ARGH!

[conuly]

That stupid link is everywhere now!

I've gone from emphatic, to linktastic, to trying to ignore the whole thing, to being very blunt indeed.

So now I'll sum it up very briefly, for anybody who might be even remotely tempted to click the link and donate not-quite-half-a-dollar to Autism Speaks.

At least two people associated with the organization - including the vice-president - have spoken publicly about their wishes for their autistic children to die. The vice-president not only mentioned thinking about outright killing her daughter, but stated, in front of her daughter, that it was the normal daughter who saved her life.

When pressed on the subject, the filmmaker - and I can only assume this was with the blessing of AS, because I can't recall any denouncements of her words - claimed that most parents, if they were honest, would admit to wanting to kill their autistic children.

These people not only want their children dead, they want you to think it's normal to want that, and would like to project their homicidal tendencies on parents who actively love their autistic children.

Really, there's probably a less inflammatory way to put that, but I don't give a fuck right now.

And don't talk to be about context. I'd like to know the appropriate context for telling your kid "Hey! I've thought about killing you! And I didn't spare your life on your merits, ya brat!", while she hugs you. Seriously, the most disturbing shit I ever saw in my life.

So if somebody asks you to "just click the link!", ask yourself. Not if you want a cure, or don't, but rather - whatever good you think they might do, is it worth it to have them thinking you might one day want to kill your child, and that's okay?

Because the scary thing is I'm not even twisting their words to present this argument. And that's just fucked up.

Comments

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

It's so easy to put on the fake "I can love and cope with my kids all the time" face.

It's much harder to sometimes tell the truth. No one says it is ok to want to kill your kid. But maybe people need to understand how fucking hard it can be sometimes. Admitting that means people will attack you, like this.

I've not wanted my kids born. I've -- well, I won't go into details, because it can be twisted too easily and look like I don't love my kids.

I'm not brave enough to tell the truth, and show the face of the suffering we sometimes face. I'll only show the happy face.

And I would NEVER let my kids know either, which is why AS doesn't speak for me. But for a moment here I am letting that "sometimes I can't cope and want to throw myself off the roof" side of me show.

You're right, you're mostly right, but I don't think they are MONSTERS. Sometimes we want people to try to understand. And people still don't.

[conuly]

You're right. I don't. I don't understand why anybody would think it is right to speak about wishing to kill their child, no matter how hard their life is. You can think whatever you like - even parents of typical children have moments where they think everything is about to go terribly, terribly wrong - but the social construct says "it's absolutely unacceptable to speak seriously of harming a child". What has to be wrong with you that you'd break that?

And worse, in front of your child? That's not just troubling, that's outright tacky. If you don't have the self control to keep from telling your children that you don't value their lives, you really ought to be telling that sort of thing to a CPS worker, instead of the general public.

And I don't want to understand that. Because expecting that others will understand that is the sort of thing that leads to people following through on these thoughts. And once they have, it's the sort of thing that leads to nonsense sentences - or no sentences whatsoever - for murder.

And I don't see us agreeing on that point. You can talk about it, but I've had to deal with four posts on this link in two days, and by the way, Elise decided to "tell us" she wanted to go home by stealing my phone, a cloth pad (ew - I got it back and it's not stained, so I'll pretend like it never happened), and, yeah, money (repeatedly, to tell the truth) from us, and I'm already at my breaking point for even minimal civility, can you tell?

This might really not be the time. Just pick another group to give your money to, one where the board has some minimal self-control, or save your money to help your own kids.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

I don't hate my son, or want him dead. I'm honestly not sure whether I want him "cured". But if my son's disorder was a separate entity there are times I would kill it with nails and teeth and feet, and it would die a painful and bloody and messy death.

I've thought about how it would be easier if my kids were elsewhere. And I've thought about running away.

Not because my son's on the spectrum. Because as much as I love my kids, there are things I can't do because I have to take care of them. And yes, sometimes I resent the hell out of them because they're living, breathing responsibilities that need immediate and frequent tending.

That's part of being a parent. It doesn't matter if the child in question is handicapped, or a prodigy, or "perfectly normal", or completely self-sufficient. It doesn't mean I don't love them both.

[(Anonymous)]

My initial gut reaction was raw fucking anger, and I think I'll stick with that. This really pisses me off.

[conuly]

And I'm told the video itself passes off some pretty offensive concepts, but I'm pretty sure it's not worth the $.49, not to mention the self-respect, that it'd cost to check it out for myself.

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

Well I'm with you C.

It showed up on MDC and was trounced, by me and others. So that might make you feel a bit better.

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=831654

[conuly]

That I can see.

And really, you're being a bit more honest than they were - they're all "Life sucks just because they're autistic" (Well, not everybody in That Video produced by That Organization was, but the memorable ones were), and you're more "Life is hard, but part of that is because, y'know, I'd like to live my own life, but kids kinda mess that up, and worse when there's unexpected difficulties", right?

(That's one major reason I'm not intending to have kids, incidentally. I don't know that I really want to do that with my life, and I'm sure not risking being upset later.)

[conuly]

Why, thank you. It does make me feel better! Over at TBW, I was at first the only one commenting about how evil the whole group seems (it just does), and the OP called me a flamer. And now she appears to be in a snit, probably because I wasn't flaming, and she was told so, but honestly - what, am I supposed to lie, or be silent about things I disagree with? Honestly, nobody's that nice - and that's not even a nice thing to do! Nice is telling people what the group says and does so they can make up their minds for themselves!

