From “Refrigerator Mother’s” to Tylenol…

From “Refrigerator Mother’s” to Tylenol…it’s about past time we stop blaming mothers for their child’s autism.  The thing is, our words matter.  How we say things, matters.  At the end of the day, as a mother of a 20 year old with autism, the “why” of it all doesn’t matter.  It’s never mattered.  And that doesn’t mean that I don’t support research and scientific investigation in to the cause of autism, we need to focus our financial resources into that.   It seems moot to present what most scientists would say is a correlation, not causation between Tylenol and Autism.  In the same way that shark bites increase at the same time as ice cream consumption, this is correlation, not causation.  Eating ice cream does not cause an increase in shark bites.  It’s another factor, summer time, that causes these two facts to be intertwined.  In this case, autism and Tylenol, while very limited studies show a possible correlation, the important component, the causation, is missing.  How we choose to speak about autism also matters.  Mothers raising children on the spectrum face enough scrutiny and judgment and yet, today, instead of providing a glimmer of hope for all those moms, we are met with additional potential to be blamed for our child’s disability.  Of all the times I have felt judged: for advocating for a diagnosis when our family refused to believe it (we were making our son “less than” he was “perfect” as he was), the looks from strangers when an 4 year old tantrums in the store because he looked “typical” but lacked the communication skills to tell us what he needed, to the cashier who rolls their eyes when you are buying diapers for a 7 year old, it is constant and it seems to never end.  So today, as I face my day and all the amazing parents I see today, just know, I see you.  And I, like you, wish there was something more of substance being carried about ASD in the news this week.  But the truth is, whether the world is told we are Bettleheim’s emotionally cold “refrigerator mothers,”  to Wakefield’s debunked vaccine study, and now, used Tylenol during our pregnancy, it’s just one more misrepresentation of the disorder and another narrative that blames someone versus some thing,