Woman calls 911, says she strangled autistic children

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

Now, consider how much "fun" it'll be to be parenting such kids, trying to bludgeon them into some semblance of normality or at least of limited independence. Without having experienced the actual despair and hopelessness of this entire enterprise, un-objective normative "blindfire" lambasting of this tragedy does no one any good.

It really is difficult, and I think it takes a lot of support for people raising autistic kinds to really make it through. I think there is no question that while what the mother did is extremely wrong, I don't think we can immediately assume full responsibility and blame here. There has got to be more to the story, and she should never have been allowed to get to such a state. She failed, but somewhere somehow I am sure that someone had failed her too.

I lost a severely autistic cousin this year and this was really devastating for the entire family. She had really given me a sense of how really life-changing it is to have an autistic child in the family, both in good and bad ways. To say they are difficult to deal with is an understatement. To say they are not able to have a good life in the care of a family is also untrue, but only if the family supports each other in the endeavour - this is extremely hard work. For my cousin, it meant 24/7 work. It literally turned her mother's (i.e. my aunt's) entire life almost 180 degrees - she had to start on a completely new career and education path, and in fact a whole side of my family revolved around my autistic cousin for the 11 years of her life. She gave everyone a sort of center for attention and care. Tragically, she died in an accident 5 months ago, in part due to a minute lapse in that 24/7 supervision she needed.

As for this case, no dispute that this is homicide. But I personally hope for a term of non-optional medical and psychiatric care for the mother rather than punishment. Her future life needs to be monitored. I don't think the society stands to gain anything from throwing this woman in jail and removing her from the streets. She probably poses more danger to herself now than to anyone else.