Crying over French attitude to my autistic son

[Luckyloubytwo]

We are in France at the moment and having a mostly wonderful time. DS 9 has asd but is usually fairly easy going, quiet, and you wouldn't notice he was different to other children.

However, yesterday and today he has had a huge meltdown in public. When this happens in the UK it is difficult but people generally are understanding and mimd their own business. However, here it seems to bring the whole town to a standstill. People will just stop in their tracks and stare. Today we were in a busy area and it seemed to bring everyone to a halt. We all got very upset back at the car and I just can't stop crying.

I am just feeling so upset at the attitude of the French people towards our son.

That poster is sounding pretty off I agree

@LaFemmeNicola @Jourdain11 Backward isn't a word I'd use since my hyper focus tends towards pedantic and specific. But, I am confused why you are not concerned over the numerous reports of failure to adequately support and include autistic people in France. Where is your concern for them? Don't you want France to be better in this regard? Or do you think that disability organisations and the media are just making it all up and there are no issues there?

It is pretty damn annoying though, when one is saying "this is not my lived experience, and also what about the last 5 years of systemic reform?" and all you're getting back is "backward, regressive French people" and "just type France autism into your search bar and see what comes up", like that's the height of sophistication in research methodology.

I think this is what people mean when they say France is "behind" the UK when it comes to treating those with disabilities. I travel regularly to France. I am not disabled but even I can see how inaccessible some of the supposedly accessible facilities are - toilets are often just a slightly larger stall containing a somewhat raised toilet bowl with no seat (French public toilets often have no seat, which makes them uncomfortable enough for the average able-bodied person!).

Accessibility has been a thing in the UK for years now and while I'm sure it's not perfect, disabled facilities certainly appear superior to anything available in France. There are many things in France that work better than in the UK, but this area is not one of them.

Much as I love the country and the vast majority of the people there I have met, I do think how French society in general treats those with disabilities shouldn't just be dismissed as a cultural difference. In wealthy countries in particular, I do judge how they treat those less fortunate than themselves. I believe there is increased awareness now and things are changing but it is about time.

You are confused about something that isn’t true?

That’s what we’d call a “you” problem.

The UK is a wonderful, tolerant open culture, but sadly that means tolerating the most awful, small-minded xénophobes.

I blame the parents myself...

I never said that they are no issues or that there isn't a need for (continued) systemic reform, but the (one) cited article and quotations within in present a very slanted picture.

I also don't think it's fair to equate French state failure to "all French people are cold and rude". There have been some horrifically xenophobic comments about "the French" on this thread. I think you can acknowledge that at the same time as accepting that services for neurodivergent people in France require improvement. All the stuff about disabled people being hidden away from society's gaze is untrue and just silly. Even when I was a child in the 90s and 00s there were children with disabilities in my (mainstream) school classes.

I can understand why @LaFemmeNicola is upset. The comments made about France and French people on this thread are astonishingly ill-informed and plain rude.

theconversation.com/frances-autism-problem-and-its-roots-in-psychoanalysis-94210
autism-advantage.com/autism-in-france.html
www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/08/france-is-50-years-behind-the-state-scandal-of-french-autism-treatment
www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/france-faces-outdated-notions-autism/
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17583123

@Jourdain11 Here are a few links that come up on the 1st page if I search France Autism. I agree there is now an effort to change, which is positive.

It is predominantly a state failure and certainly unfair to say that no individual French people care about those with disabilities but it does reach across a societal level. It takes time for societal views to change. It's like saying that people in the UK are too fat. There are plenty of people that aren't, but as a society we are, statistically, overweight.

Yes it’s not true of everyone, same as trends in U.K. or elsewhere but attitudes and culture differs and people pick up on it

I don’t know how much it’s changing it first needs to be recognised

So you're saying all the articles, and all the posters on here with actual experience are 'lying'?

You sound like you are so deeply in denial you are lying to yourself as well as to us. The problems with the way people with autism and other disabilities are treated in France, is infamous. Well-known. Lying and denying won't change that fact.

^ this.

unfair to say that no individual French people care about those with disabilities
has anyone said this?

All those saying that staring isn't rude, it's part of the culture, what are these benign starers hoping to achieve? Let the parent and child know they are making a spectacle of themselves, that they are being judged and found wanting, to make the parent and child uncomfortable and embarrassed? What exactly is the purpose of the staring if not the above?

I think that in some countries watching other people is more intrusive than in others. OP is presumably aware of that as she doesn’t say it’s her first time outside of the uk. I think she says they were staring at her disabled child in an unfriendly way. I think she probably knows the difference.
Other people have said they don’t find France a particularly comfortable place to be if you have disabled family members.
I don’t think anyone has particularly said anything to imply all French people are awful though some have tried to reframe OPs experience as a cultural difference’to all not disabled focused.

What “attitude”?

they stopped and stared.

probably made you feel on show but not truly attitude. Just a bit of nosiness!

Disabilities aside. It seems to me that the French have different views on parenting ingeneral. From my experience it's perfectly acceptable to give your 'misbehaving' child a slap. I see it all the time over there particularly in restaurants . The first time I travelled with young kids I was agog at how well behaved all the local kids were until I noticed the quick slaps that seemed to be totally acceptable .😳You'd be reported to social services for some of that behaviour in other parts of Europe. In particular I'll never forget a child throwing a tantrum about leaving the beach and the dad physically dragging him up the beach giving out to him../ no one ( apart form me) seemed to bat an eyelid.

I have a friend who was born grew up in France and has several autistic cousins. My son is autistic and she always tells me that she finds Brits very much more accepting towards disability and she hasn't seen the rudeness she's experienced in France over here.

I thought it was illegal to smack kids in France. Is that just ignored then?

I’m really struck by the number of people trying to minimise the OPs experience. It reminds me of people excusing lecherous behaviour in the office as “awe he’s just friendly” or racist comments as “it’s just a joke”.

OP didn’t say she was attacked, she reported feeling judged and unwelcome and asked if others had experienced the same.

Please don’t imagine that mothers with disabled children walk round looking for offence. It’s really the opposite. Huge amounts of energy are spent rephrasing what people say to react to what they meant not what fell out of their mouths and excusing crass behaviour because they didn’t mean to be unkind.

They stopped and stared and then moved on

no one said anything and the op doesn’t even say they had a cats bum face!

bit of nosiness is hardly something to catastrophise

*They stopped and stared and then moved on

no one said anything and the op doesn’t even say they had a cats bum face!

bit of nosiness is hardly something to catastrophise*

oh God alive , stop it.

"it felt like the whole town came to a standstill.... we were all upset. I can't stop crying "

whatever else you think about this thread stop telling OP how she felt or how she should have felt.

She was clearly devastated. And you have NO IDEA if your trite summary of the situation is correct.

@Endlesslypatient82 i think sometimes a bit of nosiness as you put it is water off a ducks back. Sometimes it’s humiliating and upsetting. If you took your elderly mother to a busy shopping area and she lost control of her bowels and threw up all over herself and was crying, and people stopped to have a gawp till you felt like “the whole town came to a standstill.... we were all upset. I can't stop crying” ……

Would it be a fair bet to say you only speak one language, don’t have a very good degree, and have never lived anywhere outside the UK?

🤣🤣🤣 The most MN insult ever!