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May 30, 2025 12 mins

James Gutman shares personal stories about raising his son Lucas who has severe autism, revealing how his perspective evolved from fighting against pity to embracing complete appreciation for who his son is.

•James discusses his upcoming book "Hi World, I'm Dad: How Fathers Can Journey from Autism Awareness to Acceptance, to Appreciation," releasing globally on June 19, 2025.  
• Started blogging in 2017 to share stories about Lucas without the pity that often came with in-person conversations
• Why he's glad early pitches for the book didn't go through until the time was right
• Describes beautiful moments like "Reunion Wednesday" hugs that demonstrate Lucas's clear love
• Shares a breakthrough moment when Lucas understood food needs time to cook
• Explains how these small victories exceed his early expectations when Lucas was first diagnosed
• Emphasizes that his love for Lucas isn't despite autism but encompasses his entire being
• Wouldn't change or "cure" his son even if he could

Follow James on social media @HiJamesGutman and visit HiBlogImDad.com with new content every Monday and Wednesday. Reserve your physical and audiobook copy of "Hi World, I'm Dad" on Amazon, Audible, Google, and everywhere books are sold, available June 19th.


It's Here! Get the book – “Hi World, I’m Dad: How Fathers Can Journey to Autism Awareness, Acceptance, and Appreciation” on audio, digital, or print.

Follow Us On Facebook and YouTube. Follow James Guttman on Instagram.

Also, be sure to read the blog that started it all - Hi Blog! I'm Dad.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want apple juice.
Lucas wants apple juice.
I know I heard him say that.
Can I have apple juice?
Yeah, you can have apple juice.
Can I have soda?
Yes, you can have soda.
Can I press that button?
No, you can't press that button.
Why?
Because that's going to playthe theme song.
I'm not ready to start the pot.

(00:30):
Hi Pod, I am Dad.
He's not just Hi Dad, he's mydad.
James Gutman, folks, jamesGutman Hi Pod, I'm Dad.
Welcome back to another editionof the podcast.
We are closing in on june 2025and you guys know what that
means.
It is almost book month 619booyaka booyaka.

(00:54):
The release globally of highworld, I'm dad.
How fathers can journey fromautism awareness to acceptance,
to appreciation is outeverywhere, and I everywhere.
We're talking Amazon and everybookseller that sells books.
They'll sell it.
And then, on top of it, theaudiobook which I narrated,
which was insane.
Sit there and read the book outloud and remember my words, but

(01:16):
that's going to be availableand you can get that on Amazon,
audible and Spotify and allthese other things.
Again, not going to rememberGoogle Play.
It's everywhere, everywhere,everywhere.
So thank you so much forchecking out the site, thank you
for those of you who have goneand pre-ordered the book and
who've been just doing so great.
I just put a smile on my faceconstantly.

(01:36):
I am so proud and so happy witheverything that's happening
right now Not even just doingthe book, which I've talked
about before, is it's a big dealfor me.
I've written you know this willbe my fourth book two on pro
wrestling, one on pregnancy andthen one on autism appreciation
and this by far is the one I'mthe most proud of.

(01:58):
It is the one that I have beenwanting to do for years.
I actually pitched an autismparenting book when I first
started the blog back in 2017.
It was rejected thankfully,because had it been written then
, it would have been a verydifferent book.
It would have been completelydifferent.
It would have been areactionary book, and this is
something that, honestly, thisyear, I'm zeroing in on it.

(02:19):
My word of the year isreactionary, because I'm
starting to realize that myentire life, a lot of the stuff
I've done, has been reactionary.
Someone does something you doit back.
Someone thinks something you dosomething based on what they
might think, and back then Iwrote about very similar topics
Autism, appreciation and thingslike that.
I didn't call it that back then.
But I talked about raising myson.
I talked about how we didn'twant pity and I was really hung

(02:42):
up on pity because people wouldpity me, people would act like
it was the saddest thing in theworld that I had this kid that I
love.
I always say one of the reasonswhy I first wrote the blog was
that I had a story that Ithought was funny about Lucas
wanting a bite of my pretzel.
I mean telling him no, youdon't like this pretzel.
And he's like.
He kept tapping his chest, likegive me your pretzel.

(03:03):
So I handed it to him.
He licked it and he put it backin my hand and I thought it was
funny.
It made me feel like a dope andit was just funny.
And every time I try to tellthat story to someone a really
lighthearted story it was alwayssuch a sad feeling.
He doesn't know what pretzelsare and I'm like what are you
talking about?
He thought he would like it.

