Another autistic child killed by a parent. "Not surpris

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I am so tired of news reports defending and excusing parents who kill their autistic children and, further, vilifying the children.

Distraught mother kills herself, and son with severe autism - BC | Globalnews.ca

For instance, this video begins by pointing to the "emotional and financial stress" of autism on families. No mention is given to the stress on autistic children of trying to live in families in which their murder is possibly being considered as an option. Also note how the newsman pronounces the word autism as if he's saying something that leaves a bad taste.

As it goes on, Robbie Robertson is described in as having been "violent," with no explanation as to what this refers to. A little digging and I discovered what I was 90% sure I would discover. He would bang his own head when he had autistic meltdowns and push his mother away. (I'm mildly autistic, not diagnosed until age 57, and have resorted to head banging myself during meltdowns.) Now, on the other hand, his mother, who killed him, is not described as violent but as "distraught" when she in fact performed an act of ultimate violence against her child by killing him. She is described as being under "unbearable stress" and her act of killing him is described as "not surprising." The dead Robbie is described in this article as having been found "resting peacefully in his bed" almost as if someone had done him a favor. No longer "violent" but now "peaceful."

One woman, Faith Bodner of Inclusion BC, who was interviewed in the first article had the grace to mourn the loss to his community of Robbie and all he could have achieved.

This is sort of coverage is par for the course. I'm sick of it.




Side Note: This topic is the mirror to one I posted in a religious forum yesterday. I'm curious as to how responses here might differ or be the same. Thanks.

Maybe if you were responsible for the support and daily care of a severely autistic teenaged son, on your own, and without necessary help, you might be more sympathetic. I sometimes hear people talk on this site as though caregivers have endless reserves of money, time, nerves, strength, ability to cope. It isn't true. Caregiving can be unbelievably difficult, stressful, grueling work.

She couldn't take or do any more, and was desperate. Her options were to abandon him to foster care and then likely prison, meaning a lifelong horrorshow for him, and survive herself; kill herself, and see him abandoned to the same fate; or do a mercy killing and kill herself too.

Also, "pushing his mother away" at his age is something quite different from having a 4-year-old "push his mother away". We have enough stories of parents of severely autistic children suffering repeated physical injuries at the hands of their children. Her life was an unrelenting nightmare and she saw no escape, no hope of anything improving.

If you want to point anger and outrage at something, point it at a society unwilling to give the help actually needed to care for these children. I have seen what it can do to parents, not to have that help, and I'm only surprised this story doesn't come true more often.

She shouldn't be looking after him then. No, not having the ability to look after the children is not a reason to kill them. Plus, parents of NT children who have similar problems who don't get support, don't get the same kind of sympathy if they kill their children as parents of autistic children do. Why are we defending parents who kill their children? They don't deserve sympathy regardless of the reasons. And stop calling it a "mercy killing", that's a load crap.

Mercy killing?

That is sickening....think I almost threw up a little out of disgust.

Having been suicidal myself it somewhat pains me to say this, but if she was so miserable why didn't she just off herself instead of taking her son with her? Yes maybe she was not the one to take care of him, perhaps things wouldn't have been wonderful in foster care but at least he wouldn't have gotten murdered by his own mother. Sorry I just don't have sympathy for people killing their child....unless its something like euthenasia if they develop such a condition they are going to die and be in significant pain up until that point in that case its understandable. But killing a child just because you can't cope with taking care of them is sick.

Also perhaps his mother really was completely overwhelmed and out of her head and what not, but it is pretty disgusting how the article tries to justify her behavior and dehumanize the autistic kid who got murdered.

I notice you have a relative with diagnosed autism but apparently no autism yourself, do you feel they would benefit from a mercy killing? Are those of us on the spectrum just a plauge on this earth who makes everyone else's life a living hell? Perhaps if you had autism you would understand we are people to and have just as much of a right to exist without being murdered as anyone else.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 01 May 2014, 3:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Someone on the other website, where I have a mirror to this topic, questioned as to whether there were all that many instances of parents killing autistic children.

