I never said that she has to live up to any bar; I said that a person with a disability can still have a good life, different or not.

Which is quite different from “It was just a huge shock, and I had to adjust my approach with him, and it’s difficult learning all this, but he’s still my wonderful son and he’ll still have an awesome life.”

You can defend the latter. I don’t see how you can defend the former, especially by conflating it with the latter. The two are decidedly not the same.

Come on girls, we need to be nicer to each other. It so unseeming that we fight. Why, you never know, that fighting might just drive Teh Menz away. They might turn to the MRA’s, who aren’t cannibals!

Neither to fail to identify ablism at first blush with full-throat, Cotton Mather-esque self-righteousness nor to take a human, sympathetic approach to the real emotional losses endured by parents or others in the face major medical realities is evidence of bad character. To waste precious time trying to climb upon some anthill of self-righteousness in condemning another’s failure to See The Truth Perfectly At First Glance Like I Do is to engage in batshit insanity. Frankly, it’s this sort of arrogant posturing that gives the right-wing its dysfunctional emotional fuel: both when they engage in it and when they sniff fumes off of watching liberals and progressives doing so.

You know, the Men’s Rights Advocates crowd may be idiots, but they are at least not cannibals. Maybe I will go read them for a while until Spring Fever passes here and some of you stop stabbing each other. Until then, good riddance.

Critic of the Dawn

And as for your condescending “It also couldn’t hurt to find out what autistic people say about this kind of language.” Do tell, what makes you think I haven’t? And what makes you think that they all feel the same way?

It wasn’t condescending, it was a suggestion. You don’t come across as if you’re aware of the actual history, or that you are aware what kind of reactions the language in the article receives.

I also didn’t even try to imply that all autistic people feel the same way about this stuff, but at least one autistic person (Nate) has already spoken up, and wasn’t acknowledged at all. Amanda Baggs has described exactly what’s wrong with the imagery used. Others have as well. Certainly, they only speak for themselves and not all autistic people, and all autistic people may not feel the same way, but they make good points and if you want to talk about how parents react to disability in their children, you really should read this stuff.

Q Grrl,

It’s also dehumanizing to deny a parent their own reaction to a situation. Unless you’re using a different definition of dehumanizing.

Children with disabilities suffer more from these reactions than the parents ever will. Am I saying that parents shouldn’t react at all if a child develops a disability? No, I’m not. But at some point, it really should be necessary to deal with who the child is rather than mourning who the child is not – because who the child is still a human being with thoughts and dreams who does not deserve to be sidelined as the ghost of a dead child that could have been.

The wording in the article reinforces that, even if the Melanie Roach herself does not wish to, and doesn’t see her son that way, the article trots out the same old stereotype – a stereotype that is often used to defend parents who murder their own children with disabilities.

Don’t you think our parents are disappointed? No wedding, no walking the bride down the aisle, no grandkids for the foreseeable future, if ever.

I’m sure they are disappointed, though they have never said so. I’m sure my mom in particular was disappointed when she realized I would never marry and dad no doubt had a few thoughts about who would carry on the family name when my brothers talk about not having kids.

I’m sure they have also had a few thoughts about where they went ‘wrong’ in raising us.

Parents are human and they have every right to be a bit sad or disappointed. We all make up dreams and hopes and ideal futures, for ourselves, our friends and our children.

The key, and thank dog my folks are aces on this one, is ACCEPTING the child for who and what they are and not letting any disappointed mar the fact that you love your child and want only what is best for them.

I have no doubt the woman in the article loves her son and will do whatever it takes to help him fulfill his *own* hopes and dreams, but it’s no sin that she is disappointed or discouraged.