> <p>C: Oh, when he was trying to be a DJ.</p> <p>K: Yeah, the rrrrr hand signal. </p> <p>C: When he was trying to be a dj with some beats. Got it. </p> <p>K: Exactly. No, it was back when he was salsa dancing regularly.</p> <p>C: Yes.</p> <p>K: And he stopped salsa dancing regularly when he was about 23? 24?</p> <p>C: Yeah. It just got too expensive and…</p> <p>K: Yeah, and I think he started regularly salsa dancing when he was 18, 19?</p> <p>C: Yeah, maybe. Yeah.</p> <p>K: But I’m really sure he moved out when he was 20.</p> <p>C: Okay, I’ll take your word for it.</p> <p>K: Before his 21st birthday. So, he’s been out of the house for… gosh, five years now.</p> <p>C: Yeah.</p> <p>K: And it’s been pretty sweet.</p> <p>C: It has been.</p> <p>K: (laughs) So, getting him from 12 to 25 was… challenging.</p> <p>C: 13 years’ worth of work.</p> <p>K: Yeah, but it was challenging doing it in Japan.</p> <p>C: Yes.</p> <p>K: So, some facts about our kid is that he graduated high school at 12, I think we might’ve said this before.</p> <p>C: You’ve said that before, yeah.</p> <p>K: And then graduated high school at- I mean graduated college. So, high school at 12, college at 16, and finding something to do to entertain and a way to keep him safe and engaged… was really challenging because he didn’t have any age-appropriate friends I think until- like friends that were actually the same age as him until the past two years. </p> <p>C: Yeah.</p> <p>K: Which I always told him would be the case.</p> <p>C: Right.</p> <p>K: Because he was so ahead of the curve. Which he hated. </p> <p>C: Yeah. He had to wait until his contemporaries had graduated from college and had jobs and things, so.</p> <p>K: Yeah. And he absolutely hated being exceptional.</p> <p>C: Yeah, and then you and I went through that too.</p> <p>K: Yeah.</p> <p>C: I mean, when I was 15, I was a senior in high school. When you were 16, you got your GED and emancipated. So, both of us have our own… being accelerated.</p> <p>K: And we talked about on the o</p>
