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GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — When doctors told Antonio and Tonya Tolson their 2-year-old son had autism, they didn’t get much help.
“They handed us a pamphlet and said, ‘Your son has autism. Have a good day,'” Antonio said.
Tonya was devastated. Antonio got to work.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he started scribbling ideas — notes, doodles, late-night thoughts — that eventually became AJ and the Cool Kids, a Gaston County nonprofit building community for families who feel isolated after an autism diagnosis.
But there was something Antonio wasn’t saying out loud.
“I kept a lot of my feelings to myself to make sure my wife was good,” he said.
Raised in the “boys don’t cry” era, Antonio struggled to process his own emotions. His son AJ changed that.
“My son taught me patience,” Antonio said. “He taught me understanding. He taught me how to love differently.”
That journey is now captured in his book, “A Father’s Voice: Raising a Son with Autism,” part memoir, part roadmap for dads who feel like they have nowhere to turn.
“Women have support groups. Men usually don’t,” Antonio said. “But expressing yourself doesn’t make you weak. It makes you present.”