A question that I've been pondering...
I don't so much mean, do older parents with an adult Asperger son or daughter now accept them as opposed to when they were kids...but rather, do parents of today (mostly from Gen X) who still have <18 year-old children accept them more? I mean with all the awareness and media exposure of Aspergers in the past decade, plus increasing Asperger incidences in schools...you'd think parents would be more understanding and accepting. My Dad who was an early baby boomer was more enlightened and supportive about it once I gave him my diagnosis (as a young man, about 10 years ago), my mom somewhat - but I know that several parents of their generation would still cringe at their son/daughter being "different" and use all the cliches of denial i.e. "It's all in your head", "You're just like everyone else, you just need to try harder"...bla bla bla.
I suppose it is disconcerting to think that it was YOUR DNA that is on the line, so to speak, and that you produced an offspring who was "challenged" in some way. So many parents have chosen the path of denial. But I suspect based on my impressions that most parents have accepted the inherent differences of their child, been less harsh and more enlightened, and wish others would treat them the same.
Obviously, if it was an Aspie parent of an Aspie child, the acceptance factor is expected to be there 99% of the time. I'm ostensibly talking about NT parents' acceptance of having an Aspie child. Especially if it's a very extroverted rough-and-tough dad who likes his bar buddies, and works in sales or construction jobs or as a police officer. But I would see that as rare. More often Asperger children come from parents who might have PhDs in engineering, science or medicine or something like that (like my dad) i.e. more professorial, introverted types. So it follows that such parents might have greater ease in accepting their Asperger offspring due to shared (nay, inherited!) traits.
Does anyone agree or disagree of a greater trend of parental acceptance these days?
31 Mar 2013, 9:27 pm
