anybody else disappointed with the A word?

NAS7937 said:

The "Refrigerator mums" schtick was used to blame women for their child's autism. It should be chucked in the bin where it belongs. Most autistic women make good and loving parents and women don't deserve to be told that their behaviour is the origin of this sad old theory which has mysogynistic overtones.

My understanding of the Refrigerator Mum theory was that people observed that some autistic kids had parents who lacked empathy. They made the incorrect attribution that it was the autistic mother's behaviour that resulted in an autistic child. In all likelihood the autistic parent passes the autism to the child genetically but then a big factor, in how the child develops, is down to the home environment that the autistic parent creates. An autistic child will often be influenced by a potent mixture of nature plus nurture that are both influenced by autistic coding in the genes.

At that time it often fell to the mother to do most of the parenting and it is quite likely that an absentee autistic father would have less influence on a child's environment than an autistic mum who was home based and much more influenctial in the child's behaviour and development.

Autistic mums or dads who are aware of their autism are much less likely to be bad parents but I cannot avoid the likelihood that some bad parents are actually bad because of the autism that they are unaware of. In hindsight, as a parent who was unaware of my autism until my children got into their 20s, I would have done things differently when I was helping to bring them up when they were children. There is no point laying blame at anyone's door. I don't blame my parents for my upbringing and I don't blame myself for not being a brilliant parent myself. I look for explanations and the elements of truth that are often to be found in old and inadequate scientific theories.

The A Word is a tragedy, it is about a set of characters who are programmed to do the things that they are doing in blind ignorance of the hidden drivers in their own behaviour. I expect the causal mechanisms to be revealed in more detail as the series progresses and the gory reality of an unaware autistic family is revealed piece by piece. Hopefully, they will end the story with a lot of revelations and reconciliations and they will all live happily ever after.

NAS7937 said:

The "Refrigerator mums" schtick was used to blame women for their child's autism. It should be chucked in the bin where it belongs. Most autistic women make good and loving parents and women don't deserve to be told that their behaviour is the origin of this sad old theory which has mysogynistic overtones.

My understanding of the Refrigerator Mum theory was that people observed that some autistic kids had parents who lacked empathy. They made the incorrect attribution that it was the autistic mother's behaviour that resulted in an autistic child. In all likelihood the autistic parent passes the autism to the child genetically but then a big factor, in how the child develops, is down to the home environment that the autistic parent creates. An autistic child will often be influenced by a potent mixture of nature plus nurture that are both influenced by autistic coding in the genes.

At that time it often fell to the mother to do most of the parenting and it is quite likely that an absentee autistic father would have less influence on a child's environment than an autistic mum who was home based and much more influenctial in the child's behaviour and development.

Autistic mums or dads who are aware of their autism are much less likely to be bad parents but I cannot avoid the likelihood that some bad parents are actually bad because of the autism that they are unaware of. In hindsight, as a parent who was unaware of my autism until my children got into their 20s, I would have done things differently when I was helping to bring them up when they were children. There is no point laying blame at anyone's door. I don't blame my parents for my upbringing and I don't blame myself for not being a brilliant parent myself. I look for explanations and the elements of truth that are often to be found in old and inadequate scientific theories.

The A Word is a tragedy, it is about a set of characters who are programmed to do the things that they are doing in blind ignorance of the hidden drivers in their own behaviour. I expect the causal mechanisms to be revealed in more detail as the series progresses and the gory reality of an unaware autistic family is revealed piece by piece. Hopefully, they will end the story with a lot of revelations and reconciliations and they will all live happily ever after.