The Refrigerator Mother Theory

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It is use to be believed that the reason Autistic Children were so antisocial and had difficulty with interacting with others socially was the belief that the mother was cold and not affectionate in her upbring of her child.

Now we know the mothering is not the cause of Autism. But could it be that the refirgerator mother theory was established because the mother herself sometimes had Autism or Aspergers and appeared to those doing studies attributed her autistic behaviors as a cause?

I just think it kind of fits and makes sense. What do you think?

Best,

Idaho Aspie
www.AllThingsAspergers.com

My mum couldn't be further from the refrigerator mother stereotype.

My DAD on the other hand...

umm....my (seemingly AS)mom was generally depressed and overwhealmed alot of the time...

Before I saw this site, when I was reading a lot about AS and autism, I came across that exact idea. I wish I could remember where I read it. Maybe in a book about autism that I found at the library??

Anyway, it said that the original Refrigerator Mother Theory has been thrown out and that it can be explained by the theory that many parents of autistic children show some autistic behavior themselves; they may have AS, or be somewhere between NT and AS or HFA. Apparently, there is some evidence for this. It could indicate that autism is genetic. So in a sense, the Refrigerator Mother Theory was replaced by the Autism Is Genetic / Hereditary Theory.

I'd also suggest the possibility that the child's natural autistic (or temperament related) traits influence parenting style.

My son showed a very strong preference for not being held often, from the time he was just a few months old. Someone who observed our interactions after I learned to adapt to his needs might have come to the incorrect conclusion that he was not as affectionate as other children because I did not hold him as much. In reality it was the other way around--I dearly wished to hold him and he would not tolerate as much as I would have liked to give.

When you have two kids, and they are both diagnosed as autistic, there is no doubt in your mind that it is genetic.

And,as I studied autism to help my kids, I learned about AS. Reading the autobiographies of many adult aspies, I realized that quite of few of them were my own story.

chinapig wrote:

Ditto

I do know someone, on the other hand, she is definitely an Aspie, has 3 kids, two of which are very spectrum (one formally diagnosed I believe) and the third is likely in there too, and she is the farthest thing from that stereotype you can imagine. I'm not easily impressed and she is MAGIC with those kids, and can you imagine 3 spectrum kids under the age of 6??? The woman is incredible...

I can see where it may have happened with OTHERS though, easily. The spectrum is so wide and we're all affected differently.....

I am pretty sure some autism factors are hereditary because, I am HFA and I have a great neice who is also high functioning autistic. I can not imagine its just fate that our family got hit twice with the exact same form of lightening. She's doing well by the way. Watching her make sense of the world establishing her order her systems, I am so proud... SO PROUD!

That makes a lot of sense. Children do have their own personalities, and raising a child is an on-going interaction with another unique individual. I have heard many parents say that they have learned a lot from their children. I wonder why this has evidently not always been taken into account in the formulation of ideas about children and parenting.

My mother is an oven mother. :)

Kanner first said that perhaps the intellectual parents; parents of a "higher" educational and economic status were somehow implicated in the presentation of the children he had. This is where the theory started.

That makes a good deal of sense too. Imagine a mother with a mild form of AS and a child with extreme sensitivity issues and Autism.

That's pretty much what I was living for a while! It turned out that my son is not autistic after all, but he was evaluated as having pervasive developmental delays when he was about 17 months old. It was interacting with my child that led me to read up on AS and find a name for what I've been living all my life.

I can't tell how much of my discomfort with adult, non-romantic touching (hugging friends or being in very close physical proximity to someone who is not a romantic interest) stems from my natural disposition and how much is due to parental/cultural influence. Does anybody else wonder similar things?

The first time I saw "physical touching needs" described as something felt even by voluntarily celibate people, I was completely baffled. No one in my family really likes touching anyone else, and when my mom noticed I liked the bottle better than being breast-fed, she just rolled with it.

She was attentive, and would show affection by laying next to me on the floor and reading to me, but we rarely felt the need to touch.

So what's that, a room-temperature mother?

I actually used to take my used towel to bed with me, because clamminess felt so much more soothing than soft warmth. I'd say my mom was just responding to my nature perfectly.

I think people with a tendency to use AS systemising are more likely to develop it when they see it modelled for them by a parent - as in my case.
However I have found you can unlearn AS, thankfully - http://unlearningasperger.blogspot.com/

It definitely could be that some so-called refrigerator mothers were autistic themselves to some degree, it could also be that an NT mother would have difficulty bonding properly to an autistic child, even a "high functioning" one, making her demeanor less engaging, but not "causing" the autism. There probably were some cases of child abuse that rendered autistic children, who are arguably more sensitive than NT children, unrecognizably less functional. But mothers used to be blamed for everything under the sun, whether they were culpable or not. The truth is that much of our personality is inborn-- at least that is the impression I get from the adoption studies I've read. A child will have physicality (i.e. weight, energy) and personality closer to their biological parents than their adoptive parents, even when raised apart from birth.

Oh, I forgot to mention an interesting thing I read-- an article about anonymous sperm donation, where the offspring of certain donors were found to have certain genetic problems yet the sperm banks continued selling the sperm even after known defects were reported. One case mentioned in the article was of a man whose sperm produced six children by six mothers, and all six children had autism to some degree (2 were low functioning, the rest were over the spectrum). Obviously in that case it had to be the father, not the mother, and it was genetic.