Adopting is great. Not everyone should do it.
Autism is difficult. Their lives are not ruined.
I can see some of the arguments of antinatalists but the online culture of it seems to have a nihilism/blackpill problem.
It’s autism, not a death sentence.
To me, it seems like online discussions for any stance, has to turn to it’s most extreme. It’s like their way or highway type of deal. Whatever happened to nuanced discussion, I wonder.
I think it stems from the more difficult cases, and people failing to realize the actual suffering that comes with that.
As with all extremes, a lot of emotions are involved. People who see / experience the hardships don’t feel heard. As the general tendency is that one needs to be alive and that this is good, this hurts people who do not want to live (like this).
Going to a lot of trouble to conceive, and bringing triple the amount of possible suffering that people experience can be felt as worse than a death sentence. Therefore people feel the need to be vocal about this.
But in the end I agree, there is nuance. But there is the extreme as well, which weighs heavier here?
Exactly this.
A life like the ones that suffer, you just wouldn’t wish upon someone innocent. Though going full eugenics is a bit too far off the end there. I get it, but I don’t agree that everyone should avoid having children.
Though it does pain me to see this one couple (both autistic) have a child without considering how the kid will be affected. Despite one of them having a low-functioning brother who is a burden (and I don’t mean lightly) on their mother and she never helps her out.
It’s an extreme case here. I just hope their daughter will have a good life.
We would certainly be better off without it. Doesn’t it have a much higher likelihood of happening when women bear children around 40? If we know a partial cause then maybe we should avoid it. I saw a billboard about a 58-year-old woman having a baby and I was horrified.
We would certainly be better off without it.
Who, exactly, do you imagine you are speaking for?
Me with autism.
Hell yeah brudder stay spicy
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That’s a bit rude. Sure OPs point is a bit extreme, but no need to wish death on someone for having a differencing opinion
I missed something. Where did death come in?
The post I had replied to was deleted but basically it was someone who basically said kys
That’s why I said “please”
I believe that just makes you look worse :(
Shame :(
No u
🔥🥵🔥 i thank you this is lovely
I love your username
I love lamp
Why do they think autism is some sort of horror story where kids suffer in agony or something?
Autism Speaks played a huuuge part in making that the dominant narrative about autism for the past 20 years or so.
In the 00s (maybe early 10s?) one of the videos they made for parents of newly diagnosed children had a parent talking about how she was considering driving off a bridge to kill herself and her autistic child, but didn’t because her non-autistic child was also in the car. This was presented as totally normal and just a way to prepare for how an autistic child will ruin your life.
Autism Speaks is disgusting. What an awful organization. I wish more people knew that.
But, there must be ways to manage the ill effects of Autism. Parents can talk to experts, instead dealing with it on their own.
I get what you’re saying, and caretakers certainly deserve support, even (especially!) when they’re talking about wanting to kill their own child, even if for no other reason than the child’s safety.
IMO Autism Speaks’ biggest issue is that their money comes from marketing autism as a horrible disease that affects only or primarily children, which only increases stigma against autistic people of all ages. They also have the problem of having no autistic members involved in a meaningful capacity in the organization, and AFAIK the only autistic member of their board of directors left because they were essentially ignored. That absolutely flies in the face of decades of disability advocacy, where a common refrain is “nothing about us without us.”
TL;DR: caretakers deserve support but Autism Speaks is super awful.
I had no idea that existed. Wtf
Malicious misinformation is nothing new I guess.
Suicide is one of the top three causes of death for autistic people. The other two are heart disease and epilepsy complications, and on average we die under 50 years of age.
What they don’t understand though is that the suicide part isn’t caused by autism. It’s caused by people being horrible to each other. Or in other words: people with autism die because people without it make living hell for them.
Yes, but that’s not due to autism, that’s due to the way society treats autistic people.
that’s due to the way society treats autistic people.
So when is that going to change
I’d love to know.
It’s beginning to change in the academic world. The deficit model is falling for the difference/diversity paradigm.
My daughter has it, and I’d say about 5-10 years ago it changed. The amount of acceptance is so much higher than it used to be. Obviously we need work, but hell in my city there are special times at both grocery stores and movie theatres for neuro-diverse people. The difference to a decade ago is extreme.
It’s also the 2nd leading cause of death for 2SLGBTQ+ youth:
The Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health found that 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth.
So there’s a lot more suffering in general for anyone basically not white, straight, (and depending on circumstances, male). Autism isn’t a death sentence. While people with severe autism struggle a lot more than most, they can have very good fulfilling lives. Source: My daughter (23) has (moderate) autism and her best friend (23) has severe.
It’s a mix of the ABA industry, early researchers and socio-environmental issues.
Early researchers cultivate the myth of the normative human. Autists were an altered version of human that has to be corrected. If a human wasn’t corrected to match the norm, it could not be happy in life and will suffer it’s entire life.
So autists have to be corrected (we know it’s false) to be happy whatever the means. It ended with electric shock and others stuffs seen during WW2. This is how ABA was created. It relies on the fears of autists not being happy until they are corrected.
ABA, PBT and all the others acronyms has built an industry worth a lot of money. They finance more research on the field with huge standard, COI and consent issues among others. They need to keep the fear in the population to keep the business up.
The third is the new way to see autism. The struggles of autists are mostly socio-environmental. It means that issues aren’t the person and autism. It’s a lack of acceptance of the diversity by the neurological majority. It implies discrimination, patronizing, and violence against autists.
Early researchers cultivate the myth of the normative human.
We are still there with mental illness. People have this idea that there are “normal” people and those who require therapy, as if there is a single person on earth that didn’t come out of their childhood with some level of trauma.
