354 – Dennis Watkins of Oak Park, IL A Professional Magician & Father of Two Adopted Children Including A Son With Autism

Transcript:

Tom Couch: Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Working tirelessly to research, develop and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics mission at horizontherapeutics.com.

Dennis Watkins: And they said, great, what about noon? And I said, well, can we do maybe a little later? Because we have to get some things. We need to get a car seat, for example, to get all kinds of stuff. You told us not to build a nursery. Where’s this baby going to sleep, right? We had, suddenly a lot of things to do. Very quickly. I remember Jane just said, relax, you have family nearby. Tell them what’s happening, and I guarantee you by the time you’re home with that baby, that stuff is going to be in your house. And she was so right. You know, Sean’s family lives so close. We called them. By the time we got back with the baby, there were clothes, there were diapers, there were everything.

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Dennis Watkins, who hails from a long line of family magicians and who performs in Chicago at the Magic Parlour Magic Revue. Dennis and his husband Sean have adopted two children, Magnolia and Henry. And as it turns out, Henry is autistic. So Dennis has quite a story to tell and we’ll hear it on this week’s special Father’s Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Now say hello to the founder of the Special Fathers Network and host of the Dad to Dad Podcast, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi and thanks for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast presented by the Special Fathers Network, a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. The Special Fathers Network Mastermind Group experience is the most comprehensive program the 21st Century Dads foundation offers. Dads raising children with special needs, meet virtually on a weekly basis and form meaningful relationships while sharing weekly wins, discussing books and sharing heartfelt challenges. One of the highlights of the year is attending an in-person weekend retreat. We’re launching 10 new mastermind groups in 2024 with 10 dads per group. That means we’re only looking for 10 like-minded dads in each community. If you’re a dad raising a child with special needs, we hope you’ll join a local mastermind group and make the investment to become the best version of yourself. For more information, please see the show notes or simply go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: Now let’s listen in to this magical conversation between Dennis Watkins and and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I’m, thrilled to be talking today with Dennis Watkins of Oak Park, Illinois, professional magician, owner and proprietor of the Magic Parlour, and father of two young children, including a son with autism. For the record, Dennis and I first met when I hosted a group of two dozen special needs dads for the Special Fathers Network Mastermind group annual retreat in Chicago. And we experienced one of Dennis’s Magic Parlour performances. Dennis, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Dennis Watkins: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

David Hirsch: You and your husband Sean have been married for seven years and are the proud parents of two adopted children, Magnolia, 15 months, and Henry, 5 years, who is autistic. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Dennis Watkins: You bet. I grew up outside of Dallas, Texas. I was born in Dallas and when I was about to start kindergarten, my parents, moved our family to a small suburb of Dallas called South Lake, which at the time was just packed full of nothing but grass and perhaps some cows. And we were a Dallas, Texas family. I’m the second of four, brothers. My older brother is about 16 months older than me and I’m about 18 months older than my younger brother. And then there was a long stretch of 11 years before my youngest brother came into the picture. But yeah, I grew up in outside of Dallas and South Lake. My parents were both incredibly passionate and involved parents. My dad was self employed. He worked with my grandfather on a small commercial photography and slide printing business that my granddad had started. My granddad had also been a magician, which is where I stepped into that world and had run a magic shop for 30 years. But as I was growing up, he had transitioned into, his company, Slides Unlimited, doing slides and photography with my dad. My mom was an RN and worked prior to, I think it was all the way through my older brother’s infancy as an ER nurse. And then as they were having more and more kids, needed something a bit mellower and started working as a recovery room nurse. And she spent her career there. Right? They were both giant advocates of education. One of their

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Dennis Watkins: biggest priorities was always making sure that we got the education that they wanted us to have. Which incidentally turns out why they moved us from Dallas into South Lake, Texas. And I spent my whole childhood in South Lake. I was in the same school district from kindergarten through graduating from high school right there, a mile away from my front door in a lovely little suburban town.

David Hirsch: Thanks for the brief overview. You mentioned that your, dad was a business owner. Is he still alive?

Dennis Watkins: He is still alive. He’s alive. He’s retired. He lives in Washington D.C. my mother passed away in 2006. She had cancer and she passed away very quickly and very suddenly. My dad has been a widower and has remained single since that time and lives in D.C. I’d say just a couple miles from my youngest brother Nathan, who lives with his husband Nate.

David Hirsch: Nathan and Nate.

Dennis Watkins: I know. It’s the worst, isn’t it? It’s just the worst.

David Hirsch: That does make things a little bit more complicated.

Dennis Watkins: They are, in our family known as the Nates.

David Hirsch: The Nates. Okay. Nate squared. Yeah. How would you, describe your relationship with your dad?