After listing links to seven incidents I couldn't' take it anymore and went for a walk, sort of hugging myself as I walked. It was the weird little details that got to me. In one instance the mom went for ice cream afterwards. In another instance, the mom and grandmother killed the cat while they were at it.

In only one article was the murdered child described in terms of her abilities and potential.

I'd like to preface my response by first saying that this is a very sad story, and the child should not have been killed by his mother....
But.

It is obvious to me that someone who kills their own child is mentally ill in some way or another. Nobody completely 'right the head' would do such a thing. So add a severely autistic child to an already mentally ill mother, things go downhill.

My eldest son is a severely autistic teenager (turns 15 soon). I love him dearly, and have never considered killing him at all. I don't think he's a bad person who wants to hurt me. I know when he's having a meltdown, he isn't trying to hurt people; he's overwhelmed. But does he hurt me? Oh, yeah. In fact, as I write this, I have a black eye, thanks to my son. He is very violent, regardless of intention. I think you were trying to point out that this boy wasn't a bad person, like some kid who is beating up his mother for laughs, which I agree with, but you can't poo-poo being pushed around by your teenage son. The thing with head-banging too, is that you have to stop your child from doing it (my son would smash his head open if I didn't), and physically stopping him, results in me being injured, because he's strong.

Another thing is, I'm noticing people saying, "Well, she should have put him into foster care/ given up custody". You guys must have a lot more faith in the "system" than I do then. Because where I live, putting a severely autistic teenager into the foster care system, is not a nice thing to do for that child. There is NO WAY a severely autistic teenager would be treated properly in foster care. Absolutely none. They would be abused, they would be sent from home to home, eventually insitutionalised, where the abuse would continue, with no-one to advocate for them. So I don't find it the least bit surprising that the mother of this particular teenager, did not consider that to be an option. Of course she didn't. Because if she loved her son, she wouldn't want that for him.

Of course now he is dead, he doesn't have a life at all, but if you consider that she is a mentally ill, highly stressed (and YES having a severely autistic child IS highly stressful; financially, mentally and physically) mother, feeling like there is no hope for her son, she sees his death as putting him out of the inevitable misery that his life will become/ perhaps already is. It makes sense, if you consider it from that perspective.

I'm in no way saying that her son didn't deserve to live, but I am saying that having a severely autistic child IS hard, and no foster care is not a magical solution. What stories like these show is that there is not enough help for FAMILIES. Since you seem to disregard the parents as having any problems, it may cheer you to hear that I am mainly thinking of autistic individuals here. If there was more financial support for programs for these individuals, it would really help parents. We're broke, and everyone I know with a severely autistic child is too (I happen to have 2, which means double the costs! Yippee!). Why? Because we all have poor money management skills? No; because autism costs and arm and a leg, that's why. What that means is that not only are the parents stressed financially, the children don't receive all the services they need, which makes them more difficult to deal with, which increases stress. Mental health services for parents who are struggling would be another good investment. Having a severely autistic child, whether you want to believe it or not, can seem like an endless, hopeless, depressing thing. The struggles you have with your child don't stop in 2 years, like they do with typically developing children, they never stop, you do this until you die. Thinking of it like that, can cause depression. There are other ways of thinking of it too, and those are things that someone working with a depressed parent could help them realise.

So anyway I'll stop going on now. I just think it's sad all around. Sad for the boy. Sad for the family. And yes, sad for the mother.

Edit: Okay I can't stop yet. I wanted to add also that I agree that the wording of him being violent alive and then peaceful dead, is upsetting. It definitely could have been worded better.

Ok I am going to stop you right there, I am a mentally ill person and do not like being categorized with child murderers. Not saying mentally ill people cannot murder their children but that is by no means a pre-requisite. Also as far as the facts are concerned mentally ill people tend be less likely to commit violent acts than the general public and more likely to suffer from violence from others. So no it is not impossible for a non mentally ill person to do something so vile.

