2025-09-23 09:17 UTC
@Mabande@mastodon.social @VeryBadLlama@mas.to Mother to child "It's yer Dad's fault you are like you are. He never had any time for you he was always out trainspotting in his anorak
It's just lucky that you have me to look after you".
Mother wanders off to her knitting pattern room. A collection containing 4327 different patterns all ordered on shelves using a version of the Dewey decimal system adapted by the mother when the collection became unmanageable.
The child carries on playing with their Brio train set.
Replies (1)
-
@Mabande@mastodon.social 2025-09-24 20:10
@the_wub@mastodon.social Sorry for the late reply, I got sidetracked. Thing is: the poem didn't frame autism as anything bad — it's not the dads _fault_, it's just _from the dad_ — so reframing it as an abusive parental situation seems a bit, for lack of better wording, in search of a conflict that really isn't there? Sure, the mother _could_ have been one of the "cold mothers"* the French are so fond of blaming for autism, but there's no hint of it. __ * a catch-all for anything from autistic to spiteful