Autistic Parents: Not Such Rare Birds

Melody, the administrator of the AS Parenting website and forum, has announced that she is seeking new members and contributors. The site had been inactive for the past few months because of her family's move to Dallas. She says that she envisions the site as "all encompassing. Not only for parenting tips, but general life tips and for policy/politics."

I hope that those of my autistic readers who are parents will consider participating in this very worthwhile effort to provide an online community and positive resources for parents on the spectrum. At present there is a great dearth of such resources, not because autistic parents are uninterested in them or exist in numbers too small to benefit from them, but because the widespread stereotypes to that effect have discouraged their development.

We've all seen claims that autistic parents are as rare as unicorns, but it's actually quite common for a parent to be identified as autistic after his or her child has been so identified. The flourishing autistic community on the Internet has made autistic parents, through their presence on websites, much more visible; I'll note that the Autism Hub alone has at least ten autistic bloggers who are parents. As for the small but vociferous group of haters in the Maxine Aston/FAAAS orbit who contend that many children are growing up neglected by autistic parents, their unfounded stereotypes also can be effectively rebutted by the existence of positive parenting communities like AS Parenting.

It's pretty hard to stereotype autistic parents either as near-nonexistent or as cold and unfeeling when many of them are actively posting on parent community forums and seeking advice on their kids' playdates and homework, just like their non-autistic neighbors in suburbia.