Comments on: Autistic parents, and custody, and the dangers of mixing “emotional support” and politics.

By: Julie

Julie — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:21:19 +0000

I have Aspergers and I developed an obsession with child custody battles. Mostly because I now see that my father should have gotten custody instead of of my narcissistic mother but it was the 80s when mothers could do no wrong. I have read about Judy Singer’s advocacy of automatically giving the NT parent custody over the parent with Aspergers and there is serious fault with her premise. In studying these battles I have learned that one-size-fits-all approaches do NOT work so let’s say that the courts take her position and give custody to the NT parent without fully investigating the case simply because the other parent has Aspergers and that makes automatically unfit. First and foremost that would be blatant discrimination secondly the law of unintended consequences will come into play. Let’s say that there is a custody dispute between an NT mother who is drug addicted and an Aspie father who lives with his parents and is clean and would provide a better home for the child. Would Ms. Singer claim that the child should be placed in foster care than be given to the Aspie father or even given to the NT mother despite the fact that she is drug addicted. Most people with common sense would say give the child to the father and a family court judge might even want to but because their hands are tied to the law that says that simply having Aspergers makes you an unfit parent the judge winds up placing the child in foster care until the mother cleans herself up. Would Ms. Singer advocate simply terminating someone’s parental rights because they have Aspergers? What a mess it would create and I hope that this is never taken up by the family courts.

By: C.L.

C.L. — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:04:06 +0000

My mom married my step father when I was 10. Since then, he basically raised my brother and me. Now, 16 years later (and after my mother has left and divorced my step father), he was just diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. It was very hard for me to be raised by a man who had this disorder, but mainly because it was not diagnosed until I was an adult. There are many things in retrospect that can be explained by his diagnosis but overall, he was a great dad… However, I didn’t realize what a good father he was until I became aware of his diagnosis because he always seemed selfish and, verbally, like a loose canon whose attacks were rehearsed and repetitive. I wish we had a support group that helped children with Asperger parents rather than simply attacking their parents.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:46:07 +0000

same here……

By: Esther

Esther — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:46:13 +0000

It is a sad thing that when a disabled person (especially a nuerologically rather than physically disabled person) is selfish and/or misunderstands another person, it is blamed on the person’s disability. I think it is very probable that a lot of the ASpar members had bad parents, and they assumed their parents were bad because of autism.
People do hav a tendency to have unrealistic expectations of their parents in general, though. I include myself in that.

By: andreashettle

andreashettle — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:58:18 +0000

Liz,
I think it’s safe to assume there are other parents who share the same desire. I see some who leave comments like yours from time to time, both in this blog and in other locations around the web. And some supportive parents are also members of the Autism Hub (follow link from the nav bar on this page) and run their own blogs. Blogs are not support groups, though an active blog board I think can serve a similar function.

So I think there is real hope that at some point one of these parents will start something, Maybe even you. Have you ever initiated or run a mailing list, for example via yahoo groups or google groups?

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:12:17 +0000

Two years ago I researched support groups for children of parents with Aspergers. I found the Aspar site was not going to be suitable for my needs and chose not to join.
I could recognise the anger and frustration of some of the members. (Lets face it life was far from ideal when issues associated with Aspergers ‘hit the fan’).
However I was hoping for balance, positive support as well as honesty. Maybe in time as the person who spoke about CODA (see above) there will be the development of groups that can offer the kind of support I would like.

By: andreashettle

andreashettle — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:12:20 +0000

I don’t yet know any autistic people in “real life” … that I know of, at least, and not counting one autistic man who I knew very briefly some years ago. But just judging by what I’ve read on line, I agree with Ivan: people’s attitudes toward autistics can be more screwed up than autistics themselves. And to that I would add, if some autistic people seem screwed up, in many cases it’s probably other people’s screwed up behavior toward them that screwed them up a lot more than the autism itself.

Shari, I hope you will also go on to read other autistic bloggers on the web … there is the Autism hub, and Amanda links to many autistic bloggers (and other disabled bloggers generally) in her blog roll. Try http://thiswayoflife/blog and http://qw88nb88.wordpress.com/ as two examples.

Before reading the comment, I re-read this post (I probably first read it a year ago). How sad that this so-called “support group” has taken the direction it has.

I see a rough parallel, though, with the admittedly little I understand about the history of groups for “codas” (children of adult adults). Apparently early on, maybe 30 years ago or whenever it was that “codas” started gathering together into support groups, the main activity was complaining about how awful it was to have deaf parents. In their defense, most “codas” who were growing up 40, 50, 60 years ago genuinely had more to complain about. There was apparently a habit in many Deaf families back in those days to lean pretty heavily on hearing children to interpret between them and the hearing world. In part this was because there were fewer options back then: no technology then to let them use the phone independently, for example, and no professional sign language interpreters and no laws protecting their rights to access. In part this was also because Deaf parents back then did not understand as well as Deaf parents do today how incredibly stressful it can be for any child to be repeatedly thrust into situations where they are expected to take on adult-level responsibilities in accurately translating from one language to another in adult situations, including sometimes situations where accuracy in translation can have literal life and death consequences (eg, medical situations). But it did mean that in the early days (from my very fuzzy understanding), coda groups basically meant groups for angry venting. It was only in later years that eventually coda groups became more balanced, where members could discuss both the bad side and the good side of having Deaf parents. I can only hope that there will be a similar evolution among children of autistic parents. (The biggest of these is CODA — Children of Deaf Adults–in case you’re curious enough to investigate the parallels for yourself.) Though it seems the particular group talked about in this blog post will probably not be a part of that evolution :-(

By: Ivan

Ivan — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:38:25 +0000

Yeah…..a lot of us are very far from screwed up. People’s attitudes towards autistics can be more screwed up than autistics themselves…….

Ivan

By: Shari

Shari — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 03:54:22 +0000

I just wanted to say that my father as I was told is autistic, however I am not. I am a married female, with a full time job as well as a part time college student. I was given up for adoption when I was an infant and do not know my father. I’ve been trying to find information on autistic people who have had kids…I am worried that if my husband and I have a child it will be autistic.

what was written here has given me hope. I did not know that there were different forms of autisim and I am learning slowly.

I have yet to find my father and mother, I am too afraid of how my father may truely be.
But from what I’ve read, it seems that not all autistic people are…screwed up.

thanks.
Shari

By: Clay Kent

Clay Kent — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:58:15 +0000

This site is despicable. Seeking for only negative accounts to support the web site “researcher’s” forgone conclusion, while banning any accounts that don’t support that is not academic research at all!

The notion that autistic or any other parent with disability can’t be a good parent is absurd! When I was a teenager I attended a Baptist Church, (I’m Episcopalian now), and one member of our youth group was a girl who was retarted. Her mother was also retarded. They both were regular attendees, and from what I could tell her mother did an excellent job in raising her daughter.

By the way, Amanda, for what it’s worth, I believe that you would make a great mother. That you are autistic, has nothing to do with your right to be a parent. I hope you don’t let this group of misled haters stop you from your dream to be a parent. THAT would be a tragedy.