Louder than Laughs
An Interview with Jenny McCarthy, Part 1

Love her style. Love her books. (I'm re-reading Belly Laughs with Baby #2 on the way...) She's funny. She's gorgeous. She's authentic. She's now a mama on a mission — and we had a chance to talk. Listen in...

Eliza: Let me start by saying, I am just so incredibly proud of you... your inspirational relentlessness in healing your son, and your open candor and generosity in sharing your journey with others... it just rocks. In closing Louder Than Words, you declare rightly that it's NOT about autism, it's about faith. I totally agree, but really, I also think it's a call to action. Thanks for taking the time to chat and giving us an opportunity to help you with that!

Our maternal reflex is to explain away our babies' unusual behaviors that as their mamas we either deny or don't want to see — and our protective Mama Bear response when others bring them to light. After reading your book, many mamas may discover their children exhibit what could be readily termed "autistic tendencies." What would you recommend they do first when they start to see behaviors?

Jenny: One thing I talk about in the book is that "Mommy instinct." If you have a question mark at all, that is your intuition telling you to get online, do some research, start asking questions. You know I remember after [my son] Evan's first seizure — I didn't know it was autism yet — I thought maybe I should look at what side effects are from the seizure, and then, on a website about kids' seizures, I came across the statistic that 30% of the kids on the autism spectrum have seizures. And I thought, "No, that's not right;" I remember pushing that away. But underneath that [on the site], it also listed hand-flapping, spinning in circles as symptoms of autism... and I remember thinking, "Hmm, that kind of sounds like Evan, but no. I'm not going to look at that yet."  Those are little signs that parents can't ignore. You have to get out of that fog of denial, and look and learn.