Book Review: Following Ezra

Following Ezra: What One Father Learned About Gumby, Otters, Autism, and Love from His Extraordinary Son, by Tom Fields-Meyer, is a “my family’s experience with raising an autistic child” book from the father of that family. This is somewhat unusual. Usually it’s the mother that writes the book. That difference makes it more accessible to other dads, in my opinion. And unlike Not My Boy!, vast quantities of sports star money and fame aren’t involved. This makes the story more approachable to other families, I feel.

I liked this book. Tom Fields-Meyer wrote Following Ezra in an easily-digestible, flowing narrative from his own perspective. The family is Jewish, so the story follows Ezra from early childhood to age 13. For those unfamiliar, at age 13, Jewish children celebrate their bar/bat mitzvah. It’s a coming of age ceremony and their first step to joining the larger Jewish community. It’s a very tidy place to bookend his life. Though I think we can all agree Ezra’s childhood is hardly over.

Neurodiversity Without The Word

Something I really appreciated about Ezra’s parents was that they didn’t try to shoehorn their child into some kind of imagined future. The book title itself, “Following Ezra,” clues you into this fact. They followed him. They didn’t metaphorically walk before him, pointing to all the best places to step. Nor did they dictate his path to him. Instead, they watched and listened and did their best to be supportive of him as he went.

The word “neurodiversity” is never printed in this book. Yet Ezra’s parents seem to understand that their son’s way of living is as valid as theirs. They presume competence rather than defining their son’s limitations to themselves. And they make the assumption that he will learn and grow. After the suggestion that Ezra might be autistic and being told he should grieve for the child Ezra didn’t turn out to be, the author puts it this way:

My answer will never be to mourn. It will be to pour love on my son, to celebrate him, to understand, to support him, and to follow his lead.

End of Chapter 1, Following Ezra

Not a Cakewalk

I should note, in all this, that Ezra’s childhood was nothing like mine. I followed the more “Aspergers” development path, where I developed skills unevenly but I did develop them over time. Ezra, on the other hand, experienced the regressive autism pattern. He developed, seemingly normally, until a certain point, and then seemed to lose skills and slip away. This is a soul-crushing thing to watch happen to your kid. It typically leaves quite a bit of pain in its wake.

Ezra’s parents are no exception, but they try not to dwell on it. They’re helped along by various experts that seem to understand what autism is and isn’t. A special-needs-friendly hair cutter, an experienced matron and Floor Time practitioner with her own child on the spectrum, case workers, school paraprofessionals, and a psychologist that could describe why Ezra seemed panicked by so many unpredictable facets of life.

They had to learn to cope with a child who rarely spoke at all for years. And then, of course, in true autistic fashion… when he did start speaking (around age 7), he immediately started asking honest (but socially inappropriate) questions like, “why are you so fat?” And while Ezra learned to read at an appropriate age, he didn’t demonstrate it in anything approaching a normal way. The final proof was when he followed the directions on a fire alarm during an event at the synagogue: “Pull down.” The book is full of stories like that.

His parents learn to live with his hobbies/special interests/obsessions, and then, to use them to connect with him and share in his life. They share in his celebration of the first day of every month. A pet dog becomes a way to help him connect with other humans at the dog park. There are all sorts of moments and and roundabout learning experiences.

Read This Book If

You’d like a dad’s eye view of raising an autistic child from birth to age 13. This book is written by a trained writer in a stable marriage. It’s fairly easy reading for a layperson, with a focus on the ideas rather than the fancy names and scientific details of things. “Following Ezra” embodies some of the best ideas of neurodiversity, but without ever using (or possibly even knowing about) the word. I enjoyed the read, and I hope you will too.