The Case For And Against Autism Parents - The Internet's Most Infamous "Warriors" of Disabled Children
| 2311 words
| 2024 | Essays | Disability | Politics
Content warning: This article contains discussions about ableism against Autistic people, eugenics, medical fraud, and child abuse.
Being Autistic in the 21st century where many of us have unlimited access to the internet is an odd experience. Having been someone who spent a bit too much time on the computer as a kid to teen, I've seen how the discussion around my condition has morphed and changed, and even splintered off into sub-communities with their own methods of operating, and it's one that's lead me to have a very conflicting view towards my own Autism.
I don't really like the idea of sharing my entire medical history with the internet, but I'll give a very basic timeline of my past with Autism just for context reasons. It started when my parents were noticing signs of Autism in me from as young as 2 years old, with many notable developmental delays that lead me to struggle in my growth. If medical professionals were actually competent at their jobs, I'd say that I would've gotten my official diagnosis as young as 4 years old, but of course that didn't happen for reasons I don't wish to disclose. I would eventually get that diagnosis at the age of 7, and again at age 10, after seeking out a private specialist who was revered in the local community as someone who understood Autism on a wider scope, or at least the widest scope you could have in the mid-to-late 2000's.
I'm not sure why I don't remember my parents explaining what Autism was and what it meant for me to have this diagnosis, but I went through a good chunk of my life feeling so alienated and isolated from my peers because I never grasped what having Autism meant, leading me to a childhood of a borderline obsessive amount of internet usage in place of actual, tangible friendships with my peers (Just what every child with developmental problems needs.) Through this, I'd almost 'rediscover' what being Autistic was all about, leading me to realize that I had a name for why it felt like I could never connect with anyone past a superficial level, why certain sensations were physically painful to experience, why certain interests captivated my entire attention that I sometimes rendered myself unfunctional... As I read more about the condition that's been attached to me for as long as I can remember, I felt a sense of relief in knowing that being Autistic meant something, and that I wasn't just broken beyond repair. For once in my life, I belonged somewhere. I had a community that I could call home, I had a place where I could share these experiences with other people and actually have other people relate with me.
On a less positive note, however, I've also had to bear witness to some of the worst, dehumanizing ideas be flung around the internet by people who are so unabashed about how they feel about the developmentally disabled. Understandably, with this being the internet, there's an unsurprising lack of accountability when it comes to way people treat disabled people, but I still think more people should have way more shame when they start calling one another slurs and leaking addresses over Autistic people being "cringe." In my opinion, though, I think it's always worst when it comes from parents of Autistic children, many of whom have children with higher support needs under their care who cannot live without assistance from another human being, which end up being their parents or family members. Unfortunately, with how terribly uninformed people are about Autism, this leads to many parents partaking in questionable to downright horrific parenting choices in their attempts, or lack thereof, at raising a child with a developmental disability. Do I even need to mention the anti-vax movement?
Dubbed 'Autism Warrior parents,' or just 'Autism moms/dads' by the greater community, this term refers to parents of Autistic children who have become somewhat of a trope when it comes to the different kinds of people you can find in and associated with the Autism community, due to their incessant need to center themselves as the 'true victims of Autism,' as well as their overall ignorance and carelessness towards learning how to properly parent an Autistic child. You'll commonly see them in dedicated groups on social media that aim to share information about caring for an Autistic child - the legitimacy of information fluctuating from slightly dubious to downright eugenicist - but many discussions end up degrading into pity parties of grown adults with learned helplessness who can't bear to understand that they were never in control of what kind of people their children end up becoming. At their worst, Autism parents can be downright abusive, and it's made all the more tragic by the way this kind of treatment is supported and encouraged by the online spaces that they're apart of. From parents proclaiming that vaccines cause Autism, to some even literally poisoning their children with bleach in the hopes of 'curing' them, Autism parents have become some of the worst offenders in further stigmatizing Autism and demonizing Autistic people.
From this, there's been an understandable pushback against these types of people within a subset of the online Autism community that's pioneered by actually Autistic people. Many actually Autistic people have heavily criticized the way self-proclaimed Autism parents choose to parent their children, especially when it can lead to them becoming irreversibly traumatized or killed, as well as the ideology that leads to these completely preventable deaths and injuries from happening in the first place. Make no mistake about it, by imposing the idea that Autism is a life-ending disease that must be eradicated, you are sending your Autistic children the message that they cannot and will not be accepted, loved, or cared for unless they successfully reach the impossible goal of 'beating Autism.' You are inherently traumatizing your child by teaching them that they will not have the right to human autonomy until they have the wires making the connections in their brains forcibly ripped out and rewired, and leaving them all the more vulnerable to continued abuse and dehumanizing treatments. By preferring your children die from measles over the imaginary chance they have of being Autistic, you are showing your future children that their lives are completely disposable to you, all because you willingly feed yourself and your peers the same regurgitated, bigoted garbage tries to justify the inhumane cruelty towards Autistic children and adults.
