When I was a child, a weekend loomed like a vast expanse of free time. As a single working mom, the weekend looms as a vast expanse of chores and to-do lists. So when I was asked to be a part of a parent panel teaching would be teen volunteers about life with an autistic child, I wasn’t sure I wanted to add that to my list. In the end, I did. I gave up four hours of free time when Darling Son would have been part of J-Serve, the annual community service day for Jewish teens. I could have napped, shopped for groceries without a tag-along teen asking me for gum or chips or soda. I could have read the paper in peace, had coffee with friends, gone on a date. But I didn’t. I appeared at the Mercer Island Community Center to spend an hour and a half with about 40 teens who were interested in becoming volunteers with the Friendship Circle of Washington, an organization that provides one-on-one mentors for special needs kids and group socializing activities. One of those teens was my autistic son, who has benefited from the organization personally and is now moving into a volunteer role himself.

I’m not one who beats around the bush. I’m direct and forthright. And I told these kids exactly what it was like to have a baby and discover that something wasn’t right. I explained the financial realities of an insurance system that didn’t view autism as a medical problem, but a psychological one and didn’t provide adequate coverage for therapy that could make my son a productive and tax paying member of society. I talked about having a child who didn’t speak until he was four and how I have watched him blossom into a son I wish didn’t talk so much or ask so many questions, often late at night. The boy who viewed other kids as furniture — things you walk around or climb over — is now a very social young man. He may have his social quirks and has to learn norms of teenage relationships by rote, rather than naturally as neurotypical kids do, but he is mostly normal. On a good day, you can’t tell him from another surly teenager.

Then I opened it up to questions. Some of the kids were extremely curious and asked very astute questions. I expected a question from everyone, though, and barring one girl who turned red and was obviously painfully shy, everyone obliged. They asked me how I knew my son was autistic, how strangers treated him, what his weaknesses were. One young man, also somewhere on the autism spectrum, asked what strengths my son had because of his autism. He knew what most people don’t: that many kids on the spectrum have unique skills — prodigious memories, mad math skills, perfect pitch — that their normal peers don’t. It’s not all bad.

The whole time, my son sat next to me. Sometimes I deferred the questions to him, sometimes they directed them to my son themselves. They treated my son with a great deal of respect, often saying they had no idea he was on the spectrum. There’s no bigger compliment you can give a teen with special needs than to tell him that they think he is just like everyone else.

I know a lot of people worry about the future of this country, this world. But I saw a group of teenagers who were extremely engaged, polite, funny, exuberant in the best way. And they were all there, giving up their free time on a Sunday, too. They could have been playing soccer, seeing a movie, working on a school project. But these few dozen kids — along with several dozen others who chose to do other community service projects in the Seattle area on the last Sunday in April — decided to give their time to an organization which would require they give up their time multiple Sundays a month, as well as the occasional weekday afternoon. Some have special needs siblings or cousins. Some have career goals that would benefit from this kind of volunteer experience. But not a single one of these teenagers looked at this event or the prospect of volunteering with special needs kids into the future as a chore to be got through. They were, to a one, interested in being part of something bigger than themselves. And isn’t that the antithesis of what we think teenagers are?

So it’s okay. These kids will be running the world one day. And that’s just fine with me.