I have a lot of things going on in my life. Some of them effect me directly, while others effect people who I care about. I need somewhere to vent, explain, maybe even work out my own thoughts on particular topics that happen to catch my interest or concern. This is where I'll be doing that.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Moms Who Vax: Moms Who Vax: "But I Saw it with My Own Eyes!"
It can be hard for a parent to put down preconceived ideas and accept that autism can, and does, 'just happen'. With my own son, it was easier for me to accept it I think because after having 5 NT children before him, I knew what 'different' was and my son was different from birth.
We took his stimming on lights and letters/words in a book at 1 month and a half to be just higher then average intelligence at the time. From the age of two weeks old, we took his back arching and screaming as if he was in pain when wrapped in certain blankets or dressed in certain clothing, to him being willful and stubborn, again a mark of high intelligence. We took his lack of sleep as him deliberately trying to gain attention, being manipulative, again an obvious sign that he was highly intelligent.
Once he reached the 14 months age and had lost his language skills, began walking on his toes, and over the next year lots other skills and regressed even further, we realized that the earlier signs were always there, but we just didn't know it at the time that it had a label. Both my partner and I have heard of autism, but it had never touched our lives before (although after our son's diagnosis and learning more about the characteristics of autism, we suspect my partner may fall somewhere on the spectrum, which would better explain our son then.)
How many of these parents who cast the blame on vaccines have never had a child before? That being the case, they don't really have anything 'normal' per se, to compare to. It isn't an easy thing to do, but a new parent really should take their lack of experience (because no amount of reading books or even baby sitting as a teenager, can give you experience for parenthood) into consideration, rather then assuming the worst. But it can be hard, particularly for the highly educated, to admit that they don't actually know everything and automatically have all the answers by default.
It can be hard for a parent to put down preconceived ideas and accept that autism can, and does, 'just happen'. With my own son, it was easier for me to accept it I think because after having 5 NT children before him, I knew what 'different' was and my son was different from birth.
ReplyDeleteWe took his stimming on lights and letters/words in a book at 1 month and a half to be just higher then average intelligence at the time. From the age of two weeks old, we took his back arching and screaming as if he was in pain when wrapped in certain blankets or dressed in certain clothing, to him being willful and stubborn, again a mark of high intelligence. We took his lack of sleep as him deliberately trying to gain attention, being manipulative, again an obvious sign that he was highly intelligent.
Once he reached the 14 months age and had lost his language skills, began walking on his toes, and over the next year lots other skills and regressed even further, we realized that the earlier signs were always there, but we just didn't know it at the time that it had a label. Both my partner and I have heard of autism, but it had never touched our lives before (although after our son's diagnosis and learning more about the characteristics of autism, we suspect my partner may fall somewhere on the spectrum, which would better explain our son then.)
How many of these parents who cast the blame on vaccines have never had a child before? That being the case, they don't really have anything 'normal' per se, to compare to. It isn't an easy thing to do, but a new parent really should take their lack of experience (because no amount of reading books or even baby sitting as a teenager, can give you experience for parenthood) into consideration, rather then assuming the worst. But it can be hard, particularly for the highly educated, to admit that they don't actually know everything and automatically have all the answers by default.