The Onion: Autistic child ruins marriage he was born to save

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Monique, there is a popular misconception among people who should never have gotten married that they can "fix everything" if they just have a child - the loving little bundle of goo will just magically cure all their arguments, tantrums, and general dislike of each other.

And of course having an autistic child can put strain on almost any relationship (unless, apparently, daddy is an aspie and mommy is depressive - for some reason, we've never tried to "blame" each other for our daughter, and have loved each other right on through).

Therefore, if the couple were already having trouble and then had an autistic child, they might try to put the blame on the baby for not "bringing them together" the way he/she was "supposed" to. And a great deal of the humor in the Onion comes from subverting the reader's expectations - in this case, treating such an unreasonable idea as if it held merit. (That's why their stories seem to be hit-and-miss with the autistic audience - we just don't have as many expectations of human behavior. I probably wouldn't have thought this was at all funny about twenty years ago, before I learned how most people think...