Episode 2: Refrigerator What?!!

Steps Care: The Talk

Welcome to Steps Talk. This is our second podcast of the second season. Today is my first day back to school for the second semester. The first week of one of my classes is covering the history of autism. I'm not sure why I didn't already know this. I guess I didn't feel the need to know the history. I have been living in the here and now since day one of my son and daughter's diagnosis.

In the 1950's they would call the mothers of children with autism "refrigerator moms." Because it had to be their fault that their children didn't make eye contact, or had speech delays because their moms didn't talk to them enough. They believed that these were mothers who were cold and not good mothers.

It is interesting to me that there were people that treated me like they believed that this was me, a cold mother. It was weird to me that I was treated this way since I had always been involved with teaching and working with young students. Now that I had my own children I was all of a sudden a bad mother?? It didn't make sense to me until this past week. Maybe some of that ideology is floating around in the judgement being pushed off on families. The history surrounding disability is just not pretty and maybe it should be left in the history. It has no place in special needs ministry.

This week we talk about how we need to set aside our assumptions about what a mom or dad should do and just love them. Celebrate every accomplishment no matter how big or small. This is a ministry for celebrations and excitement. This should be a place to support and encourage and even elevate when possible. I'm including a link to a short clip of Temple Grandin talking about some of the history of autism. https://youtu.be/DHTlcABmyCw Hopefully your ministry plans can include taking care of these sweet parents. Make life a little bit easier for them.

To find more information about all that we do at Steps Care Please go to stepscare.org and to talk to someone about getting involved in what we do around here please shoot us an email at [e-mail]

Thank you for joining us this week. We hope you've been inspired!