Dennis Watkins: We’re close. My dad, again, we were sort of a middle class family. My dad was self employed and we lived in South Lake and he worked in Dallas, was where their shop was. And he would drive about an hour to and from every day and worked the life of a self employed sole proprietor. A life that I live now and have a much greater understanding of in my adult life than I perhaps did when I was young. But we are certainly closer now and there. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, including the fact that I was growing up as a gay kid in a small town in Texas. My dad’s view of a gay life was always much broader than I think most of our Texas community might have been. But today is even, even broader and more, welcoming and encompassing than, than I would have imagined possible as a kid. You know, I think that a lot of kids who grow up gay in conservative places like Texas are guarded from their parents in ways that they don’t understand as they’re growing up. And luckily, as our relationship has grown, that wall has just faded away. And my dad and I are very, very close. I wish we were close geographically. We are not at this point, but we’re very close. Personally, he’s a great part of our family here in Oak park, even though he’s far away.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing. appreciate that. So, what were some of the more important takeaways from your relationship with your dad? Maybe a lesson or lessons learned, something perhaps you’ve tried to incorporate into your own parenting?

Dennis Watkins: My dad has always had what I think of as a wide tolerance for humans and for the differences. Right. Actually, one of the things that he loves most about life is the diversity of humanity. One of the reasons he won’t leave D.C. is because he says, you know, where I live, I walk down the street and I see a sea of colors of people. And where I grew up in Texas, I saw one type of person all the time. And so his love of diversity among people is something that I think I very much absorbed. I would have never understood it as a kid that that was one of the biggest things that he was teaching me. Right. And it shows up exactly in what we just talked about, too. And being a gay kid in Texas and having a dad who was so ready and eager to accept the kind of family that I was going to end up building as a kid. I might have been afraid that he wasn’t, but it wasn’t because he was showing me that. It was because the rest of the world was showing me that. And his ability to wrap his arms around human diversity, I think is one of the biggest things that he gave to me. That language and that front of mindedness about diversity didn’t really exist when my dad was growing up in Texas, but it lived in him. He did make a career transition when I was in college. The Slides Unlimited, the photography and slide studio that they had, he left, they shut her down, and he went back to school to be an administrator for retirement communities and elderly care communities. One of the big moments there for my dad was that when he finished that, we were in Dallas, Texas. Right. And he was a guy who grew up in conservative churches in Dallas, Texas, and the first thing he did was go work for a Jewish community. Right. And it’s just in my mind today, in 2024, living in Oak Park, Illinois, there’s nothing strange about that, but there was something strange about it in Dallas, Texas at that time and still might be in Dallas, Texas. Right. To him, it was just the way that he saw that he was able to serve. He was like, this is the community. This is where I’m going to go. This is the

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Dennis Watkins: need that I can fill. And he just went there. He didn’t think twice about it. Right. And I think that that that showed up in a lot of my dad’s behaviors. It was given to him, shared with him, or absorbed by him from his parents, who I think also folks in Dallas, Texas and small towns, were remarkably broad minded. And thank goodness. Right? Thank goodness.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing. The word progressive comes to mind. You know, he was ahead of his time.

Dennis Watkins: He really was.

David Hirsch: And I think that you and your brothers are the primary beneficiaries of that. So you made reference to, your dad’s dad and you mentioned that he was a magician and maybe you can go into a little bit more detail or backstory there.

Dennis Watkins: Yeah. So my dad’s dad, we called him Grandy when I was a kid. Now I refer to him as Ed. And frankly, in my adult life, I’ve always referred to him as Ed. He was my granddad. And as a kid, I just could not have gotten luckier. The universe did really well by me. I was a kid who loved this ridiculous thing called magic. And I had a granddad who was an amazing magician who had run a magic shop for 30 years. And incidentally, it was a shop that printed and distributed the first mail order magic catalog in this country, well before the Internet. The tools with which people built community in these little niches, they just didn’t exist that way. Right? So he developed a huge community of magicians that I had access to. I do magic for a living, and I perform a lot of shows where I talk about the legacy of magic in my family because they’re magic shows. But what I don’t really talk a lot about in those shows and perhaps should, is the legacy, of generosity and love that he gave to us. He was a remarkable human, just one of the best humans I have known. My dad also, but we know where it comes from. my granddad, Ed, was just a, ah, remarkable human. And he showed us that in a lot of ways. And the community that he built around himself showed us that in a lot of ways. And his capacity for unconditional love showed us that in a lot of ways. My grandmother also was remarkable. You know, as a kid, you don’t have the lens or the tools to go, oh, my grandparents have a great marriage or a troubled marriage or anything like that. What we just saw was them being together and unconditionally loving all the time, and that, that worked its way down to us in some really strong and wonderful ways. And the respect he had for family as an institution and his family and the drive to be a, dad and a granddad in ways that were meaningful and would lift up the family are really big, you know, he. I think my brain is probably here because we also talked about my dad and his sort of natural propensity towards, progressive thinking, especially as a Texan. it existed in my granddad too. You know, there were some incredible moments that I can look back to now as a kid and go, oh, my gosh, I understand how powerful that was. And today they’re small things, you know. But he was one of the founding members of an organization called the Texas association of Magicians. And I remember we would go every Labor Day weekend to the magic convention for the Texas association of Magicians. And at this convention, there’s exactly what you imagine it to be, which is an exhibit hall full of people selling magic tricks and magicians equipment and tools and whatnot. And there was a gentleman there by the name of Bob Hale, who was a tall, thin, older, African American gentleman. And I remember a day at one of those conventions where he told me, well, I mean, it’s only because of your granddad that black guys can be here. That moment of hearing that from someone away from my granddad, I mean, it just. It changes you as a kid. Right. And today, that. That was not a hard thing for my granddad to do. It’s just the way he was. Right. he had a big, broad love of people, and he worked to lift them up.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I love it. Thank you for sharing. So that was your, dad’s dad. And I’m sort of curious to know what, if any, relationship did you have with your mom’s dad, your maternal grandfather?

