What lessons has your life journey taught you?

Jess | Kirikiriroa

In Part 1 of her kōrero, Jess shares how her whānau, after their son’s autism diagnosis was delivered in a disempowering way, reclaimed their own mātauranga and cultural lens of takiwātanga.

“Te Aurere was about two when we noticed some differences and some uniquenesses about him. The psychologist had actually said, ‘Oh yep, your son’s got Autism Spectrum Disorder.’ At that point in our lives, I had no idea what that was because we had no interaction with anybody that had autism. I remember as soon as she said that, my tears flowed and I just started crying. I think for me, that came from the feeling of maybe I’d failed my son. Like something was wrong with him, because he has an illness or disorder. That thinking came from a real medical perspective of autism.

Had it been delivered in a way that was empowering and mana-enhancing, that path would have been different for us. It would have been a very different experience. But because it was delivered in a way that made us feel like failures as parents, it left a mark. It wasn’t until someone shared with us the te reo Māori perspective of takiwātanga – autism – that I realised: ‘Oh, actually there is our own narrative around this momo (type) or this āhuatanga (likeness).’

That moment sparked a fire in my belly – to follow this path, to acquire our own knowledge of our histories and oral traditions for this kind of thing. My partner and I said, ‘Hei aha tērā, that’s enough. This doesn’t fit with how we viewed our son before, so let’s go on our own journey of reclamation of our own mātauranga.’ And that’s what we did. That was our turning point.

That kōrero was empowering. It respected Te Aurere’s mana in a way that didn’t require it to be trampled on in order to get information out. I think for my tāne and I, we’re really lucky and privileged to have been brought up in te ao Māori. We already had that tūāpapa (foundation) that gave us these values, principles, and perspectives.

But it wasn’t until we went through that diagnosis process that all of that was ripped away from us. And so then, it became our responsibility to start healing from that traumatic experience.”