There is, however, a double-edged sword when it comes to this pushback against Autism parents, and while the majority of it comes from very legitimized concerns about how Autistic children are commonly being raised in the 21st century, there's also the fallout that comes at the detriment of caretakers who genuinely do care about the Autistic people who need their care in order to live. There's been many instances of parents who actually put effort into learning about Autism and helping their children as much as possible becoming lumped in with those who seek nothing but pity and clout off of the existence of their Autistic children, leaving these parents with feeling a deep sense of frustration towards the Autism community that, quite frankly, severely lacks nuance.
Indeed, because of how the online Autism community has become somewhat overshadowed by the low support needs level 1 Autistic population, their narratives have been boosted to the top of social media trending pages in recent years. This isn't inherently a bad thing, as Autistic people of all walks of live deserve to have a voice in the Autism community and outwards. But that's just the thing, everyone should be able to participate, but because of the oversaturation in low support needs experiences in the Autism community, the existence of those with medium and high support needs quickly becomes forgotten about and discarded. This has lead the image of Autism Spectrum to morph into that of a monolith- the high-masking white person who is otherwise largely successful in the eyes of capitalistic society and is able to hold down a job with high qualifications and demands- or if, it's a child we're talking about, then they're probably a 'gifted kid' who's into STEM. Most importantly, it's the people who don't need the help of a caretaker who have ended up becoming the face of Autism, and have begun to push the idea of Autistic people needing caretakers out of the limelight.
After a child or adolescent is diagnosed with Autism, having relevant information, services, referrals and practical support offered not only to them, but also potential caretakers, is an extremely important part of proper treatment and intervention, especially for those with higher support needs. Because of how complex the healthcare needs of Autistic people can become, it's vital that those who may potentially have an Autistic person in their care have adequate access to the best information and support possible to, in turn, improve the quality of life of caretakers and Autistic people alike. If a caretaker remains largely uneducated about the conditions that the people they're caring for have, including how to best support us, then they will not be able to properly attend to our needs and end up decreasing our quality of life.
The rhetoric seen online towards caretakers in general, however, ends up being very absolutist, where it's believed that all caretakers will always have the worst intentions, or even that Autistic people don't actually need caretakers because that would be infantilization, of course. Besides, who even cares enough to associate themselves with the types of Autistic people who are severely disabled by their Autism that requires them to have 24/7 support? Isn't Autism supposed to be just a different neurotype, or even a superpower? But by believing these ideas, it only serves to drive caretakers out of their loved ones' community, and in turn withhold vital information that can potentially relieve the distress of those under their care.
Education is the most important tool we have in order to combat the further mistreatment and abuse that Autistic people are sadly all too commonly exposed to, both on the part of the average person who don't interact with an Autistic person on a daily basis, and of caretakers whose job it is to take care of us. Without having access to up-to-date and high quality information about the conditions that their patients have, how do we expect caretakers to give higher support needs Autistics with the adequate care they need in order to increase their quality of life? Truly, what good does it do to bar off some of the most important people in a disabled person's life from being apart of their community?
If parents are given the most relevant information and access to the relevant resources needed to properly care for their Autistic children, we'd might even see less abuse cases based on ideas that Autism is something that is equivalent to a terminal illness that requires cure methods that are just like literal torture methods. The reason why parents even come to the conclusion of "I must poison my child with bleach to get rid of their autism," is because of how education around Autism has been a massive failure on every front possible. Same reason with why people fall into the alt-right pipeline, because they're largely uneducated about how the world works and blinded by the misinformation thrown at them constantly.
While it would be pedantic to blame this failure on the group of teenagers who use TikTok regularly, this is just another symptom of the overall lack of knowledge that people even have on Autism to begin with. It's only natural that people will want to push back against the stereotypes of Autism in order to remind the uneducated majority that Autism isn't monolithic, but what good does that do when you deny the stereotype from existing in the first place?
Much of the flack that self-proclaimed Autism Parents get online is well-deserved, but it's doing our community a major disservice when we completely shut caregivers out from it, as if they don't also have the same rights to access education and resources to best help their loved ones, sometimes for the rest of their lives. Caregivers of Autistic people serve an incredibly important part of our community, including parents and guardians, and while those who are doing legitimate harm to their children need to be called out, we also aren't doing our peers with higher support needs any favours when we outright deny the idea that Autism is a genuinely disabling condition that can lead someone to be nonverbal and require heavy support. Whether or not it's embarrassing for low support needs Autistics to come to terms with, caregivers will always share a space with us in a disability-focused community. So, if we truly want the best for our siblings with higher support needs and want Autism Parents to not be such a blight on the name of autism, then we have to be willing to share our resources with them.