Smarty: “Many parent want their kids to be labeled because it makes them feel less guilty about being rotten parents. Instead of being the parent who didn’t read to their kid and work with them, they get to play the martyr, at least in their own mind.”
James: “Parents these days are so used to blaming every single problem they have on something other then themselves, SURELY their child must be a victim of something.”
So, I quit my part-time job, even though we needed the money, to spend a year working intensively with my oldest Asperger’s kid on his tantrums, only to have all my work erased when we moved. I breastfed my other Aspie despite the fact that he would not nurse unless he was able to pinch me till he left bruises all over my chest and arms. I had to tandem-nurse him and his younger brother, who was allergic to milk and soy so had no source of milk other than mine. When he started having a severe biting problem I read everything I could about biting, and we tried everything including bitter apple spray.
I did this all by myself without blaming anyone else or anything else but myself, to the point where I was getting horribly depressed because I could not stop the problems. When your child is far out of the norm difficult, you start to realize that only someone as grandiose as Smarty or James would think they have the power to make it all perfect.
I read to my kids. I run a science club for them and all their friends so that they can have a hands-on learning experience and get some social interaction. I quit my job again so that I could potty train my younger Aspie, a task that takes much longer and more intense effort than potty training a normal child. I teach my children the self-calming strategies that most kids their ages have already mastered. I work extra hard to earn a little money so that we can afford to pay for all the food that one son’s morning breakfast ritual wastes, the extra clothes to replace those lost to chewing, an entire new set of silverware because one of the family Aspies can’t handle having two different designs in the drawer. I wake at 5 or 6 in the morning and often don’t get to bed until after midnight, and my house is still a crap heap and the sink is still full of dishes and the laundry is in heaps.
But by all means, tell me I’m a lazy, rotten parent who doesn’t want to take responsibility for her own actions.
