May 22nd, 2006 by Jemaleddin Cole

For those that thought I was being a little harsh to the ladies of the “Autism Every Day” video, please check out this Chan­nel 19 report, Mother con­fesses to suf­fo­cat­ing daughter:

Morton Police said 37-year old Karen McCar­ron con­fessed to suf­fo­cat­ing her three-​year-​old daugh­ter, Katherine…

Kather­ine McCar­ron had been diag­nosed with autism.

Morton police said Karen said she wanted to end her pain and her daughter’s pain, as well.

But that’s an iso­lated inci­dent. We also have a murder-​suicide in England:

Police have iden­ti­fied a body found in the River Humber as that of a mother who appar­ently jumped to her death with her 12-year-old autis­tic son.

Two thoughts:

  1. When these folks talk about killing their kids, they’re not kid­ding. Some­body needs to step in when people start talk­ing about killing their chil­dren and take these things seri­ously. I don’t want to fall into the 24-news-channel “any 3 related events is an epidemic” fal­lacy, but the fact that in each of these sto­ries the moth­ers are being por­trayed not as killers, but as poor sad women pushed to the edge makes me sick.
  2. There’s a rela­tion­ship between depres­sion and autism. Autism Diva writes: “The major­ity—but not all—par­ents of autis­tic kids are autis­tic, BAP, bipo­lar, OCD or unipo­lar depres­sive. Autism Diva thinks that espe­cially ten­den­cies toward OCD and bipo­lar are seen in some of the more vocal parents.” I can’t speak to what the per­cent­ages are, but when physi­cians diag­nose chil­dren with Autism, they need to take a closer look at the parents.

UPDATE, May 24, 2006: A third makes the epi­demic official.

An Albany couple has been charged with first-​degree arson and first-​degree manslaugh­ter in the death of their 19-year-old son, who died after being burned in an apart­ment fire.

Accord­ing to Albany police, Nico­laas Dirk DeG­root, 45, and Agnes Eliz­a­beth DeG­root, 48, started a fire in their apart­ment and left their son, who had severe autism, locked inside.

Category: Autism, News
Newer Entry: My new favorite ringtone
Older Entry: Sunday Morning Brunch

2 Responses to “Autistics’ Parents Considered Harmful”

  1. Here’s another one for you. The orig­i­nal arti­cle:

    http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A107423&comments=yes

    Com­men­tary on the arti­cle from Whose Planet Is It Anyway?:

    http://​autis​ticbfh.​blogspot.​com/​2​0​0​6​/​0​8​/​i​d​e​n​t​i​f​y​i​n​g​-​p​r​o​b​l​e​m​.html

    http://​autis​ticbfh.​blogspot.​com/​2​0​0​6​/​0​8​/​m​u​r​d​e​r​o​u​s​-​t​h​o​u​g​h​t​s​.html

    I *really* like the “Murderous Thoughts” post.

    My own com­men­tary to the arti­cle can be found on my blog, but I chose to focus on some­thing else:

    http://​www.​autiemom​s​peak​sout.​word​press.com

    autiemom

    — autiemom August 20th, 2006 at 3:50 pm #

  2. Hello, i love http://​www.​tan​gle​bones.com! Let me in, please :)

    — Lusidvicel December 18th, 2006 at 10:34 am #