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

The MDC SN board is the awesome. I hardly post anywhere else. The VAST majority of the posters are pro neurodiversity and an active minority are on the spectrum themselves.

Now, over in the Vaccine boards you'll run into the cure crowd, but most of them don't even have autism n their lives, so go figure.

(It's not pretty when they come over to the SN board sometimes... heh.)

[conuly]

That does sound heavenly :)

And people are usually all about MDC being judgmental. (Which means they judge them for judging others? I'm never sure how that works, though I can appreciate how you might only want to be the judger instead of the judged on those fora.)

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

Here's one of the more amusing threads of late, on the WiFi as cause:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=796182

And one on the Ransom Notes campaign:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=807600

The board as a whole can be terribly judgmental, but the SN board isn't, well, ever.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

The child who infuriated me the most today was my 'normal' one. If what she pulled was in person instead of over the phone...

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. Some situations would suck anyway, pretty much.

Thank you for figuring out that you're not ready to have kids before you have kids.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Yup. My daughter, my "normal" one, gets to me the worst when I hear in her an echo of myself at my most impatient.

Care for a cup of tea or cocoa or something? For no particular reason, I'm all funned out and it sounds as if that's going around.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

The diet pepsi helped. Caffeine helps me cope.

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

I agree it was a bad idea to say that kind of thing in front of your kid and on a video where it can be, as it has been, stripped of context, but have you heard the quote in context? It's not nearly as nefarious as you imply.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ozsfx5lUQdU&feature=related

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

vice-president not only mentioned thinking about outright killing her daughter, but stated, in front of her daughter, that it was the normal daughter who saved her life.

That is HUGELY out of context. I came here to this blog post thinking you would be a source of the in-context quote, what with your claim that you _wish_ you were taking it out of context. But you most assuredly are.

"There are parents who are forced to put kids in schools that are completely overcrowded--twelve kids and one teacher, and the kids don't make progress. But I remember, that was a very scary moment for me, when I realized I had sat in the car for about fifteen minutes and actually contemplated putting Jodie in the car and driving off the George Washington bridge, and that would be preferable to having to put her in one of these schools...and it's only because of Lauren, the fact that I have another child, that I probably didn't do it."

That is what the woman actually said, from start to finish. It's pretty self-evident from the quotes in their original context that she meant that she didn't want to leave one daughter without a mother, no more, no less, NOT that she found a saving grace in a "normal" child. Also, yeah, the girl is roaming about in the background while she's saying this, but you make it sound as if she's saying "I want to kill my daughter," while the kid is actually paying attention. The video shows that that is not at ALL the case.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Also, to say that one wants to kill oneself and take someone else along is a very different thing from saying that one wants to kill someone else and go on happily with one's life.

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

Right now, there's a case in the news over here where a man tried to kill himself - but when he did it, he jumped off the balcony holding his two children, one of whom died, while he survived. It's a murder trial. He's not going to get off lightly because he wanted to kill himself and take someone else along - he killed someone, so he's in the courts for murder. This woman isn't to be commended for saying she wants her child dead simply because the method she'd go with would mean her dying, too.

(Though, of course, it might still end up that he's not fit to be sent to prison, because he's still a suicide risk and I'm not sure they'll decide he's sane.)

[conuly]

I'm not repeating what I said over in ginmar's journal. Suffice to say that there is absolutely no appropriate context for saying those things in front of your child.

[conuly]

Not really, except that one is just a murder, and the other is a murder-suicide.

[conuly]

Here you go.

[conuly]

I figure I'm doing my kids a favor. They'll never have to tell me they never asked to be born.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

To me "murder-suicide" implies that you first kill someone else and then kill yourself, be it out of grief or remorse or fear you'll be caught or whatever. I think there's still a huge difference (morally) between a murder-suicide and committing suicide in such a way that you take someone else with you.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

I don't know where you are, but I'm sure there are many jurisdictions in the world where the very fact that he tried to kill himself would prove he had no connection with reality at the time he committed the crime and therefore he would be not guilty by reason if insanity.

It depends what the standard for that is, of course, but look at Andrea Yates. There's an analogous case if ever I saw one.

Also, of course, a great many more people in the world have thought about suicide than have ever actually committed suicide. And what bothers me about this (for the record, I don't think it should be in a video that was released to the public) is that it reminds me of the time when women with post-partum depression or post-partum psychosis, who often do want to kill themselves and their children, were told that they should bottle that all up and not talk about it and get over it. And it's the ones who are stopped from talking about their feelings that actually do it.

So I think it's important for those who have gone through really severe mental illness to be able to discuss that publicly. (And what else would you call a woman, *any* woman, who thought of driving off a bridge with her daughter, *any* daughter, in the car?)

So I don't see anything wrong with someone talking about having felt that way and I don't see anything wrong with her having talked about it publicly in certain contexts and I don't even have a problem with a video being made of it to show in certain situations, such as a support group for mothers who are seriously depressed over their children's medical conditions.

And, not that it's any of your business, I say this as the child of someone who has been severely depressed all my life and who I know did consider suicide at several times due to being unable to cope with me or my sister or both.