Bonus Conversation with Jonathan Mooney About the Neurodiversity Movement, Scaling Advocacy & Education

Debbie Reber

All right. Okay, so this is my official welcome, if you’re watching this on the recording, this is our much anticipated visit with Jonathan Mooney for the Differently Wired Club. And yeah, I’m really excited to get into this. We have a number of people who are going to be joining us and we read your book Normal Sucks last spring, I think, late winter, and it was one of the most discussed in our discussion board of all the books that we’ve read over the past few years. I just want to encourage you guys to, I’m going to spotlight Jonathan in a minute, but I know when I’m guest, visiting other groups, I like seeing faces. So if you are in a place where you can’t share, turn on your camera, no pressure, but I’m just throwing that out there. But let me start by reading Jonathan’s bio, and then we’ll dive in. Okay, and the chat is open. That’s your place to thanks, Natasha. No pressure, but that’s your place to answer to ask questions as they come up. Okay, so Jonathan Mooney’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, HBO, NPR, ABC News, New York Magazine, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, and is a nationally recognized advocate for neurological and physical diversity. He’s been speaking across the nation about neurological and physical diversity for two decades, inspiring those who live with differences and calling for change. He has published three books, the short best learning outside the lines and normal sex. Is there another book that we should know about? Where are you and your book writing? Journey?

Jonathan Mooney

Oh, I can’t tell I like you. If you want to see me cry on the call. I can set so I’ll save that for a dramatic end to our call to cry crying the crying part. But Don’t Ask Don’t ask. Don’t ask writers about their next book.

Debbie Reber 

Okay, all right. I’m making a note. I get asked all the time, but it’s true. It’s not a good question.

Jonathan Mooney

And do you? Do you cry when your asked?

Debbie Reber

I do not cry? But yeah, it does create a little bit of anxiety for sure. So yeah, okay.

Jonathan Mooney

I’ll have a follow up meeting about crying on the inside about writing. That’ll be a separate call. Okay, go for it. Okay.

Debbie Reber 

That sounds good. So, I guess I’m really curious to know, how we’ve seen in this club, we talk a lot about how things have changed the neurodiversity movement, and there seems to be this growing awareness, you’re a huge part of that. I think the work that you do, and the talks that you give, are so powerful, and help kind of shift people’s thinking and reframe neural divergence. And I’m just wondering, kind of even to start, what have you noticed in recent years in terms of having a deeper awareness and understanding and maybe even embracing of neuro divergence?

Jonathan Mooney

Yeah, right on. And let me just go way back for a second. And Debbie, thank you for the opportunity to be a part of the wonderful community that you nurture, that you are a catalyst for. And I’m really honored and, and, and privileged to be hanging out with you all today. Um, so thank you. You know, your question, your question was about the next book project, in part or the preface was, and your question is directly linked to that. So I am in the middle of trying to get my mind around the narrative diversity movement, and write about the social consequences of what is a pretty, pretty profound and radical claim that there is no normal brain. The human experience is defined by neuro divergence and cognitive difference. And that claim has has real profound consequences to our social systems, to our interpersonal relationships, to the way that we think about learning, working, living. And so I’m very much in the throes of, of trying to, to make sense of those consequences to make sense of, of, of where we are as a social movement. What’s been achieved, what are the setbacks x, what’s the progress? So, you know, let me share a few things. And these are in no way, fully formed ideas, and the crying on the inside, when I try to actually write the book, and often crying on the outside the neuro divergence movement is so multifaceted, and encompasses so many different cognitive and brain based experiences that I’m hesitant at times to, to generalize and paint with a broad brush. But here it goes nonetheless. So first, it’s been a seminal breakthrough for our community, to, to claim and unite under the language of neuro divergence and neuro diversity. I think some of us who have been at it for a long time, maybe lose sight of, of what a profound moment in advancing our cause that that is, and was, just to give you a kind of personal anecdote around that.

