That timeless parental trigger of “I remember being that age…” has, in terms of Isaac, always been a steer-clear rather than a go-to.

I get its usefulness as a gateway to taking your child on a relatable and well-rounded journey; when to push, when to pull back. What a nifty – internal – nudge for all those give-it-a-whirls and stick-it-outs, the duck-for-nows and in-at-the-deep-ends.

Memories, conscious or subconscious, are playing a role in persuading my 7 year old neurotypical daughter, Tabitha, to try new friend meet ups, music lessons, summer camps, drama groups, any number of peer group free-for-alls.

There’s a galvanising gung-ho-ness to this parenting strategy. If it was alien to me pre-Tabitha, I’m all for it now. Roll with the punches. Get on with it. What’s the worst that can happen. The lapel wearing slip-ups. Let nostalgia blur out the sharper recollections. Bow to innate empathy. The stakes are only so high. For now, of course. How long she’ll play Little Miss Willing who knows – she’s already being on the cusp on Little Miss Knowing, in every sense of the word.

So, if “I remember being that age…” might work wonders for Tabitha, I’ve timidly assumed it would only end in blunders for Isaac. Hence making my bed solely in the comfort zone of assuming the latter would happen – instinct tells me, if it worked for me, it won’t for him.  

Like writing in fresh concrete, the mindset started to set from the well-meaning “you were probably like that – we all were!” comments in the painful pre-diagnosis days. Any chance of the mini-me narrative was killed stone dead at that time. I have known for the last decade or so that the contours of his life were not for comparing with my early one as the only conclusion would be one of pointless contrasting.

Yet, here we are, with the mayhem of teen years swooping into sight like a medicine ball flung from height (he turns 13 in September), and I just can’t shake off recollecting my own – and awkwardly try to put myself in his eccentric (Velcro) shoes (dyspraxia still demanding no laces).

I know full well that holding on to my heady and headless days to match Isaac’s magical mind is far from clever. My memory archives would be much safer kept under lock and key.

Indeed, if personal history tells me that those first steps into adulthood came with some “fun and games”, in Isaac, we have an enforced game of Twister. Rulebook optional, colour palette plentiful. Less stumble, more tumble. Tantrums, tangles, irritation and an atypical take on teamwork.

I imagine a horse racing screech of, “and we’re off!!!” thumping in Isaac’s head at the crack of dawn, every day, as he commences his tussles with the intensity of his thoughts; the mental gallop rarely ceasing. From whether “school” friends can be “weekend” ones; to blow by blow recollecting of yesterdays and scheduling of tomorrows; needing to “beatbox NOW for my teen friends like an animated character”; to being perplexed (at once happy and sad) at the pluses and minuses and “issues” of his autism.

These are just a snapshot of the verbalised thoughts we try to sympathise with and to stem. The whirl of a world that has to revolve around him. So much of a struggle for him to filter, edit and manage the torrent. Someone he knows is going on holiday that day? Oh no, “my autism and that airport security hate each other”. A Clapham Junction train of thoughts. No let up.

As always, his commandeering of a routine is essential to ease a bit of pressure:

“Planning just gets me so overexcited dad – my body can’t stop this feeling…we have to go somewhere, come on man, give me your proposals…PLEASE!!”

The recent yelps of “this is a cancellation situation, this is like rain tumbling right now,” are best avoided but not always possible.

But even taking all this into consideration, I just can’t stop comparisons creeping in. Mainly because our overriding similarity is having a loving family and a slippy-slidey Jewish identity. Which means the milestone of a Bar Mitzvah (the Jewish child’s 13 year old coming of age experience) looms, secular but domineering, and is landing me in a memory minefield.

It actually gives me hope that Isaac is in pole position for a positive experience (don’t worry, mum, mine was far from terrible).

My 1980s affair was orchestrated by a po-faced Rabbi who threatened to halt the purse sapping proceedings one week before due to my lack of application and ability to learn the portion of Torah (bible).

(How I wish I’d had Isaac’s rote learning special powers that would have helped the Hebrew regurgitation bit. “Dad, you don’t have anything stored in your own head?!” was a recent dig, when, on hearing a tune together, I could only recall the lyric ‘free from desire’. “This may be the 2017 version called Push the feeling,” he continued, “by Nightcrawlers and John Reid with Big Narstie. But the original is the 1997 version and you are a shambles for not knowing this – at your age! It’s music from the past which is the only type of music you like!” Maybe not grasping the irony of saying “your age” to me.)

Rote learning or not, Isaac experiencing my didactic Bar Mitzvah lessons is something I don’t dare to envisage. The teacher at the front of the class tap-tapping, one size fits all learning, biblical and gory storytelling that’s abstract and assumes imagination. This under-duress type of education would be a disaster. Kids messing about, whispers, mischief. Strip lights, clusters of pens and paper. (Though of course, the idea of a motor-skills friendly tablet would have been more far-fetched than the Moses kind of tablet). The older he gets, the more I know mainstream is a massive square peg.

And of course, his rote learning is the by product of the photographic memory (our life project is harnessing it for the real world whilst ensuring he’s happy; it’s a work in progress) and is sparked only when he’s willing, being the engine for specific interests; but seriously, how can one brain contain so much music knowledge?

“Quiz time, dad, you’re the presenter,” is the precursor to me mentioning any artist from that week’s top 100. He’ll then provide exact song name, lyrics – often sung – plus any additional artist, “ah yes, this song by Tion Wayne is called ‘I dunno’, but I must warn you, it actually also features Stormzy and Dutchavelli (I’ll spell it for you shortly)…”

Full marks. Every time. Lyrics too. I don’t know the words to a song I’ve heard a thousand times. He’s locked them down on after the first listen.