(03:24):
He didn't like it.
I'm like, oh my God, it's afunny story.
And then I realized I couldwrite a blog and talk about my
son and I don't have to dealwith that.
I can get to the end of a funnystory about Lucas and not have
somebody pity me for a storythat I find to be cute or
dearing or something like that.
So I did that.

(03:46):
So a lot of my early writingwas about pity, don't pity me.
Very first blog was called we'renot superheroes, about all
these people who you know.
It's tough, yeah, is it worry?
Is there concern about being aparent in general?
Yes, raising a child like minespecial needs, severe autism yes
, yes, yes, across the board.
But like it doesn't take asuperhero to love your kid.
And this was a thing for years.

(04:08):
Before having Lucas, I used towatch Louis Theroux,
documentarian from the UnitedKingdom.
You guys may have seen him,some people saw him, some people
haven't but he had done anepisode of a show called like
Strange Love, I think it wascalled, and it was supposed to
examine people who shared lovein ways that were considered
unorthodox and they had a motherwho had a child who had severe

(04:29):
autism and the implication wasthat it was such a dire thing
for this woman to still love herkid, despite how hard it was,
and I don't know, man, that'salways just been something for
me that I had a kid.
It was my son.
I brought him into this world.
Lucas didn't ask to come here.
So if he has a struggle, if hehas something that he needs help
with, I'm going to help himwith that.

(04:51):
I don't care what it is.
If my daughter suddenly one dayneeded help, I would help her.
If one day I needed help, if Ideveloped dementia, alzheimer's,
something like that, I wouldwant people to help me.
I wouldn't want them on TVtalking about how hard it was to
love me.
I wouldn't want peoplequestioning how they could love

(05:12):
me or how hard life must be forthem.
I mean, don't get me wrong, youcan question it.
You can turn around and say, oh, you probably deal with a lot.
Yeah, I do, thank you.
I appreciate it.
But no way does the work that Ido and how tired I am take away
from my feelings for my son.
And on top of it and this isthe beauty of doing this blog
and getting a chance to talk toyou guys and being on this

(05:33):
podcast and just going off ofthe mouth on and on and on I get
to tell you every aspect of it,so like when I talk about how
it's my duty and he's my son andI'm going to take care of him.
That's great, and it soundslike what I'm saying to you is
like, yeah, I do it, but it's myjob.
What am I going to do?
And is there an aspect of that?
Yeah, I mean, that's like mydaughter.

(05:54):
I have the same thing with myneurotypical daughter.
There's times I don't want todrive her somewhere, I don't
want to make her breakfast whenI don't have to get up, and I'm
going to get out to make abreakfast.
Those are chores and thingsthat we do.
That I do because I love her,but that's not the only aspect
of my relationship with her andI love Lucas man.
Lucas makes me feel more lovedthan anyone could imagine and I

(06:19):
wrote about it this week.
On Wednesday, I wrote a blogcalled His Feelings Are Loud.
His Life Is Honest, his Love IsClear, and it was completely
everything I just said.
And I talked about getting myson off the bus for what I call
reunion Wednesday, when he comeshome from his time over at his
mom's house and he comes off thebus and he walks over to me and
he wraps his arms around me andhe'll give me a hug, especially

(06:41):
after a long day.
He does it not just onWednesdays, but you know, after
school if he's had a hard day,if it's been long, if he's tired
, he just wraps his arms aroundme and just puts his head on my
shoulder and won't let me go.
I try to walk, I pat him on theback and it's cute and we'll
stand there.
And he's done this before.
He did it in the entryway of aCracker Barrel and we walked in.

(07:03):
He was fighting to not go intothe place.
He didn't know what it was.
He was tired.
We were in the car forever.
He and I were together.
He's in my hand, holding hishand.
I walked in and he stoppedright in the entryway and put
his arms around me and wouldn'tmove and just stood there
hugging me and I just hugged himback and people walked around
us, which is one of my favoriteparts.
People talk about all the time.
You know, dealing with it.

(07:23):
Oh, isn't it hard when you'rein public.
I find that if you're reallydealing with a situation in a
parenting way that someone canrelate to, they leave you alone.
If anything, I get compliments,we get positive things.
That was a day that we hadgotten the.
You know a stranger had paidfor the meal at Cracker Barrel,
thanks to autism awareness andthanks to just giving off the
impression to people of, look, Igot this.