So my second book, The Short Bus came out in 2009. And for that book, I drove all around the United States. The map you see behind me is actually the map, I put up in my office in New York when I was writing, to kind of remember the journey. And when that book came out, about a year afterwards, when I was done traveling around talking about it, I told my agent that I wanted to write a book about neurodiversity. And her response was, what the hell is that? What is that? What are you talking about? Why would people read that, and that was like, 2011. And so the idea that we can find common cause and find a common container for very different experiences like autism, anxiety, depression, learning, attention, etc. And, building a broad coalition is profound progress. And so I encourage all of us who care about this work to claim neuro divergence to hold the whole, when I say whole, I mean, the whole continuum of brain differences under that framework, and be advocates and champions for it. So that’s progress. Now, the other side of the coin, is, while we’ve gotten really good at talking differently, and that’s important, because the way that we, the language we use informs how we think, which can inform how we act. But acting differently for folks who were differently, is still lagging. I mean, to this day, you know, every time I give a talk, and I’ve spoken in all 50 states, like five times each, there’s some kid who comes up and says, you know, I feel stupid, crazy lazy, I feel deficient, because of a brain difference, that that’s a real thing. So we’ve gotten good at telling kids, they’re all special snowflakes. You know, like, we’re all different. We’re all special snowflakes. And then the bell rings, and it turns into, you know, get your special snowflake ass down and kind of learn the way that the standardized system tells us to learn. Now, again, that’s a broad generalization. Are there pockets of real transformation in learning and working? And living? Of course, there are. Have those gone to scale yet? No. And that’s our challenge. Yeah.

Debbie Reber

Wow. You’re so speaking our language. And these are the things that we kind of nerd out in our office, our calls where we just kind of talk about this, all of the complexities of this, and just even the timeline, I think of when I launched tilt parenting, it was like 2016. And I use that like differently wired because even then, neurodiversity was very much, really just about autism at that time. And it’s just been fascinating to see and also the number of adults, many in our community here who have, you know, self identified or gotten medical diagnoses of different types of neuro divergences. I’m curious to know if you hear from a lot of adults who have discovered their own or really leaned into their own neurodivergent identity as a 3040 or 50 year old.

Jonathan Mooney

Yeah, that’s a phenomenon that I’m experiencing. In my own personal life with kind of, you know, I was like, Dude, I know you’re a divergent. I just know. I know it. I can’t wait for the kid to get into like third grade and you start going down this road, and you’re gonna be, we’re gonna have a heart to heart. And so there’s been a lot of that in my own parenting community, I got three kids, as those who read normal sucks, no. So there’s a lot of that on the anecdotal level, there’s a lot of that out there in the world level hearing it and then another point of real progress. And something I’m really optimistic about, then there’s the conversation of neuro divergence in the workplace, which is being driven by the demographic Debbie, that you astutely articulated folks who are coming into this identity space, in their 20s 30s 40s, even 50s. And coming to not just the identity space of it, but the advocacy space of it, to look around their place of work and, and say to themselves, and then say to others, hey, this, this wasn’t designed for me, it wasn’t designed for my brain. And I’m struggling with employment, which is an all too common phenomena, as, as I’m sure you all have talked about. Unemployment under employment for the neurodivergent is a national crisis. And discrimination in the workplace because of brain differences is endemic in our private sector, public sector, and places of work. And so there’s a whole movement of folks who are out there, advancing the conversation of not just learning differently, living differently, but working differently. And there’s a whole emerging movement, this is a kind of step forward, maybe half step back, who knows some days a full step back, that is leveraging D AI constructs, and integrating neuro divergence within those dei constructs to build inclusion, to build working environments that don’t just work for some brains, but work for all brands and ultimately, benefit the bottom line, or the mission of the venture or business that these folks are employed by, you know, it’s not an either or it’s it’s really an ad both. And so I’m, I’m optimistic and inspired by that trend.

Debbie Reber

Yeah. Same. I want to just put out for everyone, here on the call, the chat is open. And please, if you have something to add something that comes up, Cynthia just shared something, those changes tend to ultimately benefit all workers. Yeah, not just neurodivergent workers. So true. If you have questions for Jonathan that come up, just pop them in there, and we’ll make sure that we get to them. Just one more thing on this, something we’ve talked a lot about, and I’ve interviewed a lot of psychotherapist and people who are working in the therapy space to support neuro divergent individuals, this language of neuro divergent affirming is almost being co opted and watered down and that a lot of people are claiming to be neurodivergent affirming without actually even recognizing or truly understanding what that means. I’m just curious if you have thoughts on that, or if you’ve seen that as well.