He learns academically, of course, and the best outcomes are from totally individualised plans with him and a (so) patient and persuasive, fully focused teacher; a practice replicated so wonderfully during lockdown. Witnessing it was wonderful. How lucky we are:

His teacher, the instructor, preparing and sweeping interruptions away; getting Isaac reassured and intent; then giving him short bursts of knowledge; before letting him free for deregulation. Hold your nose, down you go, dive and discover, up for air… and breathe.

Back to my Bar Mitzvah, I managed to buckle down, calm my class-clownism, and pull it off. Fortunately. It would have left a helluva lot of hairspray unused, not to mention Le coq Sportif and Italian leisurewear unwrapped and bottles not spun at a hormone-fest of a – post-adult shindig – teen gathering.

However, the physical and tactile, swaying humanity of a synagogue has been anything but a blast for Isaac on our few visits. If, in a post Covid world, how to transition from this tradition is causing an existential crisis to the Jewish community, it’s only good news for Isaac. Many synagogues and sensory processing challenges are not spiritual bedfellows.

And a different way actually meshes with where our plans were progressing (currently on Covid pause but all in hand) from the start of the year. The pluralistic, climate change campaigning and interfaith champion, Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, is set to share his pulpit with Isaac. His compassion is extraordinary; knowing that he let an autistic Bar Mitzvah boy stroke his Rabbinical beard whilst reading from the Torah is heartwarming.

Furthermore, the ethos of the Masorti movement he represents, slots in so well with Isaac’s, strengths-and-weaknesses, spiky learning profile. Isaac needs lots of one to one support to access his differentiated scheme of work – as I’ve said so many times, his school are unique experts at delivering this, and the synagogue will respect and respond accordingly. Their similar approach will reveal the right amount of Hebrew and Biblical storytelling to learn plus will give him the opportunity to express his own Jewish identity – from Israeli trains, to music, (Drake not Wiley probably), nothing’s off the table. With the promise of a tranquil synagogue space, limited guests and an unabashed scene-stealing Isaac allowed, it can be a truly bespoke, highly planned, Bar mitzvah. The after party, with his playlist perfected, a given.

When Isaac met Rabbi Jonathan and his team, they were gripped by his sit up and take notice tell-all talking; his pumped up departure when he declared “bye Johnny!” emphasized their joy.

Yet this was the hinge when “I remember being that age…” hit me hardest and might have haunted me ever so slightly since.

It wasn’t just the thought of me unleashing some mischievous chit chat with the Rabbi – that I’d have been reprimanded for, yet Isaac obviously did sincerely and innocently. But how that way of speaking in the harsher social climate of teenagers may be received.

Observing the at times tormented Isaac of late, I’m struck by my own take on a tension between Madame da Stael’s, “Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts” and (used more illustratively than maybe correctly), Franklin’s, “honesty is the best policy.”

Isaac’s utter honesty and literal nature are the pillars of his exhortations to the world, currently unchecked by pre-teen reticence. You have to invest in a conversation with Isaac which his older cousin teens, loving his knowledge on rappers for example, are prepared to do; mini speeches like “6ix9ine is an interesting rapper -why does he have those rainbow teeth? Would you make rainbows in your mouth? I’ve only listened to the clean version of his songs, I promise!” just bring smiles.

Equally adults adore the literal language, littered as it is with everything he says. When his grandfather attempted to bargain with him by saying, “Isaac, if you don’t call me elderly, I’ll call you a young man, not a boy,” Isaac responded:

“No, no, no, you are mixing age and gender papa, this is confusing, please this must stop, I am getting confused.”

And, when I referred to someone being a “good old friend” Isaac admonished me for calling him old when he was only in his forties.

“Why must I not call girls birds when you and mum are love birds?” Another query that had me stumped.

Plus as he purposefully and earnestly brushed crumbs from his lap to the floor whilst eating a sandwich in the car, he earnestly deadpanned, “but mum said I could make crumbs in the car.”

You can but smile as this life affirming stuff. Pure logic and truth.

Among his age group it makes him vulnerable though, especially when I remember my sarcasm that gave me such a robust role in the mickey taking and pecking order early teen 1980s universe. I may have had a low self-esteem and a high regard for cool, but it wasn’t toilsome, and the freewheeling nature of conversation suited me.

Isaac’s way can be to bulldoze conversations. Though, he’s certainly not the first to feel the frustration of Zoom, “the microphones are having a fight with each other, everyone must mute for me,” which can lead to dark moods.

Your turn-my turn instant messaging suits him most, but that’s so different from teen face to face hanging out – when that implicit negotiation, with things unsaid and the ability to handle flow is so critical. And he so yearns to socialise, have friends and be without parents.

I worry.

However, as the gruelling lockdown world’s hatches are unbattened, knowing the school will take the baton, gives me more than hope. Learning nuance, social skills perseverance, all his therapies – just a glance at his timetable takes me back to my archaic one and the desire to “remember being his age” diminishes.

The world is so different. Ever changing technology, so lambasted, can in some ways takes the strain out of growing up, and plays to his strengths (talk of TikTok’s real benefits, sustenance for his sociability and creativity, is for another time). His tight world is a kinder, cleverer, more emotionally intelligent one to the one I grew up in. It’s wayward for him for sure, but recalling my world is way off the mark.

If I overthink the future, parenting Isaac feels like juggling a precious jewel; the less I look back, the more I’ll keep hold of his brilliance.

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