Cotton-Pickin’ Days

Hsien, Thank you _so much_ for posting this. The response to the photos on AutismVox has been overwhelming, to say the least. I’ve certainly been hugging Charlie very tight when he gets off his new schoolbus.

Kristina: Don’t hug him TOO TOO tight!!! I know it’s not quite a thing to joke about but I hope Katie is surrounded by love and laughter now and participating in it herself.

Wow – the commentary that follows is rather frightening. There are people who think it’s ok to kill a child with autism?

this is saddening. I so do not think that the girl was in any sort of pain. She had such loving grandparents and daddy.

I was quite disturbed by the anger towards the mother…let her without sin cast the first stone. In the newspaper yesterday a father had poisoned his 21month daughter with caustic soda…Parenting has many facets, post-natal depression can last a long time, and it can be difficult to bond with an autistic child. I know nothing of the case, but I have clear memories of moments of anger towards my children, the constant demands, the exhaustion, and mine were normal and I didn’t have PND. It’s a tragedy, but I have yet to be convinced that the mother was evil.

river2sea72: That’s probably oversimplifying. I think there are people who are sympathetic to the mother and what they perceive as her plight.

smallbully: That’s what it sounds like anywa….

snowy: I don’t know if I would use evil to describe her either. Clearly, what she did was wrong but there must have been many mitigating factors that pushed her over the eduge.

I disagree. It is evil to kill your child, lie about it and say that the child is sleeping, arrange the dead child to look like she’s taking a nap, ***go out for ice cream,*** and ditch the murder weapon (a plastic bag). It is wrong to twist Jesus’s words around, saying “Let her without sin cast the first stone.” Murder is murder, sin is sin, evil is evil. It is what it is, no matter who is doing it, or why.