04/20/2025
There's a camaraderie between families who share similar experiences. We might not live near each other, we might not be able to have play dates with our kids, but when the chips are down we're out here pushing for our childrens' right to exist fully and safely in this world.
Right now this is more important than ever. I live in Canada and understand that our cultural landscape is intertwined with our southern neighbours. This post is for everyone, but particularly addressed to the rhetoric that is currently taking place regarding timelines and autism causality.
When I worked in the disability support sector, many of the people I cared for were disabled adults in their late 40's to early 60's. I cared for a man who had hepatitis since childhood because the institution he was left at by his family reused needles on disabled people. I cared for a nonspeaking autistic man who hadn't seen his family since he was left at an institution as a 5 year old. He understood everything, but even in the mid 2010's, this was not recognised. Almost everyone I cared for bore scars of institutional mistreatment, whether physical or mental.
If you are an abled person who was born between the 50's and 70's, you're absolutely right that you didn't see disabled people growing up. Doctors, social workers, and schools encouraged the institutionalisation of disabled children. Many disabled children were left at institutions and never saw regular family life, or even their families, again. This is what was considered normal during the institutional period of disability history. This was a period in the recent history of science and medicine in which someone's humanity was assumed to be present (or not) based on their proximity to a norm that our work still questions. Depending on where you live, the deinstitutionalisation of disabled people didn't happen until the 70's, and for some, even later.
A parent I know, whose child is much like mine, shared the following image to cast light on this history. This picture was taken in 1982. I can't imagine the fear and pain children felt to be kept in these conditions. I can't imagine the attitudes of the adults around them that led to their confinement. This is not ancient history.
When someone says there 'wasn't all this autism back in their day', think of this picture. Think of the many thousands of people whose lives were lived in squalid conditions and under state-sanctioned institutional neglect and mistreatment, and shut them down. Disabled people are often still overlooked and neglected in human rights movements. We neglect disability rights at our own collective peril, anyone can experience disability within their lifetimes, but beyond this truth, it is our collective duty.
This can never be a reality for children like mine, ever again.
