Ode to Polarfleece
March 24, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, is on record as saying that “‘It has never been a better time to have autism‘” because
…………… there is a remarkably good fit between the autistic mind and the digital age. For this new generation of children with autism, I anticipate that many of them will find ways to blossom, using their skills with digital technology to find employment, to find friends, and in some cases to innovate.
I have another reason, much more mundane, pragmatic, and downright touchy-feely.
I am only speaking in regard to my own autistic son Charlie and to what I have observed about him. But more than a few times per day, I have to say, I am grateful for one 20th-century innovation that makes life for Charlie better, in a small but deeply (literally) felt way.
I am speaking about polarfleece—without which, I find it hard to imagine being a mother in the 21st century. It is machine-washable, essentiay if (as today), Charlie let the hood of his fleece dangle from his lap onto a mud-puddled subway floor—into the washing machine it went once we got home. And, because polarfleece dries fast, there is no long wait before I can return the much-loved fleece back to Charlie, who sometimes sleeps with his jacket at the foot of his bed.
It is not just the jacket that we have—there is the yellow and blue hat with the Cubist fish design and the king-size blue blanket that Charlie has been dragging around for the past few years, and also wrapping him up in tight as a burrito when in need of a some self-comforting after a long day at school or a tough afternoon.
There is also the smaller blue fleece blanket that Charlie was wearing around his shoulders yesterday when he came up to me and said “Blue blanket bed.” I knew (having translated for Charlie as well as I might for these past several years) that he had left out the words “put” and “on” (nouns and adjectives, much more than verbs and prepositions, come much easier to Charlie—the latter being more abstract). A few weeks ago, one of the live-in nurses who takes care of my in-laws—-this nurse is from Kenya and was substituting for the usual nurse, who was on vacation—-had spread the blanket on Charlie’s bed before he went to sleep. I don’t know why she did this: Neither Charlie nor I had asked her. Charlie had jumped onto his bed that night with an especially big smile and pressed his face into the fleece before wrapping himself tightly up in his blue blanket and telling me “good night.” Ever since, he has wanted the smaller blue blanket spread over his sheets so that he is surrounded by the soft stuff.
What would we do if there were no polarfleece pullovers with kangaroo pockets to stuff your hands in as Charlie did while on a walk on the Upper West Side in Manhattan and then onto Columbus Circle? (The one kangaroo pocket for both hands is essential.) With no hood to pull over his head as we walked by the piers and Charlie stopped to look over the railing down at the Hudson? Without something warm and (no other word captures the feeling) fuzzy on the train ride back home to Jersey? Without a blanket to find in the spot where you left it, the brown bear with the red-white-and-blue flip-flops set carefully upon it?
I added the fleece jacket, hood cleaned of subway mud and warm from the dryer, to the pile of fleece blankets at the foot of Charlie’s bed.
I am not saying that polarfleece can in any way do for the world what computers and all the innovations of the digital age can. But in a world in which machines of plastic, metal, and various synthetic materials can dominate our lives, it seems to me not a bad thing to have an easy-to-care for fleece with a hood and that kangaroo pocket to see you through your travels, whether on the Web or the West Side Highway.
I’ve always loved things made out of Polarfleece. My favorite pullover has served me for years, including on cool morning bike rides.
In 1995, Malden Mills, the makers of Polarfleece, had a major factory fire causing an estimated $500 million dollars damage. Rather than closing up shop and moving the factory to a thirld world country (as many competitors had done), the owner, Aaron Feuerstein, immediately went public and promised to pay all of his employees full pay until the factory was rebuilt.
The company had also taken many measures in previous years to lead the way in environmentally friendly manufacturing.
Unfortunately, the company subsequently went into bankruptcy, and is now owned by GE commercial finance.
“there is a remarkably good fit between the autistic mind and the digital age.”
Maybe… Well, I can’t deny that I love computers and the internet and the ease of movement and the ready flow of information, but the idea that -now- is the best time to be autistic seems… off to me. If there’s a succinct term for it, it currently escapes me, but looking at the better defined social customs, the master-apprentice teaching styles, and the simple sense of -community and belonging- of earlier eras, I see a great deal that could have supported autistics that is now gone, replaced with technology.
And that’s without looking at the silence, slow pace of life, and starry night sky that were replaced with constant electronic noise, constant rushing, and light pollution, all of which might have simply reduced the amount of stress on our nervous systems so that we had more energy and stamina to deal with the other problems that arose.
I believe it’s been a trade off, but having experienced them, I don’t think I’d be very happy to give up the good things that have resulted, even if it meant getting rid of all the bad ones.
Modern conveniences are legion for autistic people [and their parents] and polarfleece would certainly get the touchy-feely award, unlike Velcro.
Cheers
Ah, yes, but Velcro means it’s OK we haven’t mastered tieing our shoes, yet.
silence, slow pace of life, and starry night sky that were replaced with constant electronic noise, constant rushing, and light pollution
Zaecus, thank you for pointing these out—I often think my own son would have flourished in a time when society was more oriented toward the rural. He just learned how to use a mouse and is not really interested in anything computer or digitally oriented, but loves to be outside on the grass and looking at the trees. Electronic devices seem to enthrall him for a time, and other times to so over-stimulate him that he later shows no interest: He watches no TV by choice. I could see him doing something like working on a farm; I wonder if, at a different time, he may have been a steady worked in the fields, not really needing to talk much.
1) ummm… it IS ok if someone never masters tying their shoes, isn’t it?
2) i like polarfleece, too.
3) i am not sure if in other eras (past or future) i would be told, when i ‘come out’ as autistic to my students, “oh, can’t you get a medication for that?!”
4) but… without internet i might never have met my husband. so yeah, the 20th and 21st centuries have been good to me so far.
Charlie wears those slip-on shoes (like the Merrell brand)…….so does his dad.