Jonathan Mooney

Yeah, I don’t think people have any idea what they’re talking about. When they say words it is often in, in, in medical or medical lies settings in which I encompass not all but some therapeutic settings, psychiatric relationships, and that whole continuum of helping professions. And again, I don’t think that’s not a malicious thing on the part of the folks who are, are, are using that language aspiring to be that I believe they are. And the reason I say I don’t I don’t think people have an authentic or deep understanding of what that means is is that the whole discipline, the whole discipline, of the helping professions, the discipline of of of sort of brain experts, has not done the real deep work to extricate the profession and the the knowledge that the profession is based on from deeply held ablest beliefs, deficit model approaches. And an anthologized thing of human difference. I mean that is decades of institutionalized textbooks and classes and lectures and studies designed to affirm or based on the notion of the normal brain, etc, etc, etc. And it’s only in the last decade, maybe two decades on the fringes of mainstream science, that that discourse has been challenged. And so I want to start with really having people dig deep and understand the own inherited set of constructs around brain differences are deficiencies like that that’s where we have to start, we have to start with understanding that history, we have to understand that that wasn’t like through your game to be meaning there wasn’t another path for the knowledge power, which is a Foucault in term of psychiatry, psychology. There were also other tributaries at the time that were trying to go a different direction that were cut off by the American Psychological Association, etc, etc. And we got to understand that history before we can start to really authentically be neuro divergent, affirming, again, not just in being able to say that, but being able to do that with a set of practices that are thoughtful and intentional. And the risks that we run by, you know, not doing the sort of sequence of, you know, think different, talk different, do different. Those are sequences, right. Like those all take time. It’s hard to think differently. You know, it’s hard to, to challenge the DSM, you know, which is, which is something that blooms in, in the conversation around brain differences large, it’s hard to do that. So if we don’t take time to do that, then we just appropriate the language, we spit it out. And it’s watered down. And worse than watered down. Is it easily discreditable? And then it sets this whole whole path that we’re on back.

Debbie Reber 

Yeah, yeah. So just I want to, I want to touch upon some of the things that came up in our discussion about this. On our, in our club. There, a lot of people talked about this idea of the hierarchy that you talk about, someone said, my aha moment, this time around you people read your book multiple times, was in chapter eight, this section where you’re talking about the strengths that come up with neuro divergence, but then you flip it to recognize that these are just a way, these are just ways of creating a different hierarchy. And they’re still kind of using this normal as a, as a, as a foundation or as a unit of measure. And some parents jumped in, that brings up complicated feelings about this superpower language. Just could you speak to that in terms of the parents, I think parents and I’m sure you hear this, when you speak there. It’s confusing to know how to support how we want our kids to embrace their neuro divergence, a lot of parents use that superpower strengths based message like how do we kind of navigate that without reinforcing those hierarchies?

Jonathan Mooney

 And you know, we’ll get not and I in the thing that y’all should know about normal sucks, which was interesting. And then I’ll answer the question, I promise. After this, like a 20 minute tangent, it won’t be it won’t be quite the one good 20 minutes. It’s like I had sold a totally different book, and we hold nonfiction books, you kind of come up with the idea. You sell it, and then you figure out what the hell you’re gonna write and often you write what you sold. That’s cool. My other two books I did this one I did not. And the book was very much my first experience with what other writers have talked about to me, which I never got, was like, you know, look, I just, I just had this thing in my head. And I just, I just, I just wrote down what was in my head as a medium. You know, like I didn’t there was not a lot of intentionality. And you hear that a lot about fiction writers. You don’t hear that as much about nonfiction writers. So this book was like, I got up in the morning, oh my god, I’m going to work on this, this outline that I had sold. Well, that’s not working. And then I got up and it was like, you know, I remember like, you know, like deer sons, like that just was in my mind at like 430 in the morning. So I’m like, Okay, I’m gonna see where this thing goes. And it was like off the map, my quick where the short bus had a map, you literally see behind you this and this was off the map. And so I say that to say that a lot of things that, that were, that were surfaced and, and sort of explored and I didn’t want this project to be less didactic like not not like a manifestly like program deal. It does have components of that for sure, like the polemical part, but I wanted it to be a little bit more like cyclical and turn on itself a little bit, or it wanted to be that, and that’s how it came out. So I only give that preface to say that, you know, that section of the book surprised the hell out of me, meaning like, I was all about, you know, I speak all the time about challenging the deficit model, strength based model. I’m all for super power work. You know, the Dyslexic advantage folks are rad, they’re they’re all rad. And yet, in wrestling with the DNA, like beating heart of at least, the moment I was on with this book, the issue that had to be confronted was the idea that if we’re challenging a hierarchy of humans, that normality really set in motion, and, and structured? How can we free ourselves from that by just appropriating or aping the terms of normality, even if they’re kind of turned to our advantage, and that had to be rested, had to be wrestled with and so I’m still wrestling with it to this day,