If mental illness was a significant factor and the mother was completely delusional and out of her head and essentially had no idea what they were doing...or if they had a very severe case of DID and essentially turned into someone else and did it. I'd then be more likely to show some sympathy...but sadly yes even normal non mentally ill people can do terrible things....from what has been said so far in the thread no mental illness per say was implied. If I read up more and find that to be a significant factor so be it, but there is a good chance it wasn't the case.

I never said mentally ill people are murderers. I said that mothers who murder their children are mentally ill. There is a HUGE difference. I am well aware that not all mentally ill people are murderers, or even most of them. (edit). Just like all horses are animals but not all animals are horses. That is true, is it not?

If you're at the point of murdering your child, you are not well. That place you are in is not a healthy, happy one. I'm not entirely sure how that doesn't make sense to you. Maybe you can clarify?

Last edited by WelcomeToHolland on 01 May 2014, 3:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

May I just be the first to second sweetleaf's elementary conclusion that less death = good? The mother's suicide easily could have called attention to the boy's illness and brought in additional third party help he clearly needed. It seems to me that mental illness genotypes in his mother could've transcoded to low functioning autism in the son, or at least some of his comorbid conditions.

If he was given up to foster care, or the mom gave up custody....yes there are lots of problems in the system, it is very unfortunate, but at least they would have a chance....killing them completely prevents that. Also though there actually are people who try and advocate for autistics, not all people in the psychology field or whatever are abusive nor would they abuse autistic people....people do have rights, I am sure at the very least a social worker would have seen the kid at some point had the custody been given up....and they are supposed to report abuses. For instance when I was in the psych ward I had a social worker talk to me and she was very clear about the fact if I felt mistreated I needed to tell her because part of her job is to make sure people get proper mental health care and not abuse.

So yes abuse could happen, it can and does....but I don't know from my experience there is a good chance after the fact I'd prefer to be hospitalized end up experiencing mistreatment and still have my life rather than having killed myself via overdose. Likewise an autistic person might prefer to deal with some crap and potentially need to seek out help and what not rather than be killed by their parent.

But I would say our system needs some improvement....safe places for people like the kid in the article need be be funded where they can go, be taken care of and not abused...there would have to be heavy regulations on how the staff can treat the people and such. The only reason long term institutions are ever a bad thing is when there is abuse and mistreatment going on...but some people really do need the help and can't live on their own. Unfortunately I don't have a perfect solution but i really think there does need to be improvements....so if and when a child with an issue like autism cannot be taken care of by their parents they can still be taken care of and have the chance at life.

You don't have to be mentally ill to kill people...how can I be any more clear than that? A big problem in society is they think they can just stigmatize the mentally ill as violent ticking time bombs just waiting to kill someone, no one likes to see the truth which is humans in general are capable of extreme cruelty, mental illnesses/problems is not a pre-requisite for that. But no one likes to admit anyone could be driven to do horrible things....its easier to push it on the mentally ill and pretend only us mentally ill people do stuff like that.

Not all parents who murder their children are mentally ill.

Well I think there are different kinds of killing. Some are not committed by someone who is mentally ill...such as killing to get something or killing for revenge or killing because you were told to (eg war). But when a mother kills her child, it is none of those things. It is coming from a place of hopelessness, which I consider to be mentally ill since there was hope, she just couldn't see it. I guess your definition is different...

Decades of living torment for the autistic, aggressive son in institutional non-autism-specific care (foster, jail) with no one advocating for him, versus death: a depressed parent can easily conclude that a swift death is more merciful.

It's obvious to me that there are few parents on this thread. The one thing you'll hear repeatedly from parents of severely autistic or otherwise disabled children is the terror of what will happen to the kids after the parents die or can no longer look after them, advocate for them, pay for services, get the children through life. There are many people who'll tell you that there are things worse than death.

No, it could not have easily called attention to the boy's autism. The services did not exist. That's why she had no hope. I don't think you understand what it takes to develop and implement services. No one was going to step in, rescue him, and make sure he got the help and support he needed.

Also, please stop conflating mental illness and autism.