Dennis Watkins: I had a very different kind of relationship with my maternal grandfather. Our relationship was nowhere near as full or as, close as my relationship with my dad’s parents. They were different kinds of parents to their kids. There was

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Dennis Watkins: a lot of abuse in that home, and there were a lot of problems in that home. as a result, my relationship to them was very different. I was not as close. But also my parents did a remarkable thing. You know, I think that abuse within a family is a cycle that’s hard to end. And though my mother had grown up in a very tumultuous home with multiple kinds of abuse going on, somehow, somehow she had the wherewithal to say it stops with me. And my dad was able to look and say, that’s not going down to our kids. And though they wouldn’t have always said that they were teamworking that successfully, they did teamwork. It. I don’t know how or where they had the wherewithal to say it stops here. and thankfully, my mother and my father saw it for what it was. There was a stop built in to our lives. I mean, we think of a wedge in a relationship as a bad thing, but when you’re being protected from abusers, it’s not a bad thing. There was a wedge built there between me and my maternal grandparents, parents by my parents. And it’s a good thing. Right. I had, therefore, a very different relationship with those grandparents than I did with my paternal grandparents.

David Hirsch: Right, yeah. Well, thanks for sharing. I appreciate your, openness and authenticity. And, you know, every family has different challenges, and, you know, it’s remarkable when that cycle gets broken. Right. And the baggage doesn’t get passed down from generation to generation. so your parents get a lot of credit for that. And you know, it’s not like a, one and done type of thing. It’s something that you need to work at over a longer period of time. So thanks again for sharing. I’m thinking about other men who might have, served as father figures. And I’m wondering if there’s anybody else that comes to mind that played an influential role either when you were growing up or perhaps as a young adult.

Dennis Watkins: Oh, sure. My dad and my granddad. You hit it. Are probably the largest as a kid though, you know, I think I’m an anomaly in that I have the job that 10 year old me wanted. Right. I always wanted to be a magician. And since there are magicians in my family, when, when I, when I started pushing that with my parents, they didn’t panic and instead said, you know what you should do? You should, you should take theater classes, you should take acting classes, you should learn to be more comfortable on stage and performing. And I did. And again, I grew up in a small town in Texas and one of the most influential figures in my growing up was my high school theater instructor, John Scoopin. Man, oh man, such a, Texan and such an invisible progressive. Looking back, it doesn’t feel surprising to me that the theater teacher was some kind of hidden progressive. Right. but he was. And he didn’t lead with, I guess, an outspoken display of progressive thinking. he just treated everybody right. You know, he embraced all of the artsy kids who might have felt otherwise out of place and what was a small town Texas football community. Right. I think it’s no small thing that he was a man. Right. That there was a male arts leader there in that school district. He was a huge presence in that part of my life and beyond. but I do still talk to, John and his wife Annette, who was the photography teacher and the psychology teacher at the school. I was close to both of them. Right. They were such a team, those two people. And I had a great picture of a team and my parents and in my grandparents, but also in them. They were huge. They were progressive thinkers in a little bitty Texas town. They were able to be such in, I think a community that often silences those voices. Right?

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, I think about individuals like the Scoopins, Annette and John Scoopin as the angels. You might not know it at the time, but you can look back and realize how fortunate you were to be led by, mentored by, you know, individuals, you know, with that amount of grace, that, level of inclusion and acceptance. Right. That you might just take for granted. Right. If that’s just everybody who you come in contact with. But you realize

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David Hirsch: that’s not the case.

Dennis Watkins: Absolutely. They opened my view of the world in almost a subversive way. And I think that’s a remarkable thing.

David Hirsch: I love it. So my recollection was you went to Southern Methodist University, took a BFA from the Meadows School of Arts. And did you know that you were just going to go out there and become a magician or was there a more secure this route?