But let me give you some non sort of book book experience and more sort of intellectualizing post book experience. And both, you know, like, like, and both, I think we’re so much in this, either or cognitive mindset as a, as a world now, you know, like, the odds are issues that we’re talking about here, like our brains, now, our, our, our are wired for, for either or, and I think we have to cultivate and and both on this issue for sure. And the end both is, is true, if you look at the science of brain differences, there’s a constellation of, of strengths, gifts and talents that are because not despite the brain difference. And we don’t got to go over all that stuff, y’all know it, you probably know better than I do nowadays. And then the flip side is that we have to be striving for a broader definition of human worth. But other than our ability to approximate able bodied, plus, and abled minus, and this, I think, is the most sort of next horizon of, of profound critique to the way we’ve organized society that the neurodivergent and disability rights movement poses. You know, there’s a notion that, that, that disability, neuro divergence has been discredited because it’s not productive in a capitalist society, or, or modality, and that we’ve ascribe value to human beings by our ability to contribute to an economic system. Now that has evolutionary roots, right? Like, like, if you look at evolutionary biology or evolutionary psychology, human beings have acquired value by their ability to contribute to the tribes or, or or, or groups that they’re a part of, or in the hunter gatherer society, they’re a small band. And so that’s a piece that’s encoded in some respect, but disability and neuro divergence is a rejection of that. The movement is and it’s, it’s, it’s moving away from the idea that like hold the autism is rad because it helps Microsoft and And, like, we just kind of the thing I’ve said before, you know, so I’m not throwing anybody under the under the bus on that, you know, by any means I’m in there, I’m trying to wrestle with the consequences and the logic of even my own claims. And so autism is rad, not because it helps Microsoft. Like, that’s not why it’s rad. And it’s challenging. Is it rad? That’s a debate too. But what it is, is essential. So I think those are different distinctions. Right? The notion that neuro divergence is valuable to the world is true. But what is true, or if that’s even a word is that it’s essential to the human experience. And it has value, and maybe the more important word is meaning. Beyond the pragmatic contributions it can make to the system, the hunter gatherer band, the city, state, the nation, everything in between. That’s the next horizon here. And that’s a real ethical claim, you know, and if you look at like disability rights, disability philosophers, the scholarship around that which predates neuro divergence, and in some ways, meaning the scholarship does not the experience and also encompasses neuro divergence, but sometimes reluctantly, and sometimes tangentially. But if you look at the Disability scholarship, there’s this notion of sort of embodied epistemology, which is the idea that you know, the world in a fundamentally different way from your as a result of your embodied experience, and that is a result of being minority bodies, disabled bodies, even though they’re a majority minority, because we’re all temporarily abled bodies, there’s knowledge that comes about living, about life, about ethics, about, about morality, from that embodied experience, that isn’t valuable in the transactional sense, or the sense it’s going to get you into Brown, but is valuable and meaningful to building a fuller picture and experience of what it means to be human. That was 20 minutes. So that’s it, thanks for this, this was fun.

Debbie Reber

I just enjoy listening to you. Because again, these are the things you’re this is these are your people, but we we, we like getting into this stuff. And it’s just so refreshing and inspiring to hear from you on these things. I want to ask a couple of questions in the chat. Laura asked, What do you think needs to happen to bring the positive work and activities that are happening around neurodiversity to scale? What can we as advocates do to impact this effort and expand the scale of the great work happening?

