To think this is largely true in my experience, mothers experience of raising a ND child

[GiganticArkReadywithHottub]

I have a brilliant ND child, who has both autistic and ADHD traits although not formally diagnosed yet. School recommend both assessments. I am also a single parent.
I'm have been researching the topic of mental health of mothers with neurodiverse children. One thing really stuck out for me from reading all these studies, which I guess I knew but didn't think it has been researched enough, which is that
1.) mums largely do take on the majority of duties relating to raising a neurodiverse child, meaning their career will often stall or even cease. The allocation of time for looking after their own well-being is often limited or non existent. This appears to be way more profound compared to parents of NT children.
2.) relationships massively suffer, marriages much more likely to split up.
3.) there is a much higher likelihood of parents of autistic children, in comparison to other families with two parents, having a much more 'traditional' set up with men being the breadwinners and women doing the majority of the parenting and domestic work. This of course could lead to power imbalance and vulnerability to financial abuse or hardship.

I know a lot of this is true for most mothers but it seems particularly pronounced for mothers of neurodiverse children. I was thinking about it and I do think the part about family structures fit with people I know who have autistic children' most are either two parents with the man as main breadwinner, mum usually unable to work due to partial or limited school attendance or not having access to appropriate wrap around care or holiday clubs, or single mums unable to work or being limited by the hours or type of work they can do.

This is obviously very 'no shit, Sherlock' but what is anyone actually doing about it? We can see the impact on women and the their wellbeing, so why is there not mite help in place. Many women are being forced to drop out of the workplace. They are statistically lower in mood than other parents? Why does no one care?

I'm aware as I also don't get carers due to working part time. You can't call facts ignorance though.
Comparatively being a single mum working part time around 20 hours and being out of work as a single mum with a child on mid rate care and lower rate mobility will equal around the same income.
Obviously it's not easy for anyone with a single income or no free childcare, but it does make it financially fair.

That does make sense. For someone who has a career they love which is hard to get back into it has to be very depressing. I can't really see any way someone could give a child with significant additional needs the attention they need (not even the ideal amount but just the bare minimum they need) whilst working a lot of hours.

Though I'm not sure what the solution there is really, I think financially it is covered with DLA as much as it can be. But the problem isn't really financial, it's more so the lack of freedom, and the problem there is that alternate care often just doesn't work with ASD or significant LD, especially if they are in school and struggling whilst there they need their primary care giver a lot more than other children, and that tends to be the mum just due to biological traits.

Yes I am sure you are right. It’s hard work, and can be much more thankless than raising a child who is NT.

So naturally men - or many men - try to bow out of that, because if there’s one thing we know, men will try their best to get out of hard, thankless and trapping work.

It's not that simple. Lots of parents can't just go part time or find wrap around care. What manager is going to allow their staff to leave at a moments notice multiple times a week because their child is having a meltdown.
Absolutely nothing is simple. My DS had to have a general anaesthetic yesterday to have stitches in his head and is still in hospital being sick from the anaesthetic.
If he didn't have additional needs he could have had a local anaesthetic and been home in a few hours.
It is lonely. And parents who don't have these issues think it's easy to find a solution. It's not.
I'm giving up work soon. No other choice and not sure if I'll be able to ever go back because DS will never be able to live independently.

I think someone upthread mentioned guilt- and other parents guilting you, and that's definitely something I've experienced as a working mother of a SEN child. It's reminded me of the 'Oh, you're going back to work already? Full time?' I got a lot of when on maternity leave. Someone did it a couple of weeks ago, like I wasn't doing SEN properly because they'd given up work and I hadn't. I know they absolutely wouldn't have said that to DP. Feminist issue.

What they didn't know, though, is DP works PT and has just done a 2 year stint as a SAHD so I could lean into a career opportunity while he did all the day to day heavy lifting (I still get paperwork but tbh that probably plays to our strengths). It's the assumption it should be me that pisses me off.

We're really lucky we've both been able to work so far, I acknowledge.

I'd just assume your SEN child had different needs than mine that allowed you to continue working, or you were able to get them taken care of a different way. No big deal.

"But no one gives a shit, it is what it is and in my experience there is no support. People love to tell me that I need a break, they don't know how I do it etc. No fucking choice love.*
They sure do love to say have a break, don't always put yourself last, like there's actually some choice or some energy left over from everything that has to be done.

I have 3 Autistic kids. Like many of my friends my experience is that their Dad never fully got on board, didn't want them diagnosed, doesn't accept their disability, expects them to just behave in public. There's absolutely no way to make him be involved, he's abusive and bad for the kids. I have 6 friends with Autistic children, 4 plus me are divorced/seperated, 2 are still together and 1 of those marriages is really struggling. Its the same thing, the men won't accept their children's needs, let alone meet them. The choice for the Mum's is do it themselves or let the kids fall through the cracks. At one stage my DC had collectively 8 hour long therapy appointments a week, regularly miss school, regularly need picking up early. Ive dealt with a child that became suicidal because of her disability and her father's behaviour and XH wasn't even interested in the fact she was suicidal. There is rarely choice involved in the fact that the majority of the time its women that step up.

Have only made it through the first page, but YANBU at all. When our ASD DS was diagnosed, the NHS paediatrician's second sentence, after the diagnosis, was: "Try to stay married."

I was a bit shocked, but she was a very nice woman and went on to tell me that the vast majority of parents she sees end up divorced after a diagnosis like this: as far as she could see, the fathers simply don't stick around. She also told me that according to NHS statistics she'd seen, something like 80% of mothers of ASD children end up with clinical-level depression at some point.

My DH stuck around, but has had little to do with actual issues, and TBH I'm seriously thinking of dumping him, except that I can see it could be even harder for me without him, because though he does little with DC, at least he's earning money for us and dealing with (non-child-related) bureaucracy like car MOTs and stuff. I despise myself for this cowardice but I am truly on the edge of my last nerve without the hassle of launching a divorce too.

DLA is not extra income for the general pot. It’s money for the disabled child. Honestly the number of people who just think it’s extra money for the hell of it is embarrassing!

My child is on middle rate, it all goes on therapies which he has to attempt to level the playing field.

Carers is a pittance that traps you in low wage low hour work. There’s no phasing, so even an extra £10 a month means you lose over £300, and to make that amount up in a month would mean working over 20 hours more (assuming MW) which can be nigh on impossible with a disabled child.

This, it's money you need for the child. Equipment, therapy, extra support not an 'income' for parents. No wonder some posters think parents of disabled children are better off with all this 'free money' if even those in receipt pedal this myth.

That’s so sad.
My dh opted out of any of the hard stuff. We split up a few years ago - it was easier to handle it myself than to have expectations on my dc’s other parent.