Hi Pod! I'm Dad.

The Journey From Fear to Pride

• James Guttman • Season 2 • Episode 250

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From being unable to say the word "autism" aloud to embracing the term "severe autism," James Gutman shares his transformative seven-year journey with his son Lucas in this heartfelt episode. He recalls a pivotal moment when someone referred to his non-verbal son's condition as "the real autism," triggering both offense and reflection about how we label and understand neurodiversity.

James takes us through his evolution as a father and writer, revealing how his blog "Hi Blog, I'm Dad" (launched in 2017) chronicles their journey from fear to appreciation. He describes the early days of struggling to explain his son's silence to strangers, followed by years of growth that changed his perspective entirely. Rather than defending against pity or judgment, James now focuses on celebrating Lucas's unique way of experiencing the world—from the gentle finger games he plays with his sister to the fascinating way he studies his own hand in the sunlight.

The episode offers rare insight into parenting a child with severe autism, balancing the clinical realities with moments of pure joy. James reflects on how Lucas brings him happiness even during challenging moments, and how his son's unfiltered emotions have taught him to live more authentically. With his book "Hi World I'm Dad: How Fathers Can Journey from Autism Awareness to Acceptance to Appreciation" launching soon, James invites listeners to understand that while labels serve their purpose, they never tell the complete story. Pre-order his book now on Amazon to join him on this continuing journey of discovery and appreciation.

Preorder James Guttman’s new book – “Hi World, I’m Dad: How Fathers Can Journey to Autism Awareness, Acceptance, and Appreciation”

Follow Us On Facebook and Follow James Guttman on Instagram.

Also, be sure to read the blog that started it all - Hi Blog! I'm Dad.

Speaker 1:

Hi Pod, I am Dad. He's not just Hi Dad, he's my dad, james Gutman, just hi dad, he's my dad, james gutman. Folks, it's james gutman, it's ipod, I'm dad. Welcome back to another edition of the podcast. It is episode, I guess 251. I thought it was 250, it's not, I don't know. Either way, thank you for joining us. It is uh may. It is nice outside. It is. The birds are singing, as us italians like to say. It's a thing. So thank you so much for being back here on the podcast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so this week I wrote about something that I don't know. It's been in my head, I've thought about it, I've read about it more, I've heard about it more. It's the whole idea about the term severe autism. Right, and I thought about this because for the longest time, there was this kind of this whole thing of when I would tell people that Lucas had autism. There would be a questioning, and I think I've told this story, which I thought was insanely, insanely rude. I even said it on Jubilee when I was on. If you guys don't know, I was on Jubilee. They did a show about a show. I sound so old, what do they call them Videos?

Speaker 1:

I did a broadcast with Jubilee and I told the story about this woman. She was a teacher, she was like a principal I think, and I had worked many years ago. I worked at Orange Theory, right At the front desk. I don't think I ever named the place. Am I allowed to deny Right Orange Theory? And I worked in the front. Name the place. Am I allowed to deny Orange Theory?

Speaker 1:

And I worked in the front and this woman came in and she goes oh, I heard about your son. He has autism. And I was like oh, yeah. And I was like he's nonverbal. And she goes oh, that's the real one. I was like wow, I was offended, like viscerally offended, and I didn't know why, because I mean, here she was telling me I'm okay, but now I'm thinking like what the hell? Who I don't know? It just felt weird and ever since then it's always been kind of an extra step in explaining my son to people who don't know him, to people who don't know him, which is why, at the end of the day, you just have to know him. You see him, you're around him, you understand him more.

Speaker 1:

And then the term severe autism, which I don't know if it's been around for a long time or something new. I had read it, I had seen it and I thought that describes Lucas. Lucas has a lot of pronounced delays and I feel like the term itself it's a lot like autism was. I tried to explain this in the blog, like I talked about when he was young, I was hesitant to say autism out loud. I didn't want to say it out loud.

Speaker 1:

I actually wrote a blog called Saying Autism Out Loud and it was the idea of the first time that I finally got to say to a cashier who had said hello to my son. I was able to say, oh no, he's not going to respond to you, he's non-verbal, he has autism. Whereas there was a time where we would both sit there and stare at him, me and the cashier and I would think in my head he's going to say hi back to the guy. He's going to say hi, and it was after a little while and I would take his hand, I go hi and I feel like an idiot and leave. Those are the early, early days of kind of coming to grips with. This is autism and in that time I didn't really know what autism was. I didn't know how it affected me. I didn't know how it affected our family. I didn't know how it was going to affect Lucas. I didn't know what was going to happen because of this thing that I was taught to fear and told to avoid and scare tactics and government panels or whatnot. And eventually I was able to say it and get good with it and understand it and appreciate it like I do now.

Speaker 1:

Severe autism the term itself I get kind of that same feeling where I know it accurately describes my son. I talked about this. Now I think one of the things that makes me so kind of proud and frustrated all at once is that, especially following my Huffington Post article that I had written about not wanting a cure for Lucas's autism, a lot of people assume that he's higher functioning than he is and there's a part of me that feels like frustrated because I'll get lectured from people like you know, some families have to, you know, have care for their child for the rest of their lives and I'm like, yeah, you're writing to him right now, like I know, I know this fear, I've written about it Adult care and being concerned about, you know, his long-term plans. That's part of my life, the day-to-day things that you think of when you have a child with severe autism. I have those in my day-to-day life with Lucas Things I have to do for him still that I shouldn't have to do for him, things like that. That's a reality. So I know unlike before where I had that visceral reaction to saying the word autism out loud but I think a lot of that might just be kind of like the term. It just sounds so harsh, right, but I get it. That's who my son is, that's what he has. I don't know If it helps describe him to people and they need those labels and they need to understand him. Cool, all right, that's who he is. And I've struggled with this, you know.

