Lachrymose at the library.

I'm not even going to go through all of what happened... I'll just post my letter to the Supervisor of Library Services for Seminole County... *sigh

To Whom it May Concern,

I left the East Branch Library in Oviedo fighting back tears today.

My mother and I took my three children to the library to check out some books for school. The children, including Aiden, sat quietly in the children’s section reading and playing with blocks for abut 30 minutes while I researched and gathered the books we needed. As I was getting ready to check the books out, Aiden came galloping over to me, with the other two in toe. I let them know that we do not run in a library and that we were checking out and to go stand by ‘grand-ma’ until check-out was complete.

Aiden’s autism causes various social, emotional, and behavioral issues, not the least of which is that he has little concept of appropriate times to be quiet or why in the world we would be expected to NOT run somewhere, that combined with that he has a literal adult size strength to him makes for a very physically difficult task when it comes to quickly removing him from a situation where he is disrupting others peace or quiet.

Sadly and obviously at the library today, Aiden had hit his “nice quiet time” saturation point and went running, while loudly making noises down an aisle. I told the woman checking me out that my son has autism and he is about to have a meltdown, she said we owed 20 cents, I walked over to my mother and got 20 cents. My mother went to try to coax Aiden into peacefully leaving the library, I went to deposit the 20 cents and retrieve the books. The older two children, who know this routine, went to wait in the library lobby. My mother and I ended up in front of the reference desk, each of us holding one of Aiden’s arms and trying to calm him while at the same time trying to move toward the door.

There were two employees at the reference desk, a man with glasses, and a middle-ages woman with brownish hair. (sorry I can’t be more descriptive, I was paying attention to Aiden)

The woman at the reference desk turned to the man and said something to the extent of “hmm, this is not a children’s playground”, as if I had somehow mistaken the library for a place where I should go to let my special needs child have free reign. It was just so hurtful to know that in this day and age an employee of a county facility like this would not be able to think beyond the behavioral into the realm of that there may be something wrong here. Where did giving your fellow man the benefit of the doubt go? Of COURSE we do not want to disrupt the peacefulness of the library and OF COURSE we feel awful about having done so, but to so passive aggressively belittle us was just uncalled for. This woman only experienced one moment of Aiden’s life and felt the need to make a harsh judgment, one that she felt strongly enough about that she felt a comment should be said out loud. Imagine OUR lives, we live with this disability every day. I just ask for your staff to be more compassionate. I am truly sorry if my son and his diagnosis interrupted the routine for 10 minutes or so, but in the long run, accommodating and tolerating a child like this should be acceptable.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I truly hope that in the future Aiden will be welcomed in the library, I believe that he deserves the same opportunity to use this great public service as the rest of the population has.

Sincerely,

Mary Brophy