Before I go any further, being an Autistic Parent isn't the same thing as being a parent of a child with Autism. I've never actually encountered one of the people who are parents of full blown autistic children. I have no issue with them in the slightest. Saying you hate the Autistic Movement will generate a million flame letters from people who claim to be the relatives of someone who's neighbor's best friend has real autism, and boy what a douche you are for saying any different.
No. Let's identify the whole craze.
True Autism is pretty rare all things considered. By 1998 estimates, 10-12 out of every 10000 children will have it. If you've seen Mercury Rising, you have some idea what you're dealing with. They tend towards 'no concept of social interaction at all', they might not even be able to speak without a lot of coaxing (I read of one case where they taught a kid to speak by rewarding him with hamburgers). They might scream randomly, bash their heads into walls until they bleed, or something I am too sane to even think of.
However, they're also quite smart, generally in one hyperspecific area. It might not always be the most useful of them. The stereotype says math. Somebody understood bovine minds really well, I'm sure someone out there has memorized a road map of the entire world. I also met someone who was a complete music savant. He was completely blind, but could master an instrument in one month and could master a song in a single day, then play it on all of those instruments. Was I impressed? Yes. Yes I was. He took requests, I asked for the Flight of the Bumblebee and by God, I got it.
We'll call real autism the Macaroni Penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus).
In the last 20 years, a bunch of people decided 'Hey, I want to relish in both the potential intelligence and crippling troubles associated with real Autism and say "hey. MINE IS TOO".
Of course, they couldn't get all of the Psychiatrists on board without osmething really marketable, so they invented the Autistic Spectrum. In theory, that would comprise of 'All Penguins'. In practice... no. Don't get me wrong, some traits of the Autistic spectrum kids superficially resemble Autism. Most of them are shy, smart, and have a bit of trouble relating to their peers. Where I come from, it was called 'being a nerd'. I grew up being called a nerd.
OK, I admit it, I got the Fashion Disease of the day, ADHD on my forehead, but we discovered later in life that I've got at least one real form of crazy to go with it (Bipolar 2, but that's a different show).
Nowadays, I'm sure I would have been pegged with Aspergers. Why? I was a little bit odd. I didn't understand how to get along with kids my own age. Why would I? I was the lone extrovert in a family of introverts. I have had people who should have known better suggest that I look into it.
Yes, Fuck Them Too.
But... I'm getting ahead of myself and burying my real concerns in a mountain of irrelevance.
The big problem is the parents. My heart goes out to anyone who has a genuinely autistic kid. Now is where we note the difference.
A real parent will kindly tell me to take my pity and shove it up my ass. They have a kid, he or she is costly, stressful, and whatnot but they are still kids underneath it all and you know what? That's good enough.
The 'Autistic Parent' makes their kid wear this shirt:
It is the parent that is a plague on the world. They spend all of their time soaking up the pity and piling labels on their kids... and why? It's because they want everyone to praise them for being such a good parent, but they don't want to have the burden of their kids being good at anything. We're past the crazy parents who forced their kids to look at flashcards until the end of time and up to the crazy parents who read the DSM-IV in their spare time.
Then the dorks caught on and decided 'hey, I have it too! That's why I can't get a date! It has nothing to do at all with my insistence on dating only supermodels, or my creepy obsession with tentacle rape porn or even my arrogance or cardboardlike personality! I have ASSBURGERS.'
Now, it's spread to every seabird in the world.
So yeah. Fuck them. Fuck the parents, fuck the dorks, fuck the shrinks who let it keep going on. Fuck all of them.
What? You want more information of the Autistic Spectrum? What do I look like, Wikipedia?
You have no idea of the actual history of autism. Firstly, high functioning autism was first described right at the start, by Hans Asperger in 1944. But his findings didn't cross the language barrier into English for a long time. And when it did, it wasn't autistic people pushing the idea, it was clinicians - most notably Uta Frith.
ReplyDeleteDo some research before you spout off your opinion.