Fifteen years ago, when our son James was three, my family was hit by a sudden realisation. I was in my mid-thirties; it was then, looking back, that I belatedly did my final bit of growing up.
At that point my partner and I had a few quiet concerns about James’s development, to do with his speech, an occasional sense that he seemed distant and withdrawn, and things that seemed innocuous but troubling: his habit of reciting scripts from his favourite kids’ TV shows, and flapping his hands when he was excited. But when he started at a new nursery, everything became clear. The staff told us we should get him “checked out” and mentioned autism, whereupon we endured a lonely autumn full of appointments with experts, half-eaten meals, and a mounting sense of dread.
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