Jonathan Mooney

Yeah, I just want to note that I switched from coffee to water. So I’m gonna be I’m gonna be I’m gonna be I don’t know what I’m going to be but how gentle is this is the goal. So let me make a real concrete example of a broader point. That, I think is a real chance for our work at scale. So my why went to school Brown. Like, like eight years ago, maybe five years ago, did this like a massive diversity audit? You know, I think that they spent millions of dollars on it. And you know, they wanted to figure out the gaps in where, where they were doing right or wrong in the mission of building an inclusive and diverse community on campus. And subsequently, they had a whole bunch of dough that was going to go to remedying or remediating the gaps that came from the report. And, you know, you all know where this is going. When the report came out. How many times did y’all think the word disability or neuro divergence was mentioned in the report is zero. I looked at post George Floyd 2021 2022 You even in 2023, the diversity statements of about 100, fortune 500 companies? How many times was diversity and neuro divergence mentioned? Zero. So there’s an organized construct, there’s institutional momentum. Now we can talk about whether or not there’s backlash to that, which there is and whether that’s going to be set back. But nonetheless, there is an infrastructure that’s talking about, about, about building more diverse, equitable and inclusive environments. And our work as advocates is to advocate for the inclusion of disability and neuro divergence within that work. And that has consequences to it. You know, it really does these, these systems are mapping resources to it. And when different brains and bodies are excluded from it, it perpetuates the notion that these are not differences, but deficiencies. And that’s a path to start scaling some of the bright spots of the places of innovation.

Second thing I’ll say. And this goes back to our, our, our catalytic question, first question about what’s cool, what’s going on, what’s progress. You know, universal design has gotten a tremendous amount of uptake. at the system’s level in K 12. Education. You know, I remember hanging out with the cast folks in like, 1999 2000, when nobody knew what the hell universal design was the an organization that gave me an award called the LD access foundation that was based in New York City, and was one of the first funders of Ida I funded Cass back in like 1996, to create universal design. And now there are districts around the country at last count there were upwards of, of almost 1600 to 2000 districts that were doing some version of universal design. And that’s real progress. And that’s, that’s it, that’s a framework. It’s a set of languages that is getting upvoted. And anytime you see that, I think that’s something to get behind, advocate for and support. And I think the real insight of universal design, there are many, but it goes back to the comment in the chat, as we were talking about the the universal benefits of neurodivergent policies in the workforce, it’s for the dyslexic, it’s for the folk person on the autistic continuum, and everything in between. But it’s also just the right way to build a place of work. And so this idea that this is a lift all boats to us that a tired cliche, is true with universal design. So those are two two scalable conduits that are scaling in real time right now, in which we as a neurodivergent activism community who care about this issue should be supporting, amplifying, contributing to advancing in any way we can.

Debbie Reber

Yeah, that’s very cool. I am happy to hear that I did an episode about Universal Design Learning, maybe two years ago, but I haven’t kind of kept my eye on where it is, and how it’s progressing or being embraced by school. So that’s really cool to hear. I also want to just say you’re getting a lot of support for the tangents in the chat. Okay. Okay. them. Yeah, it’s all good. Again, we’re, you’re here>

Jonathan Mooney

But this is the thing. They’re not tangent. They’re all knit together. Okay. This is a quick thing that I try to tell my kids. It. Can you find this single thread and the ball of twine? That’s the question, and I can find it.

Debbie Reber

Yeah, that’s great. I love it or not. Another question here. I want to get to I love how your book talks about your father and your children. I spent so much time thinking about neurodiversity through generations, how our past relatives were unsupported and what That leads to I mean, same. Danielle, same. I’m wondering if you might share more about your thoughts about neurodiversity through generations.

