Story Of Runaway Asperger's Boy Proves Futility Of Trying To Keep It Together
If you've got tissues nearby, get them out now: A 13-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome ran away from home and spent nearly two weeks in the NYC subway system before being found by a MTA worker who recognized his face from a missing-person poster. Apparently afraid of being scolded for not concentrating at school, Francisco Hernadez Jr. ducked into a subway station near his home in Bensonhurst and rode the D, F, and No. 1 trains for 11 days, surviving on snacks bought at newspaper kiosks.
His parents scoured the boroughs by subway and bicycle, and posted more than 2000 home-made signs imploring their son to come home. "Franky come home," one pleaded in Spanish. "I'm your mother I beg you I love you my little boy." (Excuse me, I seem to have a speck of dust or something in my eye.) He's back at home, back at school, back to drawing and playing video games. But still friendless and rarely speaking, still, as his neurologist put it, struggling with situations that demanded a "verbal or social response." Asked by the Times' Kirk Semple how he felt about the efforts to find him, Francisco said, "Sometimes I don't know how I feel," he said. "I don't know how I express myself sometimes." Asked what he took from the fact that no one approached him during his time on the trains, he said, "Nobody really cares about the world and about people." His mother said, "I tell him: 'Talk to me. Tell me what you need. If I ever make a mistake, tell me.' I don't know, as a mother, how to get to his heart, to find out what hurts."
Oh, that's not a speck of dust after all. I'm sobbing hot tears.
Damn you, Bry.
Let's think about this, shall we?
If the kid had been white, and from a private school in Manhattan,
a) how long would it have taken until his story would have been made public?
b) where would the Times have placed the piece?
Oh, yeah, we're post racial alright…
And if he had been a kid in the third world, they might have just had another one and be done with it.
NicFit…becoming a tried and true treasure of trolldom.
I've no doubt the story would have been run earlier–in the same section. Where it belongs.
The point is well taken. But in answer to b) and in fairness to the Times, they ran it on the front page. Gave it a big chunk, with a large photo.
Lemme get this straight: I'm mocked for love of magazines, humiliated for having mentioned watching re-run television shows and practically cyber-bullied into subscribing to the New Yorker's digital edition– just to prove I'm no holdover from the Mesozoic–and you're buying the print edition of NYT?Ah, "A1". Got it.
Hooray for Nino Perdido.
This is that Haddon novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime come to life! Go, kid!!1!
Ms. GarcÃa said one detective told her the boy was probably hiding out with a friend. She replied that her son had no friends to hide out with.
I have to get goddamn waterproof mascara.
Oh dear.
The desperation evoked by the posters, the searching mom on foot-dad on the bike, the fact that Francisco made it at all in the subway for that many days in spite of himself speaks to the strength of this family.
Todd Rundgren. Always relevant. Badly styled, but relevant.
Lifetime Movie deal in 5… 4… 3…
Kinda tough to hear, "No one cares," from someone incapable of irony or self-pity or, I dunno, the social nicety of never ever saying that out loud.
I thought of the curious incident also. But my real comment is that here in DC the metro shuts down at a reasonable hour doesn't allow any food so this'd be impossible.
I mean, he doesn't complete an assignment and you scold him for not concentrating and call his mom? And he calls his mom at the end of the day, as per usual, to say he's coming home from school, and she raises his anxiety level by telling him they're going to have a serious talk when he gets home?
I'm not suggesting they knew something like a 10-day subway ride would happen. But come on, how does any of that help him?
Yeah, I struggled with this too. Especially in light of mimithedog's comment, as I know a white private schooled-kid who would certainly have made the news..as a murder victim upon her return home.
There are several ways to regard the story, I think. Good things include parents who want academic success for their kids. Parents who parent. A diagnosis of Asperger's, which does not preclude "functioning" in society. A child who survived 11 days in the subway system without being molested, turned to prostitution or knifed on the D. Bad things include parents new to this country whose desire for their progenies' success drive behaviors which mirror those practiced here during the last 20 years, with questionable results.
I think what disturbs me most is that the family had trouble conveying Aspberger's to the cops. In so many cases in the city, kids on the autism spectrum don't get what they need because their parents don't have the language, time, money to be advocates the way those parents (mostly moms, but not always) who are upper-middle-class can be.
Which is to say the deck is massively stacked against families with autistic kids from the get-go (you have to sue the Board of Ed every year to get services and education for your kid, for example), and being from another country and being working-class makes it so very much harder.
Heartbreaking. Just absolutely heartbreaking.
I'm very happy this ended as OK as it did, and I hope people finally back off Lenore Skenazy and her kid now.
I came here to make a Darwin joke but I can tell that's not going to go over well. Not that I have any ill wishes for the kid. Did you not pick out at least four or five things in this article that suggest that this kid's parents are not suitably equipped to raise a special needs child? That is what concerned me more than this kid taking a wild subway ride.
Not that there's anything that Social Services could do to make the situation better. They'd just fuck it up more.
I don't know if all the money, resources, and education in the world can suitably equip anyone to raise a special needs kid. And seeing as this kid made it for 11 days, Darwin's still on his side.
The fuck? "..this kid’s parents are not suitably equipped to raise a special needs child…"? Where did you get that from? They love and do the best they can? YOU fucking try it.