Did you have a "Refrigerator mother"? (Poll)

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I completely reject that theory. My parents are two of the kindest, warmest and most loving people you will ever meet in your life. When I was first diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, my mom blamed herself. But when we went to see Idaho's leading autism specialist to confirm the diagnosis, he reassured her that it wasn't her fault, that I was born this way.

Yes I put in yes because I was often rejected a lot and thought of as someone not spoken about before 1974. OK my mum used to red bedtime stories but there was not really any emotional warmth from her and my dad was a violent acoholic who used to beat my mum, my sister up and also beat me. That caused PTSD. However my Asperger syndrome I was born with it and would have been without having that abusive background.

My mother was preoccupied with her own life. She tried. She was very autistic-like in a way. Strict routines, meltdowns, and a few other minor things but the fits better in the borderline category than autstic based on her ability to manipulate and high emotional intelligence,

My mother was nicer to me than she was to my sister, She struck my sister multiple times but never laid a hand on me. But like I said she was very preoccupied to be a mother, she was always working, watching tv or reading the news paper, when she did interact with us it was usually scolding us. There were some nice moments like I remember I got the chicken pox and my mom stayed home with me, gave me oatmeal baths, baking, gardening, it was just nice. She became VERY cold when I hit my early teens. Once she left the province without telling me so I just stayed home alone for 2 days. She's also a high functioning alcoholic. She's gone now, I haven't seen her in 2 years, she lives in the other side of the country.

My mom is a lot like fathers were in the 1960 breadwinner families, disciplinary, not very affectionate. My father was my mother.

I felt like my mother was rejecting, cold, and angry at me much of the time.

There were warm moments, though.

Nope. Not at all. Both my parents were generally warm and loving.

Both my parents have some autistic traits, but they certainly weren't "cold".

That there are cold and unloving parents is a tragic and indisputable fact of human life. The conflation of that with autism was misguided and driven by the patriarchal psychoanalytic theory (which was often aimed at women rather than about them). This patriarchal psychology was very dominant during Bettelheim's liftetime, and cruelly applied as a form of accusation and blame.

Some children (NT and neurodiverse) are born to parents that couldn't raise chickens in a hen house safely, and the most unfortunate minority are born to the "cluster B" parents - sociopathic, narcisstic, psychopathic. To conflate that misfortune with autism and claim it as a cause is just wrong - scientifically, morally, culturally and historically.

I have great respect for the late Alice Miller's courage in naming the abuses children suffer when there was still a societal conspiracy of silence - and that silence was reinforced by Sigmund Freud's claim that children only imagine sexual abuse, as a wishful fantasy. It took great courage at the time for Miller to stand against this psychoanalytic hegemony which distorted reality under the cloak of scientific objectivity, and assert the facts: that children suffer terrible forms of abuse. It took decades for the lies and myths of the concealers to be undone, and that gave many abusers a licence to abuse more children more often.

We have this in another thread. N o Poll I'll restate.
My mother is likely on spectrum and may be specifically tested soon. She was like having a crazy teen uncle. She as terrible mother in the stereotype sense of word. Awful! Phail! But not a terrible person. I was not really neglected or rejected (though she often made it obvious she preferred boys and her one rotten act, she a few times went out way when wanting my favor, of saying my dad wanted a son more. Well DOH he did! He was end of his line. But he was mom , dad, trainer, tutor, provider, confident, friend, authority all in one and never ONCE gave me a feeling of not being enough. Never complaining, often cheerful & efficient Okay he was a lousy mouth drunk tho yike )

Mom was disassociated with us on most given days and concentrated in a very OCD way on her favorite hobbies.
She was crazy scary a few years on meds from VA when she first was cut from Army for service connected major injury.
But I was already well in charge of running the household by then. But she was not 'COLD" in way those theories run. And she fed me, washed dishes and ironed, mowed lawn, fixed our cars. I just preferred my own cooking after I was 7. She annoyed me but I never felt she didn't care.
None of your selections fit her so I chose none. My mom was my father anyway. Growing up I lacked for nothing pretty much until my mom got a wild hair during a separation and went and married someone ....lol before an actual divorce (did I mention she was a math genius who was illiterate til 40?).

I also was not bereft of female figures even if my biological mom was a bit screwloose. I had my Grandmothers, Aunties, Godmother around a lot.

I was pretty practical kid. Despite a few bad moments in history of my life, I never really thought that something I couldn't do was because anything they did/didn't do/say.

I assume that was addressed to the OP, not me.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23atXRFGMOw

I have just discoved this extraordinary talk given at Columbia University which made me aware that it is highly probable that the post-war refugee Bruno Bettelheim, the "inventor" of the Refrigerator Mother Cause of Autism, faked his credentials and the data he used to support his claims. I found further reputable evidence for that claim in a web search.

His so called "proof" was used as justification for forcible removal of autistic children from their families in the middle of last century.

I know he committed suicide later in life and wonder if the cause of that was the realisation of the harm he had caused..and how he had caused that harm. We can't know, though the information about the fakery is another piece in the concerning history in the politics of autism. If the claims are true, this theory and its effects is one of the most shameful episodes in the whole political history. It also demonstrates once more that we have to exercise caution always, particularly about all of the single-cause claims, and that the confusion of claims with fact can suck in peer professionals in a field..

And the saddest thing of all - he got away with it:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1997 ... al-illness

My parents were not perfect by any means but they were definitely loving and nurturing and patient especially when we were little and not just to us but to each other as well. There is no way at all that either one of them could have had any refrigerator parent traits. Not even a tittle bit. And they ended up with a kid with Autism and a kid with Schizophrenia which, I have learned, are from the same genetic issue.

My mother could never be considered a refrigerator mother.
She's more like a deep freeze.

Mine was more like a flaming oven fuelled by rage!

Nothing against Koreans, but they also believe that sleeping with an electric fan on in the room all night will kill you. All fans sold in S. Korea have timers on them for this reason.

I've slept with an electric fans over me many times.

I'm still here (to the detriment of all my colleagues )

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

Cultures are often subject to this kind of misconception.