Thank You for Taking Bell Boat Cruise, I Hope You Enjoyed Your Trip (No Refunds)

Welcome back! This week, we will finish up our look at the SLATE article on Cri du chat syndrome (if you want to read the full article yourself, you can access it here). But until then let's pick up where we left off last time, when I was going on a rant about society and child rearing (always a fun topic. Try it with your friends! It’ll help you get all the romance you’ll ever want. Like someone once said: you’re going to win so much that you will get tired of winning). But enough about that, let's get back to the topic at hand.

 

Children Win Success Video Game Play Happy

Nothing brings people together than going on an angry rant about heavy topics like society, culture or politics. Or, if you love living dangerously, all three.

 

After the discovery of her son having Cri du chat, it was like she and her husband were out at sea, being told that their son would always be “profoundly disabled” (SLATE, Not Mine to Mold, paragraph 6). Feeling overwhelmed, she imagined a future based entirely on caregiving until a doctor suggested to her to have her son, you guessed it, institutionalized. At the time, she was, as she describes herself, “Clueless” (SLATE, paragraph 6), and thought the suggestion outdated (you know your assumptions about a certain demographic is, will, off-kilter when someone, who does not know much about the demographic themselves, starts to ask you “doesn't this sound...old fashioned?”).

 

But, upon going to some experts (and we all know those types of “experts”), they only made her worst fears seem right, even to the point of wishing she could go back in time to try and fix it. But she eventually realized that you can’t choose what your kid is going to be like. I would say more, but if you yourself have children of your own, you can pretty much fill in the blanks from here (also I don’t have kids myself, and I’m totally not letting you try to fill in the blanks so that I don’t have to type as much. Nope, I’m not lazy).

 

 Feet Socks Living Room Person Relaxing Table

Would a lazy person try to minimize the amount they have to write each week, just to make time to watch cat videos? Yes, but I don’t watch cat videos, because I already have a cat that I can sit and watch for her to do cute stuff ours hours on end. Priorities people.

 

The author tried to get advice from therapists and teachers, but they weren't much help either, as “they didn't have access to long-term data, just a few decades of small scientific studies” (SLATE, Not Mine to Mold, paragraph 6). But here's the kicker: when the author then turned to social media, she found that the recommendations from the “experts”, therapists and teachers were not only outdated and lacking long-term data, but also incomplete, ignoring one perspective (deemed crucial according to the article, and they are not wrong): those from adults with disabilities. Long story short: she soon discovered that there is a whole different world concerning our Autistic/Aspie community and the disability community as a whole, one that rarely ever sees the light of day.

 

Well, that does it for this week's post. Next week we will be looking at another topic, as per usual. If I said it once, I’ll say it again (and again, and again, and…): we so do love our stable routines. If I was expected to suddenly start writing about clowns or the surface of the earth, my whole life would be ruined! (if you’re on the spectrum, you know what I’m talking about. If not, then imagine that one day you suddenly warped from your home country to halfway around the world! Or if you are halfway around the world, then imagine that warped to the other half of the world!). But until then, this continues to be, the Audacious Aspie.

 

Source used:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/parents-of-kids-with-disabilities.html

Posted 266 weeks ago
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