Autism, Community and the Killing of a Child
My heart is breaking at the number of cases of mothers killing or attempting to kill their children with autism. Jillian McCabe threw her son London off a bridge. Gigi Jordan killed her son Jude with an overdose of medication. Kelli Stapleton attempted to kill her daughter Isabelle with carbon monoxide.
What in the world is going on?
It is not normal for mothers to want to kill their children. In fact, I doubt that these mothers really wanted to kill. There was something else going on.
Of course the primary responsibility is on the parents. No mother or father should ever harm their child. Parenthood is a God-given responsibility that must be taken seriously. These mothers are facing severe consequences from the law as they should.
At the same time, we must ask how parents can get to this point. My wife and I have some insight into this, not because we have been tempted to kill (we haven’t) but because we have two children with severe autism. It is really, really hard.
We have been very fortunate in that as we reached the crisis points we were able to find group homes for our children. These homes are equipped much better to care for them than we are. We are now free to love and enjoy our children without the stress that leads to desperation.
As guilty as the mothers are in the three cases mentioned above, there is another guilty party. Where was their community? Two of them were mommy bloggers that made their struggles very public. Where was the help? Parents should never be left to deal with these things alone. There should have been intervention long before it got to the point of seriously considering murder.
I promise you that these are not the last parents to try and kill their autistic children. There are parents struggling right now as you read this post. What will you do to make a difference? You know parents struggling with children with autism. Will you intervene before their names are in the headlines?
We are the community that needs to make a difference to prevent these tragedies from taking place.
Here’s a mum that has defied all odds….she’s a Christian….though she gets angry a lot. she seems to have a strong faith maybe that is what separates the people who end up killing themselves and not? Not sure