Dennis Watkins: It’s what I had set out to do. And then I think like a lot of kids who fall in love with some kind of art form or start studying an art form, like I fell in love with theater. Now, theater and magic, in my opinion, they’re the same medium. Right. They’re storytelling and a theatrical form in front of a live audience. And so they’re very much the same. Now, that being said, there was a bit of a, ah, circuitous route there because I did, I studied theater, I fell in love with theater and I wanted to make plays and theater. And I moved from Dallas to Chicago days after graduating from college, to start a theater company with a bunch of folks that I had gone to college with. my friend Nathan Allen was sort of the spearhead of that theater company as we moved up here to start it. And we launched into building an, ensemble of theater makers who would make original plays. And I was one of the founders of that company and helped launch the company and therefore was also part of the team that was running the company from the beginning. I was doing that work and I was making the plays and I was doing all the things that young theater artists do. That of course, included, trying to generate and draw a small salary from that theater company, but also, you know, pay your rent and try to save some money and have health insurance. So I was waiting tables and I was doing theater and I was making plays and I was writing plays and directing plays and performing in plays. And boy, oh boy, did I love that work and want to keep doing that work. there did come a moment where I had a pretty stark realization that running an art organization, especially a not for profit arts organization, is a noble calling. It was not mine. And I was much more of a performer and a writer than I was an administrator of the arts. And I needed to do something else to make Money. And I was about done with waiting tables, which by the way, I think is an excellent job that everybody should have to do for a long time. but I was near the end of my career, as a server and the only other thing I knew how to do was card tricks. And so I just started gigging. I got really lucky and I found myself discovering people who are making a living performing at events and as magicians and jugglers and all kinds of variety performers. And I managed to find some small agencies to work with who would be able to book me out. And suddenly was thinking, well, this is so much better than, trying to piece together seven different jobs and slowly just transitioned into going all in on that and building a business where we could remove the agents from the equation and my team would operate as the agents and we were building, able to build and produce events, rather than just cast me in events. Right. And it just sort of organically grew. It is so in line with my work as a theater artist. And it grew out of my work as a theater artist. Right. The other thing that happened during that time is that the theater company that I started, I started working on the show that is now the Magic Parlour in partnership with them 15 years ago at a little bitty teeny weeny theater in Wicker park here in Chicago. And that helped me build audience and clients and learn to be better at my job and develop some craft around the way that I worked. And that helped organically grow the machine into what it is today. So, yeah, a little sidebar where I was doing almost all theater and very little magic and frankly, in the grand scheme of things, that didn’t last very long. I landed right back over here on the, on the path that that 10 year old me set out on.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, thanks for sharing. If I can paraphrase what you’ve said, you veered, into the world of theater, but realized that your real calling or passion is magic and you were able to leverage the experience. I think what I heard you say was the theater experience, to become perhaps a better, magician. Right. You know, as far as telling your stories and presenting yourself.

Dennis Watkins: Absolutely, absolutely.

David Hirsch: And you run the business. Right? You emphasize the word company. Right. You know, as in theater company. And somebody has to be the business part of that company because it is a business.

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David Hirsch: Right. And there’s overhead, there are salaries. Right. There’s ebbs, and flows in the economy. And you need to be prepared for those, curveballs or those, challenging, situations. So I’m sort of curious to know. How did you and Sean meet?

Dennis Watkins: We have two different stories. The truth is, we met in one way or another surrounding the work that that, theater company we’re just talking about was doing. You know, the theater company did a show every year. The evergreen show that we did was a staged version of the Nutcracker. Not a ballet, but a play about a family that was struggling with loss. And it was a version, of the Nutcracker. And I, at that point in my life, owned a 2 flat here in Chicago with my best friend from college, Tommy Rapley, who was directing the Nutcracker. And Sean was the assistant director of the Nutcracker. And I believe that we met at a meeting they had at the house, at our home, at our 2 flat. And Sean believes we met at the theater. and a memory that he describes in great vivid detail that just doesn’t live in my brain at all. but somehow surrounding that production of the Nutcracker, we met and had sort of a, pretty passive meeting. Like, we didn’t. Neither of us followed up on that meeting. Right. But then maybe a year later, Shaun came to see a show that I was doing called Death.

David Hirsch: Ah.

Dennis Watkins: And Harry Houdini, where I played Harry Houdini. And if ever there was a play that I was in that I would have wanted a potential romantic partner to come to, it was probably. It’s the only show that I’ve ever done where I felt like, oh, I looked cool in that show. right. So it was good. It was good that he came to that one. And then afterwards, the team working on the show went out for dinner and drinks, and we sort of started to identify a little bit of spark. He’s almost 10 years younger than me. He’s eight years younger than me. Then he did the thing that I think everybody does now, which is he sent me a message on Facebook to ask me out. And it was that moment that I realized that I was older than him. but nonetheless, it happened and it grew from there. Right.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I love that story. Thank you for sharing. Let’s, switch gears and talk about, parenting. And I’m sort of curious to know, prior to becoming parents, did you or Sean have any connection to the disability community or special needs community?

