Autism and Institutional Mistrust of Mothers.

Autism and Institutional Mistrust of Mothers

I come across this regularly in my battle to advocate for my son’s special educational needs.

And my encounter with our Local Authority today has provided me with yet another example of how insidious Mother-Misogyny is.

Approximately two hours, into a three hour meeting-a-thon, we began to discuss the inclusion of a provision I had requested – that all health and social care professionals working with my son should have received autism awareness training. There was an immediate shift in room tension as my son’s Local Authority caseworker visibly squirmed in his seat.

“I’m just trying to think practically”, he tentatively began. “This would include all health professionals – so if X was referred for an assessment for his hypermobility but the Occupational Therapist didn’t have autism training then you would be able to veto that treatment.”

(Why would I want to stop my son receiving health treatment, I screamed silently inside. Do you honestly think that lowly of me?)

I referred him to the Nice Guidelines for the Support and Management of Autism Spectrum Disorder in under 19s:

“Health and social care professionals working with children and young people with autism in any setting should receive training in autism awareness and skills in managing autism…”

And then I reframed the discussion around the detrimental effects of mismanaging autism and autistic behaviour. Do we really want X to enter mental health crisis for want of some simple accommodations?

I shouldn’t be needing to argue this – there is existing national guidance. Which, funnily enough, doesn’t provide any reference to how deceitful and untrustworthy mothers may manipulate said guidance in order to prevent their children from accessing health care.

So why is this analysis of Mothers applied so readily by the professionals working with our SEN children?

Temple Grandin writes that “a common pattern I have observed is that mom’s sometimes overprotect and dad’s want to see if the child is capable of more”. As mothers, parenting autistic children, we really cannot win. In the 1950’s we were blamed for the condition itself, told that our cold parenting style created autistic presentations. Contemporary analysis implies that indulgent mothering is holding our autistic children back from reaching their full potential. Mother-blaming lingers in the background…

I am unfortunate enough to not only be Mother, but to also be a SINGLE MOTHER. There is a special amount of mistrust saved especially for us on account of cultural stereotyping providing us with vengeful characteristics. Subsequently our male counterparts collectively have a louder and more trustworthy voice.

Later on in our meeting, several of my proposed amendments were vetoed purely on the basis that Dad may contest these. Dad wants X in a particular type of school, and quickly. Conveniently forgetting that the actual reason my son was not attending any school setting was due to debilitating levels of anxiety and demand avoidance.

Regardless of the numerous professional reports, clearly stating the extremities of my child’s needs , the male voice is still being adhered to as priority. Relegating my own voice to one that lacks credibility. It happens with such a degree of regularity and across so many agencies that I find it very difficult to view it as anything other than entrenched, institutional, misogyny.
#autism #SEN #PDA #EHCP #anxiety #misogyny