Jonathan Mooney

Yeah, it’s, you know, thought talked about a lot, a writing experience that kind of just came out of nowhere. There was zero, no intention to talk about my father. And, and, and at the same time, not a narrative frame, to make sense of my father, that I had been sort of using in the integration or the sense making of him in my life. And so those things all kind of like provided in real time. And, you know, that last that last kind of moment with him in, going for that walk, watching him Park, the car, buying the car, and all that stuff. That was probably the only thing that I’ve ever written in my life that was written in one take, with the caveat of significant correction to the spelling, but with no editing. And that’s the last time I saw my dad, that piece that we read. And this goes back to this question, in part, and here, I’m talking very specifically about my father, not not generational trauma, which I will talk about in a minute. Because back to this, like our encounters with brain differences, are our brain differences valuable because they, they get us something, they contribute something? Or do they challenge us to be deeper humans, because my father did not have good into his story. If your end of the story is, what our American dream is usually is, you know, money, success, etc. But the contribution to my humanity is essential and meaningful. So this is a historical arc. I use that term. And I think it’s appropriate that we as a neurodivergent community, draw from scholarship, healing traditions, and language that other communities have used. So that notion of generational trauma is real, you know, is real. I mean, my father had his, you know, left hand tied behind his back by Catholic school teachers, he had his ears taped to his head because they stuck out too much. And, and it just continues, meeting those moments of real trauma in his life, that then in print, and we know enough about EPI, genetics, the interaction between environment and genes, what gets turned off, what gets turned on. That becomes inheritable. And then you layer on to it the clear, hereditary nature of neuro divergence. Not always, but often. And we have a generational cycle. And so there’s knowledge out there in other healing traditions and other communities that have been marginalized, that that we kind of newer to this conversation of healing in the historical arc of marginalized communities should be drawing from and learning from. And I think one of the most important learnings that we should extrapolate in a pie is where I started my answer. And that’s the question of what frame do we use to make accents of those other people in our history or our present life? Do we make sense through a sort of moralistic frame? That’s certainly the the frame that I used for a long time from my father. You know, he was a, he was a fuckup. He was, you know, he was he was a bad father, you know, literally that that those words. And then my growth in, forget the book, I mean, the book is cool and whatnot. But my, my growth as a human was to reject that narrative frame and to apply a different one. Now, that different frame raises challenges to and the challenges are where does one has individual responsibility for their behavior? Where Where does the line between neurodivergent and agency begin and end? Where did it begin and end with my father? Where’s the line between neuro divergence and, and mental illness are those the same line and different spots on it, and addiction are those the same lines, different lines, intersecting lines, I don’t, I don’t know you all, but I can tell you it was progress. For me personally, to reject that moralistic frame, to reject a pathology frame, which is that my father is sick, too. And then to adopt a neurodivergent, historical trauma frame, which in some ways, encompasses pieces of those other stories, but broadens the potential of how to make sense of the human beings in our life. And that was my personal reckoning, personal reckoning with neuro neuro divergence through the generations.

Debbie Reber 

Thank you so much for sharing that there’s so much that I know. In Yeah, just hearing you say that a lot of that connected resonated with me for different reasons. And it makes me wonder, and this is something that came up in our online conversation too, just about and I don’t, whatever you’re comfortable sharing, but in terms of you, as a father now to kids, like, how does it impact how you show up for them, even when it comes to navigating the school system or advocating for them, and the transition that you’ve been through in terms of your own identity development and understanding that you write about in the book?