Dennis Watkins: Certainly we were connected to it in many ways, but not in a way that I would have overtly said or noticed at the time. You know what? And this is fascinating, David, because my youngest brother, who’s 11 years younger than me, I’m 46 now, so he’s 35. Just three days ago, we had a conversation because three days ago he got a diagnosis for autism.

David Hirsch: Whoa.

Dennis Watkins: Right. And at the time of, my husband and I meeting and getting to know each other and even well into our marriage, I would have answered that question differently. I would have said, no, we didn’t really. Right. We didn’t have those disabilities in my family growing up, but we did. Sean’s older brother, Dan, is a child psychologist. So very much a part of Dan’s life is working with families who are in this. But directly, I think we would have said, oh, no, not. Not so much at the time. Today, my lens is different, and I see it everywhere. Right. I see it in cousins. I see it in. In different places in my family that I wouldn’t have said at the time. Right. I think we both knew that we wanted to be parents at some point in our lives. Both of us grew up gay. And let’s be honest, it hasn’t been too long since it would have been possible for us to have the kind of family that we have. Right. So our lens on it, even when we were getting married seven years ago, was a little different in terms of what a, family might look like. And Sean is an elementary school teacher. he teaches Montessori Elementary School. And he, in his grad school, did a good amount of work on special education in the Montessori classroom. And when we set out to adopt kids, we talked a lot about whether or not we want to adopt an infant or did we want to work through the foster system and adopt kids. And at that point, we started talking about, well, what level of need are we ready for? And do we think that we as parents are equipped to jump into at that point? But that was that. It was in that journey of, ah, looking into how and where are we going to adopt and grow our family that we started to bump up against for the first time, like an introspective, an attempted honest

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Dennis Watkins: evaluation, like, what can we do? Right. At the end of the day, we knew that adopting through the foster system would bring a whole set of circumstance and in most cases, trauma or elevated needs that we, as parents would need to work through. And in the end, we decided to adopt, an infant with our first kid. Right. I do have one of my very dear friends. Anna, has a younger sister who has special needs. And, I remember Anna and I met in college and became very close friends and are still very close, that her family felt to me like the first family that I Had a real window into of, what it might be like to have a family with special needs.

David Hirsch: Right.

Dennis Watkins: But that wasn’t until college even.

David Hirsch: Well, thanks for sharing. Very interesting. And, you decided to pursue the adoption route, and I’m wondering if you can briefly describe the process that led to Henry, or you call him Hale, joining your family.

Dennis Watkins: Oh, yeah. Sean and I decided that we were going to try to adopt a baby. Awesome. We were, like I just said, confronted with all kinds of questionnaires of, like, for lack of better language, what kind of baby do you want to adopt? Right. And suddenly we were like, oh, wait, you check boxes about gender and race? And like, what the heck? And our responses were pretty broad, frankly, like gender and race. These things were not a concern to us. We jumped into the wormhole of, oh, my gosh. We’re, being asked to check boxes about parental substance abuse and all kinds of things. Right. And our agency, of course, says, you know, in all honesty, it will likely take 18, 24 months, maybe longer before we are MA. You are matched with a birth mother, and you start that part of the ride. Don’t build your nursery. It will be sad at 18 months when you walk by and you still are waiting to be matched with a birth mother. So just ride the ride. It’s going to happen when it happens, and it’s going to be awesome when it happens. But it might be a while. So we buckled down for a long wait. And then five months later, I woke up on a Saturday. Now, I. I was running a show, three performances every Saturday, right? So Saturdays were long, big, heavy days for me. And Sean comes into the bedroom, I think maybe at 8:30 in the morning. And I was like, I was trying to wait longer, but you need to wake up. We have a call from the adoption agency, and we need to call them back now. And I was like, oh, go. Okay. So we call them back, and they say, guess what? We think that there’s a potential match here for you guys. Our hearts jump. We’re excited. Awesome. Who is this magnificent birth mother we have been matched with? And when is she going to have this baby? And then the next thing they say is, and the baby was born about a little less than two weeks ago, and you can bring him home as early as tonight. and there were a few. There were a few other steps that were involved. You know, they needed to call us, first and say, is this a match that you want to pursue? And we had to say yes. And then they had to call the birth mother and Say. They say, yes. Is it indeed the match that you want to pursue? She says, yes. And then we can go ahead, and meet the baby, right? But instead they call and they say, okay, great, so we’re going to connect with the birth mother, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. We think it’ll probably be today. And I was like, oh, but do I have to go do three shows now? Now what do I do now? Do I just go to work? What is going to happen here? And, you know, I went to work, and we’re getting ready to open the doors for this show. And I remember that, someone on my team just stepped in front of me and said, Dennis, you seem crazy today. And I was just like, well, this is what is happening. And then shortly before the first show, they called back, they said, we’ve spoken with the birth mother. She would also like to pursue this. It is absolutely a match. When would you like to meet your new baby boy? And, you know, said, well, well, as soon as we can. Tomorrow, let’s go. We will bring him home tomorrow. We don’t want to wait any longer than that. And they said, great, what about noon? And I said, well, could we do maybe a little later? Because we have to get some things. We need to get a car seat, for example, to get all kinds of stuff. You told us not to build a nursery. Where’s this baby going to sleep? Right? We had suddenly a lot of things to do very quickly. And, this Adoption center of Illinois is the agency I worked with, and they are just amazing. And I remember Jane just said, relax, you have family nearby. Tell them what’s happening. And I guarantee you, by the time you’re home with that baby, that stuff is going to be in your house. And she was so right. You know, Sean’s family lives so close. We called them. By the time we got back with the baby, there were clothes, there were diapers, there were everything. Right? And, it

