Inspiring Mom: Rae Santos

Inspiring Mom: Rae Santos
Mom’s Radio moms take their hats off to our own Super Mom


Here in Mom’s Radio, we are blessed with the opportunity to meet a lot of real women who inspire us. There are many of them and in our hopes to make us into one true community of moms, we’ll try to introduce you to several of these members of our growing community of mothers on-air.


Mommy Rachelle “Rae” Santos is called Rae by friends and Achie by family. “I married early, while I was still in college”, she says and became a mother to Anea, her only daughter who is now 8. Her son Arolf, who has autism, was born about 3 years after. Her youngest, Anton is now 2.

Arolf was diagnosed with autism June 2000 by Dra. Alexis Reyes of Makati Medical Center.

“Before that, we noticed delays in his development, first and foremost with his speech. He was not
talking. We were concerned about it and asked a pediatrician about it.” Her pediatrician, in helping her assuage her fears, recommended that they seek the advice of a developmental psychologist. “She suspected something was wrong with him”, Rae relates.

She confessed that at first, even with her own fears tucked away, she resented what this doctor said. “I thought, who the heck is this doctor? Why in the world will there be something wrong with my son?”

Wanting to get a heads-up on her own growing fears and anxieties, Rae did her own studying on her son’s case. “I researched the Internet, made a search on everything on Autism, picked a site, and went on reading. I read almost every topic on that website”, she recalls. She looks back and relate how that proved draining. “It made me feel like a zombie”, Rae continued. Not long after her research, she called her husband. “Upon hearing his voice, I cracked up. I told him, our son has autism.”

“How did you know? Calm down. Where did you read it from?” he prodded. He would not hear of it. To him, it was just not possible. He cajoled Rae to stop crying, saying that they were not sure of all these things she was filling her own head with.

“But I just passed him the information from what I have read, the symptoms, possible causes and whatnot.” She remembers how to her, her own words sounded like “barely recognizable phrases because I could not control myself.”

Rae goes on, “I never cried as hysterically as then. I thought everything I have achieved in life, even if it was only bearing three wonderful children have been trashed.”

She went through bouts of self-reprimands, looked for a reason, if only to explain what was happening to her child. “I kept on asking myself, why my son? Have I done something gravely wrong? Have I not prayed everyday of my life?”

Arolf has autism. And so, when he was officially diagnosed, I was ready for it.

Everyday since then, Rae silently hoped that she was wrong. Later, she told a cousin, till they got a hold of a SPED teacher. The teacher then recommended Rae to Dra. Alexis Reyes of Makati Medical Center. Rae and her family had to wait a while till their schedule for her son’s assessment and diagnosis.


“He’s Just Not Disciplined”

At the least, it was awkward for people to hear what Rae shared. Without a doubt, many didn’t know what else to say to her. Perhaps, in another exercise of wishful thinking, denial was how they coped. “A lot of people since then went on telling us that they didn't think that my son had autism. They think that maybe he's just not disciplined”, Rae shares.

She kept getting assurances that there were normal kids who are just delayed in development like speech.

In hindsight, Rae knew this wasn’t so “It wasn't just his not talking. It's his eye contact, it's his strange behavior.” There were many things that just didn’t add up right. “His inability to point and recognize danger. His inability to listen and look at me when I call his name. It was everything”, Rae notes.

Whatever consolations others pointed out, could not make Rae feel any better, “because deep inside me, I had accepted the fact that he really has autism. The signs were all there. I don't know if that would make me a bad mother, but it helped me now.”


Are You Sure My Son Has Autism?

On the dreaded of his test, Arolf was assessed him for nearly an hour. He was allowed to played, the doctor played with him. Later, the doctor attempted to get him to sit still.

“We were having difficulties then because Arolf saw that the doctor has a packet of Pringles, and he kept on getting it. He started to cry then and would not stop crying.”

Curiously, when the doctor asked Arolf to do something like play with a puzzle, he completed the puzzle even while he cried. He stacked thirteen blocks on top of another, making sure the blocks were all aligned before he placed another one. “Later on the doctor told us that it was a good sign, most kids she assessed could only stack 4 blocks”, Rae says.

After the assessment the doctor asked Rae to sit down with her husband and she explained things to them. Even then Rae shares, “I found myself asking her --- So, what are you saying? Is it positive that my son has autism?"

And her reply was the most hurtful 3-word sentence I have ever heard: "Yes, he is."

I did not cry. I did not shed a single tear. I just listened to what she was saying. Rae just recalls the doctor giving them information on how to deal with Autism and referred them to people who could help their son.

“When it was over, my husband who rarely carried my son, scooped him up and hugged him and carried him until we got to the lobby. He kissed him and hugged him all that time. He got the car from the parking lot while we waited for him in the lobby. It was raining a bit, but my husband was taking quite a long time getting the car. When he finally came by, when we got in the car, my husband was crying. He cried while he was driving. I did not.”

When Rae told her mother that night, she recalls seeing tears building up her mother’s eyes. “Mine did not”, Rae said.

When she later wrote her family and friends about this, Rae wrote, “You could ask me why I did not cry, and my answer will always be this ---- I really believe that everything that happens to our lives has this certain purpose or reason. The problem is, what is it? And how do we take it to our advantage?”

In her words Rae explains, “I only know then and now that I love my son. I love him so deeply, that I would give him everything, and sacrifice everything just to give him a normal life even if it was just at a certain point.”

Rae shared other things she wrote her loved ones then, “….I believe that if my husband cries, my mom cries, the whole family, and everyone else cries, then what would these tears do for my son? Will he get better? Will these tears be some sort of a miracle for my son? I did not think so. What I thought was, I have to be strong for my son. I have to keep strong faith that HE WILL get better.”

Rae was a towerblock because she felt her son needed it. “I was done with crying. And it did not do me or my son any good.”

Rae then took a proactive stance and researched more and more for treatments and interventions. She admits she must have read almost every book she could find with the word "Autism" on the index.

Her bid to empower herself continued. “I studied Special Education at the University of the Philippines primarily because of him, but soon after, I became an advocate for these special people.”

When Arolf entered special school, I became aware that autism is not the only disorder, and there are more pitiful disorders than my child’s case. I thanked the Lord that what he gave Arolf is something that we can handle.”

And handle it they did.

OK and Above Average

Arolf is now in Special Education (SPED) school, he counts to a hundred, he knows the alphabet, he can read and write, he knows the colors, shapes, and speaks a little Spanish as well. He turned 5 last December.

Intellectually, he is above average than most normal kids his age. However, Rae says Arolf’s main problem now is a little about behavior, and his health. He is sickly, and frail. He is very picky with food. But then again, how many of us have to deal with our picky eater many times in our mothering lives anyway?

For this inspiring mom, Arolf’s autism made her explore a new calling. “I decided to make teaching as my vocation and profession. She is bent on earning her education units, this time around, to be eligible for the Licensure Examinations for Teachers.

She joins the other moms, pediatricians, experts on early childhood education and other God-sends in our dreams to create a true community of mothers in Mom’s Radio. “I am an advocate, and if by doing this I would be able to help these kids and their parents, I would be very happy.”

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