Estée KlarThe Joy of Autism

The Convoluted Meaning of Acceptance in 2009

Autism, like many other mental disabilities, is mostly referred to as a parent’s biggest burden and disappointment. Most of our Canadian autism organizations, wanting to be “non partisan” want to express the fear and anxiety that parents face, while also now advocating for acceptance and hope and for a better life for autistic people.

There is a benefit and a problem with advocating for both. One the one hand, it opens up new avenues for parents to consider the possibilities and rights of their child and their families to be included and acceptance regardless of disability. That can strengthen and empower families.

On the other hand, advocating acceptance, while still starving kids or giving them unsafe “treatments” is antithetical. Acceptance is not acquiescence, but does not mean subjugating autistic people to unfair and dangerous treatment such hyperbaric chambers, segregation, behavioural intervention as a sole educational method, and other unproven medical or non medical treatments. While it is encouraging as a founder of The Autism Acceptance Project to see that people really love their children, it is still puzzling why people do not understand the difference between acceptance and why the “cure” does not embrace acceptance at all. We do not accept disability, still, here in Canada and yet we don’t want to seem like bad parents. So, we get lost in the sea of language that in the end means nothing at the end of the day. We don’t want acceptance to mean nothing. We must never dilute its meaning.

Between 1870 and 1930, Western society changed their view of children from “objects of utility” to exclusively emotional and affective assets. In 1920, Canada was one of the strongest proponents of ‘mental hygiene” and eugenics. Dr. Helen MacMurchy was appointed the first chief of the Child Welfare Division of the federal department of health (Clarke). In 1917, Bertha Winn, head of Victoria’s special schools, stated the following in an address to the friends and members of the Women’s Canadian Club at Victoria’s Empress Hotel:

“The histories of thousands of these cases [of mental deficiency] reveal the tragic and pitiable fact that unless special provision is made for their custodianship earlier in life they will find their way into …crime, pauperism, vagrancy, prostitution, and general indecency…All mentally defective persons are antisocial in the sense that their presence in the community means disruption, disorder and dependency. They are the running wounds of society, infecting it and weakening its vitality, placing blight upon each succeeding generation. There is only one way to deal with this stupendous evil, and that is in checking it at its source – segregating all cases of mental defectiveness from the normal population.”

By 1925, the Legislative Assembly appointed the Royal Commission on Mental Hygiene to combat the perceived increase of mentally deficient individuals which lead to the ultimate passing of British Columbia’s Sexual Sterilization Act in 1933. It behooves us to look at our Canadian history to know that we are not innocent in the segregation, maltreatment and incarceration of disabled individuals — that it didn’t just happen in the United States and in Europe.

The lines between social and economic policy back then were blurred and mentally “deficient” children were considered an economic burden while other children were considered “priceless.” Such a comparison was made at the birth of the Dionne Quintuplets in what Mariana Valverde argued that the girls were victims of what she called “fractures in social regulation, a phrase she used to describe the processes by which social issues and problems were shifted from the expected regulatory category (such as race) to another (such as gender), depending on time, circumstance, and individual points of view.” (Clarke) Valverde argued that Ontario provincial government defined them as an economic entity and more specifically, as a resource that was to be administered to ensure the best possible revenue returns for the province (Clarke). While they were portrayed to the public as “models of childhood, in the eyes of authorities, they were no more ‘children’ than Mickey Mouse is a mouse.” While children on the one hand were sentimentalized and protected, children with mental disabilities were overshadowed by their classification as “defectives.”

In autism politics today, the virulent debates over precious children continue –many organizations argue that is an autistic child’s right to “medically necessary” ABA treatment in order that they behave less autistic — precisely because children are precious and must there be “saved from autism.” Others still refer to the blight of autistic people on society and their economic burden. If they are not saved or recovered or cured, they will continue to be disruptive and dependent. Many other autism organizations will argue that because they value and love their children, they will do anything – anything unproven and possibly dangerous – to save their children from autism. The lines between loving, valuing and accepting children, no matter what disability, and “recovery” and “cures,” as a display of love are unnervingly blurred.

It is interesting that the span of one hundred years has not changed the way we view and display our love for our children — no matter under what auspices. The same existed during the eugenics era here in Canada as well:

“Although the BC government increasingly ‘demonized’ mentally deficient children, it would be wrong to believe that they were totally dehumanized or that all members of BC society, professional or lay, agreed with and supported the authorities’ views and treatment of these children. Indeed…many mentally deficient children were dearly loved by their parents and protected by their communities. In a number of cases, individual parents and whole communities were willing to go to great lengths and expense to ensure the well being and freedom of their mentally deficient members. Equally, some doctors and school board officials openly questioned both the growing public hysteria, fueled by the rise of eugenics, relating to the supposed threat mentally deficient children presented to society and the provincial government’s policies designed to combat this ‘peril.’” (Clarke)

“In fact, some officials argued that these children did not present an imminent threat to society and that wherever possible, they should enjoy the same rights as did normal children. In other words, while many individuals, especially in the BC government, attempted to demonize children defined as mentally deficient, many others sacralized them.” (Clarke)

Terminologies such as “high grade mental deficients” or low grade were also employed during that era to determine human value. The point is, we have traversed one hundred years since the eugenics movement spread like wildfire throughout Canada – where immigrants were turned away for any mental disability, when people were sterilized, segregated and incarcerated in institutions.

Today, we are still fighting. Fighting over misunderstandings between high and low functioning classifications of people and severity and not getting much farther than we did one hundred years ago. Mentally disabled people are still being undervalued and mistreated. We must question the purpose these classifications and the identification of autistic people in general. Parents want to adore their children — as long as they are as normal as possible — and will go, in the name of love at any length to do so — no matter what the cost.

Educating, including and accommodating autistic individuals in society without the classifications and current Canadian surveillance programs is real acceptance. Parents who accept their children still go to great lengths to advocate for their children in a society that continues to put up barriers to inclusion in our schools and communities. It is still exhaustive work, and work that needs much more support than it has been given. Many of us who accept our children do not wish to be “surveiled.” We just want to live as we are in peace, and learn and contribute like everyone else.

As long as we insist on classifications, identifications for the sake of putting people in behaviour treatment and normalization programs, we have simply not evolved at all. So let’s all take a harder look at what we really mean when we accept our children, autism, and people of all disabilities.

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References:

Clarke, Nic. “Sacred Daemons: Exploring British Columbian Society’s Perceptions of “Mentally Deficiant” Children, 1870-1930 in BC Studies, 144 pp. 61-89.

Mariana Valverde, “Representing Childhood: The Multiple Fathers of the Dionne Quintuplets,” in Regulating Womanhood: Historical Essays on Motherhood and Sexuality, ed. Carol Smart (London: Routeledge, 1992), 119-46.

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