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Dennis Watkins: went from there. Right?

David Hirsch: I love it. Thank you for sharing.

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a great dad coin. Thank you. Now back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: As long as we’re talking about the adoption experience. Let’s talk about, how Magnolia joined your family as well.

Dennis Watkins: Absolutely. Man, oh, man, that first child is such a magical experience. Right. We knew that we wanted to have a, bigger family. We knew that we wanted Hal to have a sibling. And we started working with a couple different agencies in different states to try and broaden that search. We had been waiting for a long time with this one. We had some very near matches with birth mothers that just didn’t pan out. And then through one of these agencies that we had added to our network, we got matched with a birth mother in Florida in the early stages of her pregnancy. So we were matched with Magnolia’s birth mother. It was either six or eight weeks into her pregnancy. It was very early. And so we were along for that whole ride and the full, longer journey. What that meant was that we had a very different experience. Right. When we brought Hal home, I was like, I don’t know. 18 hours is probably not enough notice. it was a different experience all around in every way possible, including, like, it came with a magnificent gift of being able to be in the delivery room when she was born. Right. We weren’t able to experience that with Hal. I don’t. I think, our meeting Hal was just perfect. Right. So I don’t mean to compare the two, but it was a totally different experience, and we got to have a different ride in round two.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for comparing and contrasting the experiences. And, you know, you’ve had two positive outcomes. they don’t always result, in that, on a timely basis, like you’ve experienced. So I’m, thrilled for you.

Dennis Watkins: Indeed.

David Hirsch: And not to push too hard, but, are you done? You have a boy and a girl, or do you think there might be room for, a third? And go to zone defense from your man to man defense.

Dennis Watkins: You know, Magnolia is now 15 months old, and I’m, like, not a baby anymore. She said, I want a baby again. But, David, I am 46 years old, and I don’t know that there is, another baby around the corner. And also, at this moment in our lives, we have now learned that Hal is autistic. And we’re working with our kids in a different way than we were before. And I will say that my brain is not ready for another child at the moment. Shawn and I both kind of think that there might be some parenthood in our future that comes through the foster system or something of that nature. I seriously doubt we will Adopt another baby. although, boy, do I love that baby nonsense. so I don’t know if we’re completely done yet. I think we might be done with infancy.

David Hirsch: Okay, well, we’ll have to follow up with you years down the road and see how that plays out. Yeah, you mentioned that, Hal was diagnosed with autism. How did that, diagnosis come about?

Dennis Watkins: You know, Hal is one of those kids, and I think they’re. Well, I know there’s a whole generation of them now that was an itty bitty baby and toddler during the pandemic, and we enrolled him in a Montessori primary school pre kindergarten Montessori program. Again, my husband is a Montessori teacher, and we believe in that sort of child led independent learning and put them in a primary, Montessori program. And shortly thereafter, we were getting reports from the school that there were problematic behaviors in the classroom that we hadn’t been able to spot during this period of isolated parenting and also first time parenting and thought, let’s do a psych eval, a neuropsych eval and see, because both of us, Sean is an educator and me in a family of four brothers and a dad who have all been diagnosed with adhd. We think that might be what’s going on here. And we all know that the diagnoses open a lot of doors in terms of insurance and support in school, and even just in understanding what’s going on and the way you can talk about it dramatically changes the trajectory. Right.

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Dennis Watkins: So in all honesty, we did the psych eval wholeheartedly expecting some kind of ADD ADHD diagnosis for that psych eval. I was like, wow, these questions. I bet we’re ruling out autism. Nope. Nope, we were not. In fact, we were diagnosing it. So we were very much trying to find a mechanism for support. We did not understand the need. So that’s how that came about. And, you know, so grateful that it did, you know.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing. And, I’m sort of curious to know, was, there some meaningful advice you got, you know, shortly after the diagnosis that put you down the path that you’re down because it doesn’t seem like you were overwhelmed or like shell shocked or like, oh, my gosh. Right. It was just like, okay, nice to know. Thanks. Now what do we do?

