Wednesday, January 21, 2009

If the First Child had Autism

My latest HuffPo is HERE.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love your piece. Thank you for voicing what that day would have been like and the true changes we could hope for. All of us "autism moms" understand, why can't we get the world to understand???

Kathy in TX

Petra said...

Ah shit, Kim, you made me cry....

Anonymous said...

the autisometer .. indeed .. a finely tuned instrument, an exhausting but constant companion that we all know so well.

a perfect post

Lee said...

I loved the article. It moved me to tears.

I hate to say it, but maybe we need an autistic First Child. Imagine the support for autism if we did?

Anonymous said...

Want to make a grown man cry ?

Send him to an Autism Conference.

Want to continue to see him cry on a regular basis?

Sit with him each morning as he reads A of A so as to share in the often incredible and inspirational articles, many of which happen to be written by an amazing mom that he was lucky enough to befriend at one of those conferences.

Once again, an amazing piece that couldn't be more on the mark.

Thank you Kim for everything that you manage to do on a daily basis for not only your family but for all of ours as well.

Amanda said...

Well, quite probably accurate as your piece was, I can't help thinking an autistic First child would be kept off the radar.

The Obabmas have been well received over here with parallels being drawn between Michelle and Jackie O. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what Barak does now. He has my sympathies as so much is expected of him but whatever he does he can't stuff it up worse than Bush.

Anonymous said...

Kim -
We need to figure out a way to get this article on Obama's desk. Perhaps then he'll realize that screening every child by 2 (pun intended) is not enough.

Lee said...

Hi Diane (commenter): Is that what Obama intends to do - SCREEN every child by two? Is that IT?

That's like saying, well, we have a problem with 1 in 150 kids getting run over by trucks but don't worry, we'll check the bodies after the damage is done.

*sigh*

We need to be certain what is causing this epidemic, and stop it!

Anonymous said...

Daharja -

Yes - according to the new whitehouse.gov website, the new (and hopefully improved) government intends to screen every child. At birth and then again at 2.

Shoot 'em up and then test 'em. Oy.