(07:45):
They leave me alone and itmakes my son happy, right?
He knows that I have his back.
He always knows this.
He needs something.
He comes to me.
If I tell him to wait for food,he knows he's going to get fed.
I noticed something the otherday, one of these little quiet
moments of understanding whereyou figure out oh, he
understands this.
I didn't know he understoodthat.

(08:06):
He came to me for dinner andthere used to be a time where I
struggled getting him tounderstand that you cook food,
food cooks.
So he would want food.
I would put the food in theoven and he would freak out
because it would take another 20minutes.
Then time went on.
I would bring him over by thehand, I would open the oven and
let him look at the pizza.
He would understand it'scooking, don't worry, it's

(08:26):
coming back.
We did the whole thing and hestarted to get it.
And then, just last week, hecame in for dinner.
I go you want to eat.
He goes what's up?
Oh, you want pizza.
And he looks at me and I openedthe oven.
As soon as I opened the oven,he went downstairs to play and
wait, which is like what we do,and it was one of the first
times I didn't have to explainit, I didn't have to show him
the oven was going.
He's like oh, I got him, he'sgot it.

(08:56):
And that means more to me than Ican even express to you guys,
because there was a time in hislife where I didn't think my son
was going to understandanything zero, no things at all.
And I was prepared for it and Iaccepted it, because when he
was very little, we didn't thinkhe was going to do anything.
He didn't look at us.
You walk into the room, hewouldn't look up.
It was a very, it was a scarytime because I didn't know who
he was going to be.

(09:17):
Now, don't get me wrong.
Whoever he turned out to be, wewere going to love him.
All I'm saying was that I wasprepared for a child who I was
going to have to do every singlething.
I breathed for him.
I didn't know what I was goingto have to do for him, but I was
cool with it, whatever it endedup being.
So today, when I tell you astory about him understanding
that his pizza is cooking ortrusting me that I'm going to

(09:38):
feed him.
It's beyond what I ever dreamedwould happen.
So, yeah, and maybe there'ssilver linings.
Maybe I feel more positiveabout things than most people,
maybe I'm an optimist.
Whatever it is, it doesn'tmatter.
All that matters is that I'mhere with him.

(09:58):
So for some reason, I was puthere in this situation that I
don't dread.
I don't dread being in thisposition, and when you talk to
people it seems like I don'tknow such a unique and crazy
love that you have to kind ofexplain to people how you could
possibly find the positivity inraising a boy with severe autism

(10:19):
.
And, trust me, I found it.
I appreciate my son and I do alot for my son and I do it
happily and I'm thankful thathe's in my life.
I wouldn't cure him.
I wouldn't change him.
I wouldn't do anythingdifferent.
This is who I was given and I'mhappy, so happy Both my kids
man, both my kids, and it'severy single day and that's part

(10:39):
of what the book is.
The book is about understandingthat.
It's about how I got to thatlevel and stories about this boy
that will help you understandwhy this isn't just me trying to
convince you or convince myself.
You don't have to believe it.
I don't care, believe itWhatever.
Me trying to convince you orconvince myself, you don't have
to believe it, I don't care.
Believe it Whatever.

(11:00):
This isn't a sales pitch.
I'm not like the case for why Ilove myself.
I'm not giving you a case.
I'm telling you how I feel.
Take it, leave it.
You don't even have to read it.
You know what you can do.
You can listen to it.
It's on audiobook June 19th,619.
Ray Mysterio, booyaka Booyaka.
It is available worldwide onJune 19th.
It is on Amazon.
It is everywhere else on audioas well.
Go to highblogondadcom Monday,wednesday.

(11:21):
I have new blogs there.
I've been doing it now forever,ever right, eight years, close
to ever, for eight years, sincemy son was five and my daughter
was like my God, seven, eight,eight that's nuts.
And now they're you know,everyone's old.
So it's crazy.
It's like all these years later.
So that's on the blog.

(11:41):
Hi blog, I'm dadcom.
Hi pod, I'm dad.
You're listening to this nowEverywhere you find it like
subscribe, bookmark, tell yourfriends.
I appreciate it.
Follow me on social media, hi,james Gutman.
H-i James Gutman, and, ofcourse, reserve your copy of
High World on Dad on Amazon andeverywhere June 19th.
Guys, thank you so much fortaking the time to listen.
I appreciate it.

(12:01):
I will be back next week anduntil then, james Gutman saying
be well, bye pod, I'm out.
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