Jonathan Mooney

You know, I think that the, the macro, biggest challenge that I face, as a parent, there are there are a whole bunch of micro things, but the biggest one is being cognizant of my notions of a successful life, which have been deeply informed by being not successful for a long time, in my childhood and adolescence, and wanting so much that recognition to, to the gold stars to kind of heal and feel okay in the world. And then even being in my own life, on a treadmill of, you know, sort of hedonic treadmill, which is a term from sort of wellbeing, science, you know, where we’re, we’re trying to get something that we think is going to make us better, feel better. And, and it does, but it dissipates and you just keep at it. And, you know, traditional academic success was, was that that perceived panacea for me and that’s important for me to be honest about, you know, like, and also to be empathetic about For others, because I get it, I understand that, if you’ve been shut out of x, you think x is the thing that’s going to make you a valuable human being. And so a lot of my writing has been a, a, almost like sort of personal diary of wrestling with different chapters of that, and of that story. And so like learning outside the lines, you know, written when I was at Brown, as a transfer student, was very much about the pieces of it, that were critiquing the whole system, but was very much about like, how do you, how do you how do you? How do you succeed in this system, and, and running parallel to the writing of the book, that’s what I was doing, you know, selling the book. I was an undergraduate taking time off, you know, succeeding at the highest level that you can imagine. And then the short bus was the, the journey of what happens when that’s not enough, you know, I like, what, what’s up when, like, you were finalists for a Rhodes scholarship, you’re a Truman Scholar, you had a 4.0 at Brown, and your first book came out when you were 23 years old, a month after you graduated, and you still feel like that little kid hiding in the bathroom? What do you do now? Well, now you go back to the source of that, you know, the short bus for me, metaphorically, you listen to people who have navigated life differently, and try to learn from them. And then normal sucks is, is the reckoning with, you know, what was underneath all those stories, which is the notion of the good human, the right human is normal. And if you’re not, you’re a deficient investment as a human being. And so to go to your question about parenting, I still have pieces of that, you know, old story of like, successes, x. And you know, I am a 16 year old junior in high school now. And, you know, we’re in the midst of that social pressure, which still exists. And it’s not just social, it’s also internal expectations about what constitutes a meaningful life? And what paths are on the path and what aren’t on the path? And I struggle with struggle today, you know, have we nurtured a broad enough definition of a meaningful life? Have I practiced what I’ve preached to others, as it pertains to, to pointing forward to adulthood from my kids? And I don’t know the answer to that? I don’t know. I’m not sure. And I can take out my personal hat, which is harder to put on, because you actually have to be navigating the world with real choices every day, and put on an advocate polemical hat and say, look, I think we’re at a moment where the paths are opening up. And the notions of what a meaningful life are are changing quickly underneath our feet. And, there’s different paths to that. But then when you’re back in the middle of it, you know, and your kid like me inside still a little bit, who was like, Yeah, you’re, you’re valuable, because you, you did what they said you couldn’t do. Like, that’s why you’re valuable. That’s when people come to your talks, dude. Like when they come to hear you tell that story, man, right. So that’s the thing. And so I struggle with that tremendously. And I am being a bad public speaker here, where I don’t have like a little bow to put on this at the end. Like, I don’t get like the nugget for the end of the TED talk about how I changed it. But, that’s just not, that’s just not true. And so what’s true right now is the struggle as a parent to know that that one value is in, in traditional metrics of success. My children’s value isn’t in that but not knowing, and sometimes not having the courage to go all the way with that conviction. Yeah. Yeah.

Debbie Reber 

Yeah. As the parent of a kid who’s trying to figure out plans for post grad it’s, it’s with it’s an a, it’s a it’s a whiplash for me. Within one day I can be completely at piece and see it and feel it. And yes, this is all that matters. So but I have to keep bringing myself back there because it’s really complex when it’s, yeah, the stakes feel very high. And it’s very personal. I want to keep an eye on the time, I think we have time for one more question. And so going through the ones that came in advance, I just want to say, I don’t have time to read all the praises, people are so grateful that you wrote this book, they loved your voice and the frankness of humor. I’m sure you hear this stuff all the time. I loved listening to your book, because it just made me laugh so much hearing your voice read it. And so this person said, What’s sticking with me is that to appear normal affords a level of perceived safety. This makes absolute sense, given the history of how people with brain and body differences have been historically treated, I was told not to have my child evaluated, because those labels and records stay with them forever. This is very clearly rooted in a fear of being different and concern for the safety of those with differences given our cultural history. And so this parent wants to know, if you have any recommended follow up reading or any thoughts on helping our kids get more comfortable with being different, besides gifting them your book, which I know many of our parents of teens have done. But any thoughts on that?

