Of Mothers and Mission Control

When Special Needs Require Reinvention

By Joan Drummond Olson

"Houston, we have a problem."

From that moment on, a parent's mission is changed, perhaps forever. But there's another line from the story of Apollo 13 that defines many of our efforts to plot this unfamiliar course through medicine, education and life.

"Failure is not an option."

If you remember the film about the doomed space mission you'll recall how engineers on earth wrestled with the challenge of getting the stranded astronauts back home after an explosion and system failure aboard their spacecraft.  The experts in Houston could use only those items aboard Apollo 13 so the astronauts themselves could fashion a fix to help the ship hold through re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.  Like all good scientists they try to prepare a Plan B in case one rescue scenario doesn't work.  They wonder aloud what the backup procedure will be in the case of Plan A's failure. 

Gene Kranz, the flight director for the Apollo 13 mission advises the crew on the ground, "Failure is not an option."   In other words, "We aren't going to sacrifice those three astronauts.  Don't even entertain the thought."  And so, they didn't.

As a mother of a child on the autism spectrum, I've had much to consider as I try to navigate questions of medical care, speech, occupational and physical therapies, education and an overall treatment plan.  Some researchers studying neuro-development believe the family plays a pivotal role in a child's ability to form healthy relationships and extend the connections he or she can make, perhaps assuring a more inclusive, richer future.  So the theory goes, if the family becomes an almost at-home therapeutic center, they can succeed in this vital mission to bring the child back to the planet of relating, communicating and perhaps learning.   According to this science, the family has the power to change, to alter the course of this human ship flying off course.  How could the stakes be any higher than that of a human life and the future of one's own child? 

Parents cannot help but draw the conclusion, "Failure is not an option."

And yet, with each meltdown at a birthday party, with each missed social cue, with each consonant-vowel combination our child hasn't mastered, aren't we failing?  How can parents supply half of the therapeutic equation adequately here?

The lesson from Apollo 13 is this.  No one at Mission Control slept much while those astronauts were in space.  Nobody had a bad idea and everyone contributed.  The mission was simple and it was clear.  Do whatever you need to bring those men home alive.  Nothing else was more important.   While they didn't discuss it much, everyone acknowledged the undercurrent of fear that drove them all to think smarter, work harder and create, create, create.  Failure, in those days, was not an option.

And neither is it now, as my generation of mothers and fathers are faced with an unthinkable future of isolation for our children with autism.    We will make some angry, we will ask for more, we will work therapists and teachers harder (but no harder than ourselves.)  We may lose some sleep.