Dennis Watkins: Yeah, I mean, I mean, it feels more like that now. There’s a feeling that I had immediately, which I never would have anticipated, which was this, screw you. You don’t know my Kid feeling, right? You met him for four hours. What do you know about my kid?

David Hirsch: Totally in denial. Right, right, right.

Dennis Watkins: And it was a reactionary feeling and it was strong and was rooted in all kinds of things. It was not so long ago that we got this diagnosis and I know a lot more about neurodiversity today than I did then. At that moment of getting that diagnosis, my first thought was like, well, trash it, let’s get another one. Right? The reactionary part of me was strong and the protective part of me was strong and the screw you, you don’t know my kid part was strong. And all of that is partially code. I don’t want that to be the way it is. Was strong, right? And it took some space for me to ask the question, like, what are you actually afraid of? Right? And I think that the answer will change as we all grow as a family. Right? But the immediate answer I had to that was, was rooted in what I pictured autism to be, what I understood neurodiversity to be at the time. Some, legitimate fears. Right. You know, I heard autism as a dad and thought, oh my God, he’s never going to have close relationships, he’s never going to bond with people. He’s always going to live outside of the world or outside of the typical experience of the world. And that was freaking scary to me. You want your kid to live in the world and you want them to experience the way you experience the world because you can’t imagine a different way, right? And that was scary to me. Hal was and is a kid who like needs connection to the people around him, who thrives on one, on one connection with people who love him because he does, he wants it, he needs it, and he loves his community. And what I think was the biggest pillar of fear there started to shift a little bit and we started to just sort of focus on, well, what do we do? Like how do we understand his brain and how do we support it and what’s the path. Right. And you know, we’re in a moment today where we’ve been working with Hal a great deal and we have a remarkable team of people and he has remained in the school where he went to primary school. And we’ve done that because we believe in the Montessori method. We believe in a child centered, self led and independent manner of growth. And we’re discovering that despite what we really believe in and what we’ve tried to create for him, that that structure probably works for a lot of neurotypical kids. And that this neurodivergent kid needs a different kind of support. And so now we’re, we’re working with the, public school system here to make a transition there, and we’re like right smack dab in the middle of that process, right? So that process from screw you, you don’t know my kid, to let me tell you, my kid needs a one on one aide in his classroom because, you know, it’s a pretty hilarious and fast turnaround, for me. But that’s where we are, right? You know, it was, and Sean and I are different people. Working on it together is both awesome and hard in all the things here we are in the middle of this, trying to make a transition that we do as a family, and it’s really, it’s tricky and it’s hard. And it’s harder, in fact, than the moment of diagnosis, I think. Right. Not because I’m resistant to the diagnosis anymore, but it feels like a more difficult, it feels like a more difficult moment, Right?

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, if I can paraphrase what you’ve said, you’ve gone from being in denial, the how could you possibly know my child? Screw you, I’m getting another diagnosis too. Acceptance, right? Not getting over it, but just accepting hell for who he is. And then all of a sudden,

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David Hirsch: like, leaning in or stepping on the gas and saying, okay, you know, what are the best practices? Right? What are the best resources? And, you know, that’s exciting, right? And, when I hear one parent of a couple say that, you know, we’re different or we’re not on the same page, it’s because we each arrive, at a destination, not, simultaneously. Right. In a perfect world, it would be like, hey, we’re just running in parallel and we think the same way and we act the same way, but, you know, we’re interpreting our situation as we go along. And, you know, one is usually ahead or behind, not good or bad, but just on the learning curve, if you want to call it that. And, you know, it is a joint decision, right? You have to be in agreement with, how to move forward. Because, you know, particularly if you’re moving from one school to the next, it seems like a momentous decision. And, you’ve got to follow your heart. Right? And I think parents do know their kids better than anybody else, which might contradict what you were saying initially about the diagnosis. But, you know, in your heart of hearts, you know, you’re the one that spends the most time with your child. You’re the one that really understands who they are and what their needs are. And you know, you need to be open minded to different resources and, it sounds like you’re well on your path to, that discovery process.

Dennis Watkins: Well, we are on a path.

David Hirsch: Remember, you cannot connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking backwards. So show there’s some grace and you know, just be open minded like your dad was with you, your grandfather was with your dad. And you know, you’re very fortunate to have grown up in that environment. Right. The role modeling that you experienced, not just like heard about, but, you know, experienced firsthand. So, you know, I think Hal and Nola are going to be the beneficiaries like you or the beneficiary of the environment that you grew up in as well. So I’m thinking about advice now and I’m wondering if there’s any advice you can share with parents, you know, specifically dads who, you know, find themselves on the receiving end of a diagnosis that maybe they were unprepared for or feel a little bit challenged by.

