I've been posting on the boards, and I agree with the me, me, me thing from the parents. I just posted a loooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg post about the issue. Saying the problem isn't the children. The problem is we live in a society that allows parents to act like martyrs. "I didn't realize having a child was a life-long commitment" "I thought my kid would be "perfect" and I could just kick them out of the house at 18 to start a life of their own" "What do you mean I have to possibly take care of this child for the rest of their life, that's so unfair to ME!"
As you can imagine, I already got 1 "You're not a parent, YOU don't understand ANYTHING post" I wonder what I'll get from this one. I would have more respect for someone who says, maybe I'm not fit to be a parent. Than someone who becomes a parent, and then realizes it's too much for them to handle. Either your someone capable of unconditional love or not. The parents who go on these shows, are showing the world that they are incapable of unconditional love. That they do have a condition to wether or not their child deserves love from them. That condition being their child is neurotypical.
These parents shouldn't get anymore pity-party shows dedicated to them. There should be shows about the parents who dedicate themselves to Autistic children. Real parents, who dedicate their life to their child, instead of whining about how having a child is causing suffering to them. Perhaps someone like me on the show, who says, these are parents to be admired. Parents who care about their children and love them for WHO THEY ARE. Not bear a grudge against them, for being BORN as something their parents DIDN'T WANT THEM TO BE.
This is what happens when you baby-coddle these martyr parents. They and their martyr parent friends, get air time to talk about their suffering. So that these shows can get raitings from fellow martyr parents. All while the children are suffering, from having half-assed parents.
the ideal that is going around these days, especially among the wealthy is that kids are like their trophy objects of the parents self worth (i.e. if the child is the smartest on the block, it makes the parents look better). growing up and trying to find self worth as a child is a disease. not filling your day with all types of clubs and such mean that you're not committed. if you're child doesn't impress the world and go to ivy league, then something is wrong with the parents.
so, if the child isn't typical, and needs more or a different type of caring, it is shunned as if their self worth was taken away with the dream of the trophy kid. so many of these parents whine that they didn't get to do what they wanted to do for the kids (give them lessons, etc.).
we've had autistic kids all throughout history, but it's only recently, that autistic (and other special needs children) are looked at as solely burdens in the mainstream. i think that in the 90's, when the ideal of having the trophy kid became popular (and why so many gen y'ers are going to be messed up) and filling up these kids to only work on these talents they have to make parents proud and have less time to themselves than ever, is when special needs kids became a big problem for the parents. thankfully, my parents didn't push my days with endless clubs and such and let me have time for myself (i had club things like once a week though, which is fine). but before the 90's, kids had alot more time to themselves and didn't care as much for their children to become their trophies.
now, it's the rule that we have to follow a checklist of sorts to raise a child and that when we reach 'kick out kids at 18', we're done caring for them. i've heard alot of those types of parents from my peers in college that were not caring for them anymore after they finished college. in many cultures and even dating back a few generations in america (and much of the western world), it was typical for 3-4 generations of families to be living under the same roof, and it would be a village taking care of each other, not just the mother and father taking care of their underage children. it would be typical for the children to live under the parents roof until they died or got married, and even then some of them still live with the parents for family unity. i think the reason this type of parenting is popular (the ones that whine about not having time to themselves) because they have grown accustomed to the checklist/trophy child rearing that society have brewed.
and i think that's also why autism speaks and the such messages got more popular in the past few years. i think in 1977, autism speaks messages would have been thrown out by the public immediately instead of embraced as a savior by so many parents that want to kill off kids that they can't take care of by a checklist or see as a trophy.
great post, violent_yoshi, and i didn't mean to write this long of a post.
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