Jul 29, 2026 · 25 min · 17 segments
Why are so many autistic women missed in childhood? And what happens when a parent's journey to understand their child leads to a life-changing discovery about themselves? In this episode of The…
Julie GreenGuestTanya JohnsonHostI'm Tanya Johnson, registered psychologist, registered play therapist, co-founder of the Institute of Child Psychology, and most importantly, a mom to two beautiful girls.
Today, as our guest, we're joined by Julie Green, author of Motherness: A Memoir of Generational Autism, Parenthood, and Radical Acceptance.
Julie shares this really remarkable journey of motherhood, identity, self-discovery.
She offers this deeply personal perspective on autism, parenting, and what it really means to finally understand yourself in a new way.
Julie, one of the things that has struck me most about your story is that it wasn't your understanding of your son...
As you learned more about autism through his experience, many pieces of your own life started to come together.
He was diagnosed at 3, and it took about another 10 years for me to start to piece together [laughs] the possibility that I might also be autistic.
I think largely because I had a son, I mean, maybe if I had a girl, and maybe if more was known about how autism sometimes presents a bit differently in girls, maybe it would not have taken me 10 years.
Because for the most part, he presented in quite a typical way, or, or what we sort of knew about autism at the time, you know.
So he, like, was very into, like, Thomas the Train, and was, like, lining things up, and some echolalia, like, where he would, repeating things, and just quite, quite different in a lot of ways to what I was like as a girl.
I say in the book that it's kind of like a Venn diagram how our autisms overlap, because in many ways they're very different.
He was prone to these big meltdowns, whereas I would have these shutdowns as a girl.
And I was just basically thought of as being incredibly shy, incredibly sensitive, which is the case for a lot of, uh- Girls who are autistic.
And also being an only child, you know, when I struggled with any transitions or change in plans, it was, "Oh, well, you know, she's used to getting her way." [laughs] So there were a lot of other reasons for it, but every now and then, especially in terms of sensory issues, I remember being very, very particular about the clothes I wore and some of the foods I ate, I was considered picky.
I'm Tanya Johnson, registered psychologist, registered play therapist, co-founder of the Institute of Child Psychology, and most importantly, a mom to two beautiful girls.
Today, as our guest, we're joined by Julie Green, author of Motherness: A Memoir of Generational Autism, Parenthood, and Radical Acceptance.
Julie shares this really remarkable journey of motherhood, identity, self-discovery.
She offers this deeply personal perspective on autism, parenting, and what it really means to finally understand yourself in a new way.
Julie, one of the things that has struck me most about your story is that it wasn't your understanding of your son...
As you learned more about autism through his experience, many pieces of your own life started to come together.
He was diagnosed at 3, and it took about another 10 years for me to start to piece together [laughs] the possibility that I might also be autistic.
I think largely because I had a son, I mean, maybe if I had a girl, and maybe if more was known about how autism sometimes presents a bit differently in girls, maybe it would not have taken me 10 years.
Because for the most part, he presented in quite a typical way, or, or what we sort of knew about autism at the time, you know.
So he, like, was very into, like, Thomas the Train, and was, like, lining things up, and some echolalia, like, where he would, repeating things, and just quite, quite different in a lot of ways to what I was like as a girl.
I say in the book that it's kind of like a Venn diagram how our autisms overlap, because in many ways they're very different.
He was prone to these big meltdowns, whereas I would have these shutdowns as a girl.
And I was just basically thought of as being incredibly shy, incredibly sensitive, which is the case for a lot of, uh- Girls who are autistic.
And also being an only child, you know, when I struggled with any transitions or change in plans, it was, "Oh, well, you know, she's used to getting her way." [laughs] So there were a lot of other reasons for it, but every now and then, especially in terms of sensory issues, I remember being very, very particular about the clothes I wore and some of the foods I ate, I was considered picky.
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3 of 5
Exhaustion Behind Everyday Masking
She explains the hidden cost of pretending
Family Diagnoses Domino Effect
Diagnosis surprises redefine what family means today
Correct Label vs 'I'm Bad'
When labels hurt, she found new language
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