To think you don't say this to someone?

[Hcisab]

Fully prepared to be told I am but here goes..

For context, my brother has autism and it's been very hard with him. I often feel protective because he has had such a hard life with bullying amongst other things.

So my Sil was over today visiting as I have an 12 weeks old DS. There was a loud noise and DS startled and started crying (for about 10 seconds) so I comforted him and he was fine. I then started telling Sil that he's just started to become overwhelmed by things and loud noises, lots of people ect can sometimes upset him if hes tired. She then says 'Oh god, hopefully he's not autistic' I couldn't really believe it and came back with something like 'wow, what a thing to say' and unintentionally gave a horrified look.

She is a very blunt person so I usually look past things she says as it's easier but because of my brother I couldn't quite brush this one off. I do realise this probably makes me more sensitive in this situation but I was shocked she said it.

Fwiw I'm obviously not worried about him having autism and it's probably too early to tell anyway.

So aibu in being shocked she said that to me?

SIL's a tactless downer type. There's one in every family.

Ignore and enjoy lovely DS.

My ds1 is autistic. I said to many people that I hoped ds2 wasn’t autistic. Having autism makes their life an awful lot more difficult to navigate in all sorts of ways. I don’t think it’s outrageous to want your child to have an easy life as possible. Badly worded perhaps, but I don’t think your sil was being disablist as such

I agree with this. My DD is autistic. It’s awful. She’s healthy and intelligent, but not able to live a normal life. Seems normal and reasonable to me to hope a baby (or anyone) wouldn’t have a difficult life like this.

Doesn’t sound that bad to me. Does she know your brother is autistic?

You didn’t overreact, I think you reacted well. You didn’t fly off the handle but you did make it clear it was an inappropriate thing to say.

When DD was born, my MIL speculated on whether she might be dyslexic or perhaps bipolar, as both run in her family. A bloody stupid thing to say to a new mum, I wish I’d made it clear at that moment that I wouldn’t be entertaining her projections and musings about DD, it would have saved me a lot of time.

I think a problem with increasing awareness of autism and its manifestations can be that people "know more" about it without any actual understanding. So many of the things that may be early signs of autism are also entirely normal parts of child development - what makes them signs of autism is when they appear early/late or persist strongly or happen otherwise than in the context of normal development.

A tough one to deal with. Hope your SIL can learn to be more tactful eventually...

I don’t think it’s disablest or horrible. However it was insensitive. I’d either have a word or let it go. She obviously realised it was insensitive.

Disablest isn’t just saying anything negative about disability, as like many differences it has both sides, and is very individual. To me being disablest are when assumptions are made that hold people back, or dehumanize. Well to me anyway.

Late reply- Thanks for all the comments. My DH got home, I told him what happened and he has told her she upset me-I didn't ask him to. I don't think she was being disablest, she just didn't think before speaking. In case I didn't make myself clear, I of course don't wish my son to have autism, nor does anyone, but I still think it isn't something you say to someone in the way she did. I will put this one down to speaking before thinking on a subject close to home for me.