Hey Dad. Listen to my voice

“Dinner’s ready!”

I called out, but there was no reply from my son.

It’s a weekday afternoon. My second son is at nursery school. My wife is out with friends. It’s just me, working from home, and my eldest son, who refuses to go to school.

He said he wanted ramen for lunch, so I made it, but this is what happens when I suggest we eat together.

An insurmountable wall before my eyes. This was the wall of a computer that cuts off communication. My eldest son, wearing earphones and watching YouTube while slurping his ramen, cannot hear my voice.

How did it come to this?

◇◇◇

Ten years ago, my eldest son was born weighing 2812g.
There was no sign of him coming on his due date of July 10th, and after a difficult birth, he arrived the next day.
My wife and I laughed, saying, “He must have really hated natto,” and it’s true, he still doesn’t eat natto today.

As first-time parents, my wife and I were in a constant state of chaos. If he cried even a little, we would panic and worry. My wife developed postpartum depression, sudden sensorineural hearing loss, and a herniated disc, and I got into a car accident from sleep deprivation. No one told me that parenting would bring such emergencies.

I suppose this is what they call a sheltered child. Like a piece of high-end wine packed tightly in a paulownia box and protected by cushioning, we cherished our eldest son dearly. Both sets of grandparents chided us for being too nervous, but at the time, we had no idea how to find the right balance.


I first thought my child was different when he was three.
While the three of us were walking through the crowds at the station building, a girl of about five bumped into him lightly from behind.
My eldest son, enraged by this, chased after her and delivered a flying kick from behind.

He was a child with terrible temper tantrums, so I knew he had an intense personality, but my wife and I, witnessing that magnificent dropkick, realized that the contents of the cushioning weren’t high-end wine, but actually iron dumbbells.

When we talked about the dropkick at his three-year-old checkup, we were referred to a specialist agency and were easily labeled with autism spectrum disorder.

In any case, my son cannot move according to schedule. “I don’t want to go” right before leaving is the default, and if things don’t go his way, he has a mild panic. He is afraid of failure and finds it hard to try new things, and he is so obsessed with winning that losing is synonymous with death. He has sensory sensitivities and cannot wear undershirts. His special talent is poking at the tiny negative elements lying in the corners of a tiered food box and inflating them to the maximum.

Even so, he managed to go to nursery school, and he attended elementary school properly until the third grade.
Seeing my eldest son like that, I started to think he would be fine. That he could make it in society just like any other child. Out of sight, out of mind. I want to tell my past self: What is “normal”? Don’t underestimate autism spectrum disorder.

My son, who cried more than anyone else and was very assertive as a baby, started speaking early and would constantly appeal to me, saying, “Look, Dad,” or “Listen, Dad.” I loved him with all my might, but he was always crying because that wasn’t enough.

Then, at some point, my second son was born, and my eldest son’s cries turned even more heart-wrenching.

“Give me back my dad.”

“Give me back my mom.”

“I’m lonely.”

I knew it, but I couldn’t listen to my eldest son’s voice using adult logic, thinking, “What else can I do?”

He must have been pushing himself quite hard from around this time. The temporary words of “You’re doing great, well done” had already lost their effectiveness.

◇◇

In June of his fourth-grade year, my eldest son’s heart completely broke.To protect himself, he stopped pushing himself.

From then on, he stopped going to school and shut himself away in a world of videos and games at home.

My wife was devastated by this, and I felt regret.

I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for making you try so hard until you reached this point.
I’m sorry I didn’t listen to your voice.
I’m truly sorry I couldn’t protect you and couldn’t be there for you.

I also blamed myself to protect myself.


◇◇◇

As I stared at the computer in front of me while thinking these things, my vision blurred unexpectedly.

Slurp, slurp.

Sniffling, I slurped my ramen.

My foot touched my eldest son’s under the table.
Feeling that he had turned his attention toward me, I stood up and signaled to him.

I asked my eldest son, who had taken out one earphone, “Is it good?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want more bean sprouts and minced meat?”

“Yeah.”

“How about mushrooms?”

“I don’t want mushrooms. Thanks.”


I felt a little relieved that I could still hear his voice.
And while he still lets me hear this voice,
While my voice can still reach him,

I will do my best so that one day he will say,“Dad, thank you for listening.”

I’ll do my best to make that happen.