Disturbing Disability Comment in The TImes Yesterday

[Davros]

Did anyone see an article yesterday in the Times called 'I Never Thought I'd Adopt'
www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2966-877950,00.html

It contains a deeply disturbing and upsetting passage relating to autism. The arcitle is about a woman and the process of adopting a baby. At one point her Social Worker recommended she get more experience of childcare. She did some work in a nursery and said:

"This proved to be an invaluable experience. Not only did it teach me numerous ingenious means of keeping tiny minds and hands occupied, but I
discovered that of all the 35 or so children attending, only one seemed difficult to love - and he had some form of autism. "

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Oh Davros, I did see this, it was just awful. I didn't post anything about it because I was praying no-one on here with a child with autism would have seen it. Unbelievably insensitive and crass.

Thanks Tamum, I think that's kind of you as we all know how this sort of thing feels. Funnily enough I didn't see it as I don't buy rubbish like The Times (stick to HEAT) but I caught it on the internet, where else

All i can say about THAT woman is thank goodness she didn't naturally give birth to an Autistic child....never thought i'd say I was glad that someone is childless. She's probably the same woman who reckons us parents of Autistic Children just want the lable to 'cover up our bad parenting skills' AGGGGGHHHH !!! As if we don't have enough to deal with!

I thought the point about love, esp re children ,is that you love them unconditionally whether or not you can feel love being returned iyswim.

I read the article and she also was offered a baby but the mum had mental illness and she was informed that the baby 'could have problems'. Refused the child and then when it was born it was 'normal' so the social workers offered it her again and she accepted it, like it was a car that had been checked out and approved.

I was also v annoyed with the comment on the autistic child too, how insensitive?

Presumably if she later discovers that the child has problems, she will demand an exchange or a refund. Grrrrrrr....

Jesus god- stupid cow. I hope she never goes anywhere near another autistic child.

My friend adopted two children- her first has HFA- she fought and fought for a diagnosis (was told is was due to her traumatic first couple of years). She certainly has no problem loving her autistic dd.

It would be interesting to speak to her again in a few years time and see what she thinks about her 'former self' iyswim. perhaps it's overoptimistic to expect that she will have discovered that love for children is unconditional and not quite like supermarket shopping.
as well as the attitude itself, it amazes me that editors let these kind of comments through into articles.

Comments like that cut like a knife don't they. What a ridiculous thing to have said - she's the one with a tiny mind. I'm emailing the Times now.

To Whom it may concern at the Times

An article was pointed out to me from the Times, dated 4 November and headed 'I Never Thought I'd Adopt'.

I would like to point out how insensitive, ridiculous, cruel and unfounded the woman's comment was with regard to the child with autism...... "but I discovered that of all the 35 or so children attending, only one seemed difficult to love - and he had some form of autism. " . Sorry - is there something I haven't yet discovered about autism? What makes them difficult to love exactly? Although my child isn't autistic she does have Down's syndrome and I am therefore sensitive to throwaway comments such as this. I am also in touch with an awful lot of mothers with children with special needs and many of them have autistic children and I think you should know her words cut like a knife. Perhaps you could print this letter in the hope that she reads it and thinks a little more before she dismisses children who happen to be born with autism as unlovable.

Yours faithfully

Ummm, I think maybe we should cut her some slack. She was being honest about her feelings re the autistic child - would you have wanted her to lie? It seems to be a genuine observation, she was working daily with these children and presumably got to know them quite well. For all we know, there could have been children with all sorts of conditons there, that she did bond with. In any case, how many of us knew about the unconditional love a parent has for their child before we actually had them? Not many, I'd hazard a guess.

Re problems arising later in childhood, she clearly says "But then it occurred to me that all babies are unknown quantities, and that the good parent simply tackles problems as and when they arise."

As for the baby with the mentally ill mother, surely this woman wasn't doing anything different to somone who has had bad news from a scan or amnio - weighing up the risks? Or maybe someone who has had repeated unsuccessful IVF treatments (which she had been through) and just can't go on. She says "Suddenly I couldn?t take any more ? of the incessant bombardment of possibilities; the weighing up of risks."

I think she'll be a fantastic mum, she's had to put a great deal more thought into parenthood than many of people have to and I think she cares enormously about her child.

