As a Father to Two Special-Needs Children—Weighing In on Greta

“What is particularly insidious here is that not only is the victim a child, but, on top of that, it is a special needs child.”

Years ago—when I was still in high school in my home country of Iran—we had a bizarre fellow in our neighborhood. He did not have much in the way of family support and had to work nearly all the time—and always in low-paying jobs that did not require much in the way of skill. He could not communicate very well, but he was calm and friendly.

His name was Shahram, and when we played soccer in the street, he would watch us and would help us by bringing the ball back whenever it was accidentally kicked far down the street. He couldn’t play with us because following the rules of the game proved too difficult for him, but he was happy to help us and sit with us afterwards when the game was done. And, as I said, he was able to work. In our neighborhood, there were a few shops, and Shahram would work whenever they had a job for him: unloading the milk early in the morning for the grocery store, carrying away used boxes from the bakery, and even working a couple of hours per week at the barbershop sweeping hair from the floor.

But then his life took something of a dark turn: someone taught him what a blow job was, and Shahram was someone open to making money any chance he got. I learned about this one day when sitting and chatting with our neighborhood friends: “Shahram gives blow jobs now,” they said. I could not fathom how he had come to be doing this, and the next time he came to our game, I tried to have a conversation with him about it. But communicating verbally—about any subject that is a tad complicated or includes a gray area—was difficult for him, and it was clear that he was having a hard time understanding the issues I was trying to convey to him.