Jonathan Mooney

Well, I just want to celebrate the insight and the thoughtfulness behind the question. And, and, and, and I’m sure that the thoughtfulness of that question is, is just the tip of the iceberg of what a thoughtful and intentional community, you all are, together and are for each other. And I’m going to answer the question, but I just want to say that this matters, you know, you all connect in this way matters, Debbie, you matter. And it is in this nuanced conversation, that that the true, profound societal impacts of neuro divergence can come to fruition because there is a reductive ism at times, and anything that goes to scale, in some ways become simplified, I get that bone but the core of neuro divergence is a insight into how complicated the reality is, or should be the reality of learning, working, living, relating to each other should be when we take seriously the notion that brain differences are essential to the human experience. And so it’s only an intentional, nuanced space like this, that that core ethical, moral, social insight of the neurodivergent revolution can come to full fruition. So thank you for that. Now, I forgot your question. So no. Kidding a couple of things, you know, you know, we have this, this, this threads back in our tangled ball of twine to the comment about what can scale, you know, in the neurodiversity diversity conversation movement. And one of the things that can scale is our reframing of diagnosis, you know, and I hear the advice that you got, it’s advice that at times, I have given because the reality of the situation, at times of the reality currently facing us is that this can call somebody out. This story about themselves can be picked up by others and misused. But diagnosis is a chance for deeper understanding. And we can contest what story diagnosis is, tell or don’t tell, you know, the notion of diagnosis has Greek and Latin roots to just mean to understand. It’s been at the pathologized and it’s been interpolated within a pathology discourse, but That’s not what it’s all about. And so there’s a movement of psychologists, psychiatrists who are authentically neurodivergent, of firming, who have done the deep work of extricating themselves from the pathology model exclusively, and broadening it, and are telling a different story. So one of the things that we can do is for our own children to seek that out as a community, surface and share, so it’s easier for others to seek out because it’s really hard to find, like who’s really doing neuro divergent based assessment and affirming assessment. So we can be conduits and catalysts to sharing that good work. And then as advocates we can be going to the scalable systems of higher education, the professional associations, and, and advocating for the critical opportunity in a child’s life and adults life, anyone who’s going on this notion of diagnosis of oneself, to have a full story of what neuro divergence really means that then they are equipped with to navigate their own life, the systems they find themselves in and informs the story that they tell themselves. So that’s one path on that. The other path I want to say, and it’s a good one for us to end on. Because it affirms my preparatory comment about this community, we got a fun community for the neurodivergent. You know, I tell this story all the time. It’s an important story for me to retell. I had a plan for suicide when I was 12 years old. You know, I was stupid, crazy, lazy kid. I was not different. I was deficient and not just efficient, but less than as a human being cold from the human circle. And I had no hope for my future. And my mom was worried about me. Yeah, yeah. Does the, and she didn’t know what to do. And she by, by chance, and I really, really can’t even imagine if the universe hadn’t opened up this way, by chance. She was told about an interview on TV with a guy who went to Yale Law School. And she made me watch it, because this guy who went to Yale Law School, couldn’t read a word, couldn’t, couldn’t read. was dyslexic. And his mother read every one of his books to him. If mom did, I mean, did you have any idea of the profound transformation in my sense of my future in that moment? Now, look, it sucks to be the guy’s mom, you know, I can’t get it, you know, like that. That wasn’t top of mine, you know. But, but, but it wasn’t about Yale, it wasn’t about law school, it was about a glimpse of community, you know. And so, you know, Brown started this thing that took Brown students and mentored other kids, moved to New York to raise money and hired Dave Flink, who ran Eye to Eye, like a madman in the best possible sense and built it as a national movement. That’s one conduit to building community, but there are so many others. And if I look at one opportunity for us, as we think about as a community, is, how do we take community building for the neurodivergent to scale? How do we do it in a way that is inclusive of the continuum of brain differences that are a part of the neurodivergent community? How do we honor those differences? But how do we hold the whole of a community of folks who learned to think differently? Connect kids, young people to that community? Because that’s where the ultimate transformation of one sense of self transformation of the story one tells oneself happens?

Debbie Reber

Yeah, yeah, but a great notes and that, um, thank you. We’re, I know, we’re a few minutes over. But this has been such a meaningful conversation to me personally, but I know everyone in our community, and I know a lot more folks are going to want to watch the recording. I wanted to thank you so much for letting me pester you and get you in here to talk with us. And please keep us posted on what you’re up to. We’ve got a big group of fans here who are happy to support anything that you’re doing out in the world.

Jonathan Mooney

Yeah, well, I appreciate the opportunity to be with you all today. You know, I do a lot of this stuff. And Debbie, our first interview, and then today and everything you do is so thoughtful, and intentional, and nuanced and sophisticated. This is one of the best conversations I’ve participated in, in my 20, almost 24 years now of doing this. And I’m just really grateful. Obviously, I’m grateful for the opportunity, because it’s fun to come and hang out with folks who let me go on massive tangents and tell me to sit still and come back. That’s cool. Yeah, of course that is, but I’m more grateful for the work you do. I’m grateful for the parenting work that you all do. Because that’s the social contribution to be parenting neurodiverse children who are going to go off into the world and contribute not in pragmatic ways, maybe, maybe not, but contribute their difference to communities and spaces, and challenge all of us to be better humans. I’m so grateful for you all and for your time today and wish you all a wonderful holiday season.

Debbie Reber 

Thank you. Thank you for those words. They mean so much. Okay, close the room. Thanks, everybody. Have a great inspired day. And thank you, Jonathan.