If you’re the parent of more than one child—congratulations if so—you’ve almost certainly experienced “multiple maturity pathways.”

That’s obviously the case if your children have reached their teens, or gone beyond that milestone.

I want to begin this little jaunt by discussing infancy, and the differences you likely encountered there.

It’s true there are a number of things most parents count common among their recollections where their babies are concerned.

You’ve undoubtedly changed more than a few diapers. Feeding—including those infamous late night nosh sessions—was a staple. But for each child, you dealt with other things that were either not common to all, or happened differently from one to another.

One had an uncommonly strong neck, and could hold his or her head up from an early age. Another took much longer to develop in that way.

One crawled, another went more or less directly to walking.

Some things—as I’ve already indicated—were specific to a given child.

Take my youngest. In his case, at a certain point, he could roll from tummy to back and vice versa—except when placed on a hard surface, like concrete. For some unknown-to-this-day reason, when deposited on something unyielding, he could not flip himself over.

Was it because he lacked the strength or some other innate or developed physicality? Not as far as can be determined. He just couldn’t process the idea in some way.

He also had issues sleeping.

Much of the time, to get him to sleep. I had to deal with him in very specific ways. Neither of my oldest two (I exclude the third, for that one wasn’t in my life at that time in theirs) appeared to experience the same difficulty. Oh, they had their issues, but not like my youngest.

As he grew, it became more and more obvious he was different.

At eighteen months, he “regressed from” cooing, babbling, and making “goo-goo eyes” at the ladies, to not making much noise past crying, and treating others (non-family members) like furniture.

It wouldn’t have mattered whether or not I recognized these realities. They would’ve existed aside from my awareness.

I more or less knew by that point—though I wasn’t in any way convinced prior to that time—this one was divergent in ways to which none of my other children came near.

As he grew, I intentionally took different paths with him than I had with any of my other children.

He showed early signs of what appeared to be obsessive-compulsiveness. In some sense, that tendency remains with him today. He watches the same series of shows over and over, listens to the same music (and prefers it in the same order), and even when he doesn’t think so, thrives on certain types of order.

At no point did I ever try to force him into some mold. I refused to even have him diagnosed with any condition until nigh unto his fifth birthday; and only then did I do so because I knew he was going to end up interacting with a World for which he was not prepared, nor was the “regular World” ready for him.

He first went to the local school system for evaluation, where he was found to be “educationally Autistic.” They didn’t have the “power” to perform medical diagnosis, but they well understood he was not going to be able to deal with a “normal” educational experience.

I don’t remember if it happened before he actually entered the school system or after, but he was taken to folks who had the ability to classify his condition “medically” at some point. They deemed him Moderately Autistic and indicated he was probably at least marginally ADHD as well.

Never at any point in this process, did I—and maybe more importantly he—identify his condition.

I assumed it was probable he was as various folks concluded even before they did so, but I never solidified that idea in my mind.

For his part, he neither knew he was different, nor cared.

He lived his life blissfully unaware of his “condition.”

As he has grown, he’s heard others describe him as Autistic or even Moderately Autistic, but that hasn’t come to define him. To be fair, it has shunted him into various situations.

By way of example, he’s spent his entire “educational career” in self-contained classrooms. He’ll be a seventh grader in the coming school year, and still finds himself in that place.

Now we come to the titular subject of this rant.

There has come to be a concept in common use. As with many, it appears to have been deployed for at least one obvious purpose. That term is “neurodivergence.”

What’s the cause for which it has come to be utilized? If I had to argue an intent, it would be to lump a varied group of folks into the same basket.

That way of doing things can be good or bad—one might argue it can be more or less innocuous, but I don’t think that’s how things are in this case. I’d contend in this situation, it’s not good either.

There are those who couch themselves as “gender-fluid,” “transgender,” “gay,” and other such things. These folks tend to at least allow themselves to be tacitly “grouped into” the concept of neurodivergence.

It’s for this reason I more or less refuse to use the idea when speaking of folks like my boy.

My son has—as I’ve already indicated—never counted himself Autistic except as he’s grown older, accepting that others consider him so.

I think by this point (as he gets ready to be a teenager), my young man has recognized that he’s “different.” I also believe he accepts the idea that folks term how he’s not “normal,” Autism. Past that though, he cares not what folks think, or how they consider him. He is what he is, he has pretty much accepted it, and moved on; though as with basically all people at his age, he periodically ponders his split from the “common path.”

Put simply, he is firmly outside the camp of those who “self-identify” in some way.

The long and short of things is, sadly, the term “neurodivergent” has been so polluted by this point, as to be of little to no use in my way of thinking. You can agree or not; that’s how I see it.

Here’s hoping you’re well. If not, I pray you come to that place in the near future.