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Suedonim - no-one here said she would be a bad mother - but when you are a mother of a child who is autistic comments like that are going to hurt and piss you off. When you are the mother of a child with special needs you are continually battling against thowaway comments like that. It was her insensitive comment about him being unlovable that has upset people.

To be honest she didn't say he was unlovable - she said that she found him difficult to love. And since he wasn't her child and had no real connection with her then why does that make her an awful person? At the risk of sharing too much and having you all hate me, my son has Asperger and ADHD and I have really struggled to love him. I do now, but for a long time it was just words and stress (before Ritalin he was VERY oppositional) - I had to keep reminding myself that I was supposed to love him. It can be hard.

TC, I see where you're coming from but I think basically, what I am trying to say is that in our haste to decry her judgmentalism (is that a word?) we in turn are being too judgemental of her and showing a lack of understanding of her position as someone who at that time wasn't a parent. Discrimination of all sorts will only be broken down when each side can look at the other and acknowledge the fears and concerns (even if they are irrational) and address them properly.

People here have implied she shouldn't be allowed to be a mother, so I do think people are saying she would be a bad mother. I think that is very judgemental itself and does nothing to engender understanding.

Oakmaiden, that's what I was trying unsuccessfully trying to say. Thank you, you're much more eloquent than me.

If the author had written that she liked all the children except one who was "disruptive and unfriendly", this thread wouldn't exist. But as soon as child has a mitigating "condition", the author gets criticised for expressing her honest reaction that she found it difficult to like that child. Presumably a medical diagnosis means that people aren't allowed to say their honest reaction to children with difficult behaviour?

My children aren't even Special Needs, and I certainly don't expect everyone to love or even like them.

OK - well I wasn't saying she was likely to be a bad mother and hadn't read others posts clearly enough. At the end of the day though I did jump on my soap box to defend mothers of children with special needs. When I read comments like that I see red immediatley and I am the sort of person who acts then thinks. I personally am so used to people saying upsetting things about children with SN that it's a knee jerk reaction to get angry. All I read was that he seemed difficult to love and that was probably because he was autistic - I know they aren't her exact words but that's exactly how I read it and that was what I took offence to.

Davros - JimJams - anyone - where are you - I'm all on my own here and I don't like it!

I felt like Thomcat. Maybe it was the way it was written but I felt angry too. What would the reaction be if she'd said "I couldn't love him but then he WAS in a wheelchair!" ? Sorry but we have enough prejudice already.

Hi ThomCat, I agree with you. Going on Davros' quote, it seems like the woman is equating autism with being difficult to love. I was trying to think why I think it's so wrong, even if it's just her opinion, and have come up with that an autistic child is not a list of behaviours, challenges to be overcome and a situation to deal with. He's a child who deserves love and respect, just like all others. The phrase "-and he had some form of autism" reads to me like that makes him less of a child and therefore her lack of love more understandable.

NMRN, I do think there would be a thread if she had said a disruptive child instead -- we'd all be snorting in derision and wondering if she understood the realities of parenting.

(I've got to unload groceries and have a full day today and am leaving tomorrow for the weekend, so if I don't respond, I'm not ducking comments! )

Oh thank God for that - thank you girls!

When I read the piece, I did find that it came across as a taken-for-granted connection between her observation that he 'seemed difficult to love' (she doesn't actually emphasise that that was a purely personl opinion, btw) and the fact that he 'had some kind of autism', and I do find that unhelpful and a little unrigorous in thought for something in a major newspaper. I expect we all find some children more or less lovable, from our own perspective, some of these may well have SN, some may not, but the way that sentence is written it does sound as if the 'unlovability' is explained away as a natural, unquestioned and unqualified response to autism. As the parent of a child who has a degree of mobility disability, I do find that the small, casual assumptions make a powerful contribution to the prejudices which actually create as much lack of opportunity as the disability itself. I have no wish to see people feel the need to conceal how they feel, and few parents of SN children are so PC as to deny any realities of the situation, but I think it is fair enough to challenge the small, lazy, throwaway comments which contribute to prejudice an discrimination as a whole. By making her response, Thomcat has at least enabled the writer to explain her position. Hope it gets published!