parenthood

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apparntly is sponcered by autism speaks

i'm talking about the program, not being a parent

and i thought it had promise, oh well

It wouldn't surprise me, considering they had the head of Autism Speaks appear on the most recent episode. I forget if it's one of the writers or one of the producers who has am asperger's child, but that's why Max is on the show at all.

In general, I've enjoyed watching Parenthood and I like Max a LOT and I can understand his parents because I spend a fair amount of time talking to select parents of children on the spectrum and I see that it's really common for them to react the way Max's parents did on the show. I think Parenthood is one of the most realistic television shows dealing with autism that I've ever seen.

However, it does bother me a bit to see Autism Speaks put forth as such a great organization when I feel that they use us and lie about us to get more money and say terribly insulting things about us. Two-thirds of people on the autism spectrum are classed as "high functioning" (I don't like the term and what goes with it, but it's what's used, so . . .) Yet when a "high functioning" person on the spectrum complains about the things Autism Speaks says, they say, "we weren't talking about you; we were talking about the people who really need our help." Yet when they put out their statistics of all the children they will be helping, they count us so their numbers are three times higher than they would be otherwise, so they can get more money off our backs while insulting and ignoring us.

But I was able to mostly overlook all that in the most recent episode of "Parenthood" because something else bothered me more. It became clear that Max has never been told that he has asperger's syndrome or that he is on the autistic spectrum. He gets confused and a little frustrated when other kids don't want to play with him, and he has tons of therapy and a special therapist who visits the house, but no one has ever sat down and talked with him about his diagnosis and I think he's supposed to be about nine or ten years old so he's surely old enough to understand and process the information.

His mother talked to the doctor who diagnosed him and the doctor said it was okay to not tell him yet but they would know when the right time was because Max would have questions. Well, I've seen him have various questions all season but no one has told him and then at the end of the Autism Speaks episode, Max said, "dad, why did we give the money to the kids with autism instead of some other charity?" Mom and dad exchange worried looks and then dad lies: "because none of them had a trophy this great!" (The Braverman family won the trophy for the most miles/money on the Autism Speaks walk.) Max says, "yeah! This is a great trophy!" and that ends that.

But I didn't like that because, yet again, Max had a question. There is something in his world that doesn't quite fit and every time he asks about it, he gets a non-answer or a diversionary answer. People tend to look to television as their model of normality and that show is teaching that it's a good thing to not tell your autistic child that s/he's autistic. I don't agree with that at all and think Max should be getting more honest answers than he is. I'm waiting for the show, maybe a few seasons in, when Max finally finds out about his asperger's one way or another and is furious with his parents when he realizes how long they knew about it and never said anything to him. I know how I feel when I find out that the people around me have been keeping a secret from me for years -- especially when that secret is about me! -- and I think if the show wants to stay realistic, they need to show that consequence for Max's parents' decision to keep his diagnosis a secret from him for so long.