Confessions of an autism mother: I am not a warrior mom

[Guest guest]

This one has my blood boiling for the day . . . the comments to this

blog are good. We should all send her a piece of our mind. Oh I am

boiling.Should invigorate me for the shopping day ahead.

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From examiner.com

Confessions of an autism mother: I am not a warrior mom

37 comments November 26, 12:32 PM

by Kathleen Byrne, New York Schools Examiner

There's a plethora of literature out there written by warrior

moms who will stop at nothing to recover their child from autism. The

most famous warrior mom, actress McCarthy, has written two

books on the subject. The stories have the same familiar narrative:

angst upon learning the diagnosis; seeking the cause (Ms. McCarthy

blames vaccines); researching and deciding on treatments; and the

sacrifices--personal, financial and familial--made to carry out

treatments.

All warrior moms decide early on that they will try anything to heal

their autistic child. I've done my research, and the only proven

autism treatment is Applied Behavioral Analysis. The biomedical

therapies—gluten- and casein-free diet, supplements such as fish oil,

chelation (a controversial detoxification), to name a few—do not have

a large body of well-designed and independently verified research

backing up their claims of improving the lives of autism patients.

Some say that the medical community, ruled by pharmaceutical

interests, is slow to accept innovation. While I agree with this

contention to a point, I also think that there is a lot of unchecked

emotion in the autism debate. Reason doesn't always come into play

when it comes to caring for our children. For example, warrior moms

will often say, " I didn't want to look back and wonder if there was

something I should have done. " I've thought that numerous times, too,

but doing something just for the sake of working out our personal

anxiety about having a disabled child is not good for any of our

children, least of all our beautiful, special-needs ones.

I believe a lot of warrior moms love their children, but they don't

love them unconditionally. They try untested therapies to allay their

own feelings of inadequacy. I know the uneasiness of watching my 3 ½-

year-old daughter struggle with a task quickly mastered by a typical

18-month-old, but it doesn't make me a warrior. It only makes me sad.