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Offensive book found for sale

SLP 1992

Greetings fellow Autistics. I'm an avid member of the Autistic community on Twitter and this morning of Friday 3rd September 2021 it was brought to my attention that a certain book found on Amazon is for sale called 'I wish my kids had cancer' written by Michael Alan about a parent's struggles with an Autistic child/children. He has even gone as far as calling ASD an epidemic. Needless to say that as you can imagine this has caused utter disbelief and outrage amongst the Autistic community on social media and I have already made Amazon aware and via customer services have requested said product to be removed from sales by of a very strongly worded complaint. I just wanted to make my fellow Autistics aware that said product is out there as a fair warning. If you'd like to complain on Amazon via customer services to request its removal the option is there, hopefully if enough people can speak up to Amazon to demand it remove said product, they will listen. I myself have found this very disturbing and triggering and has urged me to act. In case you do see it about on Twitter, I wanted to forewarn you of its existence and so you'd all be a little more prepared but be understandably shocked at the disrespect, disregard and offense that it contains. I cannot tell you how utterly speechless and overwhelmed I am about this. Its despicable and its appalling. We need to speak out about this. 

Parents

  • There are children with more severe forms of autism, and parents can be overwhelmed by it, and I can understand that. But what I can't understand is this "struggling" parent HAD THE TIME TO WRITE AN ENTIRE BOOK complaining and ranting about his own life, rather than take that same amount of time to support and actually care about his own son.  

    From what I could read from the book (I read it to give the book a fair chance, despite the title), is that he sees his son as a bother, as  something that he has to deal with, as not "perfect." The book is all about "I, I, I, me, me, me, my, my, my" and the focus is all on himself and complaining about his son, rather than caring about his son. He can't see things from his son's perspective. He's selfish and narcissistic. And you know what, by him having the guts to publish something like this, and putting THAT kind of title, and actually charging money for it, is completely narcissistic!

    On his son's 2nd birthday, his father spent loads of money, bought tons of stuff for this big yard party, invited 50 people, and instead of having an ego boost as some great father at a great party, the opposite happened, and his son cried (because he was swarmed by 50 strangers out of the blue, so who wouldn't cry), and the father was more concerned about his own retutation being ruined and being looked down upon by others, than he was about his own son. 

    I mean, he willingly spent all this money on a freaking party, but he didn't like spending money on trying to find support for his own son's autism. And when his second child was born, his daughter, he was trying to check if she had any problems (like autism), and then thanked god that she was born "perfect." That's really low. And he empathised with the parents who considered suicide, and wanting to taking their autistic child down with them. That's wrong.  

    And when his son had an allergic reaction, he described dragging his swollen and puffy son home, as if he was putting down his son as some kind of loser in life. That his son had another problem on top of what he already had. And his father was bothered by the notion that because his son took the allergy medication and napped during the day, it will make him stay up all night. I mean allergies can be lethal, and yet the father cared more about his son being awake at night bothering him, than he did about his son's well-being.

    And how the father wrote that it's the "fight against autism" rather than "support for autism." Like come on, that kid needs a real father, not some father who puts more time and effort into writing a book with a terrible title, than he does about supporting his son. If I were to write a book, it'll be about how this father is worse than cancer.

  • in reply to Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

    Wow! Thanks for reading the book and giving us a description of it's contents. I was going to give it a go, but it sound way to much like the parenting I experienced, to make it attractive.

    I've considered /started writing about about my experiences as an Autistic child and young man. The working title of the few pages I've created so far (which is probably as far as I'll ever get) is, "Confessions of a Fist Magnet"... 

Reply
  • in reply to Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

    Wow! Thanks for reading the book and giving us a description of it's contents. I was going to give it a go, but it sound way to much like the parenting I experienced, to make it attractive.

    I've considered /started writing about about my experiences as an Autistic child and young man. The working title of the few pages I've created so far (which is probably as far as I'll ever get) is, "Confessions of a Fist Magnet"... 

Children
  • in reply to I Sperg

    Well I didn't just want to judge the book by it's cover, so I read the preview of the book because I wanted to give this father a fair chance, but the contents of the book is as terrible as the title would suggest. He just seems really fed up that he has to deal with his son and his autism.

    I think that you should write about your experiences as well, because there's likely many instances of bad treatment towards those who are autistic.