Speaker 1:

Again, go back to the Jubilee thing. I remember I'd come out in the beginning. One of the first questions was you know, I don't like the term disability. And I came out and I sat and people were surprised. They're like why did you? I came back and people asked me they're like why are you really? You didn't. You don't like the term disability for him. And I thought to myself I do and I don't like. I get that it has to be, I get that you have to have that, but I don't know. I just feel like he's different I, but I think he was all differently able. I mean, there's just we have to put a name on everything. I just think he's a great kid, but the thing is I've evolved right. I've I've grown with him.

Speaker 1:

A lot of my early days of writing this blog and this journey that I've taken has been through the years and going here and going there and kind of growing with Lucas and learning about Lucas, lucas and learning about Lucas. I have my daughter too. It's been about my kids from the very beginning. Hi blog. I'm dad. I'm a dad. These are my kids. My kids come before absolutely everything and since I began this blog in 2017, you've seen my life change. I was married when I began the blog and different things that I had going on after. You know my heart surgery. So you've seen these through the years and you've read Lucas Grow in my life through this blog. This blog has been around. Highblogondadcom has been around since February of 2017. And since then, lucas has grown seven years. So he's gone from a seven-year-old boy to a 14-year-old boy and I've grown with him.

Speaker 1:

And in the pages of this blog is, for me, kind of just this description of our journey and it's been amazing. It has gone from fearful things. Early on I wrote about worrying about him running away all the time and running into danger. I've written about all the growing pains that come with raising any kid to the boy he is today and I found the appreciation along the way. This blog was an autism appreciation from the beginning. If you go back to the beginning of this blog, I think and I thought about this today I hadn't thought about this in a long time.

Speaker 1:

The early days of this blog, I think a lot of the tone was about not wanting pity and being angry at people for pitying us Because people would give you that like aw and I'd be like how dare you? Like you don't know this kid. I just had to channel it differently. I feel like now I'm more of like you know, I don't care what you think, he's great, like I know this kid is great. But back then I knew he was great but I was more about being mad at you for how dare you pity my kid when he's great. But I've changed, we've changed. The blogs through the years have changed. My son has grown and you've seen the backgrounds and the pictures have changed. The people and the pictures have changed. And the only constant from day one, my daughter and my son, right there in the very first one I ever wrote well, we're not superheroes again, don't pity us, don't put us on a pedestal.

Speaker 1:

It was always about about reality. It was always about, you know, appreciating my own life and trying to find really just the beauty in things and what was beautiful. I use that word too much, man, sometimes. I think what was beautiful about it was I didn't have to search too hard when it came to Lucas. You know other parts of life, you convince yourself and you push. Lucas was just there. Lucas is just on display. What you see is what you get. Look at this. And he would do things that even to this day.

Speaker 1:

I'll watch him just kind of like laying in bed. I'll take his hand and I'll just kind of like have it in front of his face and let's be turning his hand slightly and just kind of like looking at it as he turned it. I don't know if he's bouncing the light, I don't know. I have no idea. I try to learn it. If I go in there, sometimes he'll kind of stop or look at me, but I still watch him, I still try to figure him out the finger thing I wrote about.

Speaker 1:

Now again, hi blog. I'm dadcom. I wrote about severe autism and I also wrote this week about taking him to the railroad fair right here on Long Island. What's a railroad fair? It's not about railroads, it's just a little fair. At a railroad station they give out key chains and there's that truck that smells like harsh sausage and while we were there, we were sitting there and he was doing the finger thing that he does with his sister, where he's comfortable and just kind of taking it in. He takes your hand, he just starts kind of like playing with your fingernails and that's just sweet. There's a sweetness to my son and I'm glad that I made a person like that for the world. I mean, that's the thing that makes me happy. I feel like he brings me happiness. He inspires me to write these things and to do these blogs. He inspires me to get up every day.

Speaker 1:

I write about other things too, man. I I have, you know, full range of work that I do, and lucas helps me smile all the time, honestly, all the time, even when we have like a disaster, even if, like the worst thing happened, they break something in his room or whatever he's like over it as I'm cleaning it up, irate, and he's just like laughing and he's picking my face up and I know people hear that that must be so annoying and like sometimes, but like you can't, it doesn't stay that way because he doesn't get it. You can't be like, get away, he'll come back. So it doesn't, there's no effect. So I know right from the beginning, I'm like all right, I'm not going to be able to be miserable doing this as long as he's in the room. Sometimes I'll send him out of there.

Speaker 1:

I not a beautiful thing. I don't know what is man that's like and that's who my son is. And that's what I want to share and that's what we've been doing since 2017, writing this blog, doing this podcast since 2019. It means the world to me, guys. It really does. And, like I said before, we are a month away from high world on dad, how fathers can journey from autism, awareness to acceptance, to appreciation, and I can't wait to share with you guys. I'm getting I know I've said it forever that there's more news about this coming. I'm telling you right now, within the next two weeks, I'm gonna have some big news about High World, dumb Dad the book.

Speaker 1:

If you haven't done yet, you can pre-order it kind of anywhere you want. I always send people to Amazon, why not? It's the easiest one for me. Wherever you want to get it, get it. Thank you, let me know what you think. Yeah, this is a big deal for me. I'm very excited about it. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast as well. Thank you for the blog. Thank you for everything. I'm grateful. I'm happy. It's a new day. Breathe again, until next time. James Gutman saying bye Pop, I'm out. Thank you, I'm out.