Dennis Watkins: Slow down, just slow down. Just take a moment. That’s the only advice I have. I feel like I’m just right at the beginning of that, of that journey. Like I don’t have enough perspective to offer any advice outside of wait and collect information. Just collect information and people. That’s it. That’s all I can do right now. I think right here at this sort of early stage of like, we’ve just gotten this diagnosis and we’re figuring out what to do with it and I don’t know, I don’t know what to do with it yet. I do know the struggles that I’m having. Like, it’s frustrating to try and work through this transition into a school and figure out an IEP when I feel like I’m so early in my education about what it is we’re dealing with. Right. And I am not an expert on, neurodiversity and autism, but he’s my kid and I’ve got to lead that. And, and as you just said, which I just thinks really true, you can connect the dots looking backwards, but at this place, like right at the beginning of this thing, I’m getting better at identifying what my fears are and what my struggles are. And I think today I might have a different answer than I might have tomorrow. But today, you know, Sean and I have been talking about this transition for Hal and what it means and where it is, and we have very different levels of stress about it between the two of us at any moment. And recently it feels as though Sean is very stressed because we want Hal to not be struggling so much in school or at, home or anywhere. We want them to struggle less. And the only thing that I keep trying to do is go, like, well, today this is the struggle. I can’t eyeball struggling less as, the goal. Right. But what I can do is say, this is where we are today, and this is where we’re going to live today, and we’re going to do as much as we can do today. But I, can’t live in a world where I am angry or sad or depressed. Because he can’t make it through a full day of school yet, Right. Because today he can’t make it through a full day of school. He just can’t. So that’s the day we have today, Right. We don’t have a day where he fails to make it through a full day of school. We have a day where I know that and I accept that. And I can, like, the effort is to, like, meet him where he is today, love him where he is today, without an eye on some kind of future goal, which is nearly impossible as a parent, right?

David Hirsch: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, what the most insightful thing I think you said is about the importance of being present. You can’t change the past, so

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David Hirsch: you don’t want to spend too much time there, and you don’t want to worry too much about the future or try to anticipate what the future is going to bring, because God only knows what’s in the future. So the more you can discipline yourself just to make the most out of every day and the current circumstance and just keep moving forward. one of the dads describes it as relentless forward motion. Right? You just want to keep moving forward. Don’t get bogged down. Try not to get distracted. There’s a lot of noise out there, a lot of differing opinions. You know, you go down the Google rabbit holes, right? And you could get yourself tied on a pretzel really fast, right. As far as do this, don’t do that, and, you know, I think your other piece of advice or thought was just to slow down. Just, you know, be deliberate or intentional about gathering information, educating yourself, and, you know, you’ll figure it out. Right. That’s just the nature of being a parent. And it doesn’t really have to do with the autism so much. It’s just being a parent. Right. The novelty. Right. You know, hell’s your guinea pig, if you want to call them that. Right. You know, you’re just trying to figure things out like any parent of a first child would be doing. And, you know, you just have to learn a little bit more about things like IEPs. Right. And there’s a lot of really, really good resources. A lot of people that have, you know, are veteran IEP veterans. Right. So instead of trying to figure it out yourself, you know, lean on tap into, you know, those resources, and be in contact with those people so that, you know, you can demystify the IEP process pretty quickly and, you know, try to figure out how do we make the most of that. Right. As opposed to feeling like you’re, you know, battling something or you’re going up against things that, you know, you’re not, ah, prepared for. So, anyway, I’m excited for you.

Dennis Watkins: Thank you. Me too.

David Hirsch: I’m sort of curious to know if there’s anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up.

Dennis Watkins: No. I’m grateful for the chance to talk. I think anytime people have kids that the world becomes a little bit more, or maybe a lot more insular right out of the gate. Right. You find yourself on a journey that is not what you imagined, and it gets even more isolating. Just the opportunity to talk is so good. So good. Thank you.

David Hirsch: Absolutely. So if somebody wants to learn more about your work, the Magic Parlour to contact you, what’s the best way to do so?

Dennis Watkins: Through themagicparlourchicago.com or DennisWatkins.net either or both of those websites, will give you a big picture of the work and easy access to start talking about it.

David Hirsch: I’ll be sure to include that information in the show notes. It’ll make it as easy as possible for somebody to follow up. Dennis, thank you for your time and many insights. As a reminder, Dennis is just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21stCenturyDads.org thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads foundation is a 501c3.9 organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax equitable contribution. I would really appreciate your support. Dennis. Thanks again.

Dennis Watkins: Thank you.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturydads.Org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook group facebook.com groups and search dad to dad. Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to david@21stcenturydads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch. Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics who believe that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly to research, develop and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at horizontherapeutics.com.

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