When you see yourself in your child—and start worrying for two

Reflections after attending a four-year-old's birthday party

This weekend I went to a 4-year-old’s birthday party. It was hosted at a local playground, and the morning started out with my kind of weather: low 60s, overcast. I love a cloudy day in spring, when the technicolor of new growth just snaps against the muted gray sky.

The party, too, was perfect. Brightly decorated picnic tables laden with trays of fruit and veggies and sugar cookies. Coffee and bagels were set out for adults. There was no schedule to follow and no set game you had to referee your kids through—just people milling and mingling under gentle gray skies.

I had been looking forward to some adult socialization all week. I work from home with few opportunities to interact IRL. But despite the favorable setup – perfect weather, easy activities – things didn’t go as I had hoped.

When my daughter started preschool two years ago, it opened up a whole new world: the micro-society of parents. At first, I felt entirely out of place. She had enrolled midyear, in a kind of panic decision, when I was about to give birth to twins and realized she’d need something consistent outside the house. So the other parents had already formed their friend clusters, and I showed up to school-sponsored events alone, sleep-deprived and unsure how to break in.

I have a personal taxonomy of social discomfort. The most anxiety-inducing, by far, is the group setting where everyone knows each other except you.

Most people might rank that similarly, but I suspect they don’t dread it like I do. Neurotypical people might notice the dynamics, feel a flicker of awkwardness, and move on. For me, it feels like a puzzle I’m being asked to solve while juggling three balls, blindfolded – all while trying to make my juggling look normal.

This kind of hyper-awareness isn’t uncommon for autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people. The brain tries to make sense of unspoken rules, detect subtle shifts, and predict the right moment to jump in. It’s not that we don’t think about social norms; we often think about them too much because they don’t come intuitively.

Two years in, I do know some of the parents now. And I’ve even had one really wonderful school-related outing. A few months ago, a parent organized a moms' night out at a tapas restaurant. I was nervous but forced myself to go. It ended up being great.

As I think back now, I realize the critical difference. That night, we were seated at long tables, not mingling. I didn’t have to navigate how to break in to conversations, and whom to speak with and when. The choice was made for me: I naturally talked to the parents seated next to and across from me.

For people with social processing differences—autism, introversion, anxiety—the difference between unstructured mingling and a fixed seating chart can be everything. One feels like chaos; the other like a manageable opening to settle in and connect.

That’s how it was for me. I got to know the women around me in that confiding way that feels like middle-of-the-night sleepover talk: the shared stories of struggle, the quiet confessions, the little nods of recognition. When someone says, "Me too," and you both exhale.

We discussed our struggles to keep up with life’s accumulating pile of tasks. We confided our (sometimes guilty) relief in handing our kids over to someone else for a while. We talked about what we wanted to model for our kids, especially our daughters: a life and interests outside the home, so they would see us not just as mom but as whole people with many sides. (This is something I think about a lot).

The party on Saturday was not that kind of gathering.

Those same moms were there, but now, so were many other parents. Groups formed. People greeted each other warmly and shared updates about shared adventures. I tried to make conversation to deepen some of the fledgling relationships I had started to build. I saw one mom smile when she saw me, and I smiled back. Another parent realized we work in the same industry, and we tried, a couple of times, to talk.

All three of my kids were there, including the youngest two—toddlers who cannot yet be left to their own devices, even in a neighborhood park. The invitation said siblings were welcome, and I jumped at the prospect of entertaining all three at once.

I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that simple. One toddler kept trying to open the birthday kid’s presents. The presents stayed wrapped, but just barely. The other kept grabbing my hand, tugging me away from conversations: “Come play with me, Mama.” I must have said, “I’m talking, sweetie,” about 15 times, which is about the number of seconds I got to talk to an adult without interruption.

The thing is, I wasn’t even solo parenting. But it was still nearly impossible to find a free minute to talk, as one toddler ran off into the middle of a game of pickup basketball and the other put their hand in the veggie tray to touch all the carrots.

With every interruption, I found myself calculating: Should I keep talking or attend to my child? Should I go stand in that group of parents mingling, or is that weird since I don’t know them well? Should I speak to the birthday kid's mom or leave her to her hosting duties? Had I talked enough to the moms I bonded with at the dinner, so they know I’m interested in becoming friends?

I kept asking, not just what I should do, but even more theoretically: What would a person who knows how to do this do?

I wasn’t just trying to talk—I was trying to belong. I felt the strenuousness of trying to figure out how to behave, and I wondered if others could sense my straining.

Back in my early thirties, when close friends were starting new lives in other cities, people used to tell me that parenting would open up a new chapter of friendship. Once I had kids, they explained, I’d naturally connect with the other parents. We’d become friends because our kids were friends. I pictured running into parent friends at soccer practice and laughing over things our kids had said or done; sharing recommendations for books, TV shows, and take out.

I believed it because I wanted it to be true.

I didn’t consider that forming connections has never been effortless for me. These parents would be the same people I struggled to connect with in my twenties. They were the kids I struggled to connect with growing up. It’s never been easy.

Changing the backdrop — my 1990s school playground for my daughter’s school holiday pageant — doesn’t erase that basic fact.

At the birthday party, while I was navigating this swirl of should-I-or-shouldn’t-I, I noticed my daughter. She wasn’t playing with the other kids. She was happily absorbed in sidewalk chalk, creating elaborate artwork by herself. Or playing with her little brothers. She hadn’t even wanted to come to the party until I told her they were invited too.

She’s proud of her brothers. She loves them. And she seems to prefer their company to her classmates. I wonder if she, too, struggles with the unpredictable dynamics of a crowd. If she has trouble matching the rhythm of the interactions around her.

In other words, I worry she’s like me. And I fear she will sense my worry—that she’ll pick up the message that something is wrong with her.

If she’s anything like I was as a kid, she won’t need anyone to tell her she’s different. She’ll know.

So how do I help her be comfortable with herself, when I’m still not comfortable with myself?

I don’t have the answer. I thought that once I had kids, I’d find people. And I did find people. But it turns out, being one of them—being myself among them—is still the hard part.