They’re ignorant.
Taking a quick look at the comments I see we’re back to 2000s autism speaks bullshit.
Autistic people aren’t suffering unless you’re putting them in a system that treats them as subhuman.
Autistic people aren’t suffering unless you’re putting them in a system that treats them as subhuman.
Ah, I see you’re familiar with society as well.
I mean, let’s face it, I’ve seen one meme where autism is described as a condition where everyone else around them has a disorder where they say things they don’t mean, where they don’t care about structure, fail to focus strictly on singular topics, have unreliable memories, drop weird hints and stare creepily into eyeballs. And the people with autism are the ones with the disorder, because there are way more of the others.
Well well well, just look at any job and watch how people are treated.
Heard a doctor comment on “The Good Doctor” saying “they make such a big deal about his having autism but in the real world it’s basically an entry requirement”
Autistic people aren’t suffering unless you’re putting them in a system that treats them as subhuman.
While that is true for many of us, it’s not true for all of us. But I’m still sure most of us still like being alive, so i’m not disagreeing with the sentiment behind your argument.
Yes most autistic people shouldn’t suffer if we dismantle the oppressive societal constructs and stigma around the condition and treat them as human.
Most people shouldn’t suffer if we break down the social constructs and stigma around them, from race, gender and sex, class, and many other factors.
Antinatalism is not about selectively culling autistic people. It is about the realization that society sucks and the societal constructs we have are likely to increase suffering and so we shouldn’t have kids anymore until those issues are resolved.
I am gay, and a racial minority, and an antinatalist. I would hate to have a child knowing they would likely have to face racial discrimination just as much as I do not find it moral to have a child because they may be gay, or autistic, or gender nonconforming, or poor. All those things would likely increase their suffering.
But I wouldn’t mind adopting any of those kids, even an autistic child, because live people are people and deserve love and compassion. Antinatalism is about the non-alive children that don’t exist and the stance that they shouldn’t ever come to be, no matter what they end up being because in our current world, live likely won’t be easy, they would likely contribute to the global environment crisis, and will likely increase the suffering in the world. And also they cannot consent to being forced into existence.
I’m not speaking for autistic people here, but I am speaking as parent to two children (now adults) on the spectrum.
Autistic children do not ruin your life and do not have ruined lives themselves. As with all parenting, sometimes things are very, very difficult and sometimes things are very, very easy. This isn’t unique to raising a neurodiverse child, this is just parenting. The unique challenges that parenting a neurodiverse child brings are 99% of the time caused by how society thinks these children/adults are and assumptions about whats best for them without actually asking them rather than any sort of intrinsic issue caused by their autism or ADHD or any other neurological difference. For the remaining 1% of the time, you just do your best.
The narrative that neurological difference, in particular autism, ruins lives has, in its modern form, been with us since Andrew Wakefield first perpetuated his fraudulent claims of vaccine damage causing autism. It was spread by antivaxx/autism activist parent groups like Jenny McCarthy’s Generation Rescue and the truly despicable people at Autism Speaks. These are the people who’ve ruined lives.
I like you. I have 2 autistic kids (still kids) and one neurotypical kid. There is no difference in raising them. Every kid has their unique challenges. I never raise my children differently unless it requires it.
Agreed! I am also super grateful for the unique experiences autism has provided our family (a trip to the fan museum and carwash show, among others).
From personal experience, the ability of people in the spectrum to feel happiness depends entirely on whether their parents were willing to make adjustments to see their children feel well. Most will want their child to be just like every other one and will damage them deeply in the pursuit of that.
Are you certain your adult children don’t resent being born with autism?
Because I put on a hella front for my mom. Just throwing that out there.
I’m not naive (or arrogant) enough to think I know everything my kids are thinking and neither am I suggesting their lives are 100% perfect but all of them (on the spectrum or not) are all pretty forthright, confident adults. When they were teens they of course went through some shit related to their being autistic, but none of that was because they were autistic, it was down to how other people/situations made them feel because they were autistic. I’m as sure as any parent can ever be that I’ve never detected any kind of prolonged resentment or unhappiness at the fact of their autism.
We never taught them that ‘autism is a superpower’ because it isn’t. Sometimes it has advantages and sometimes there are disadvantages and describing someone elses life as superpowered puts an unrealistic expectation of happiness and accomplishment on them. By the same token, neither are their lives a ruin and my life as their parent most certainly wasn’t ruined.
it was down to how other people/situations made them feel because they were autistic.
That’s a meaningless distinction. The end result is identical.
It would be foolhardy to say that you–an assumed neurotypical person–need to be close, personal friends with everyone in your life. You select your friends–and they select you–based on how well you fit each other. The fundamental problem is that autistic people, broadly speaking, don’t fit with neurotypical people. A high-functioning autistic person will eventually realize that, and realize just how utterly alone they are in life. They will realize that the people they think of as friends will never think of them as a friend. Their social circle, if they’re lucky, might consist of a small handful of people with overlapping interests, but are not an actual social support network.
I discovered this in 2014 when I failed to complete a suicide, and lost 95% of the people I believed were friends.
I am functional on a surface level. I have a job, I’m mostly self-sufficient, I’m married to someone that is also likely neurodivergent after having been in an abusive relationship for over a decade. I’ve noticed that the less able we are to mask, the more our social circle contracts. We can not reasonably expect that people will life us, or include us in their social circles.
I disagree, its not in my opinion a meaningless distinction at all. A difficulty in cognition might prevent a person from reading War And Peace. Thats a direct result of having a learning disability. Someone with a visual disability who cannot access audio books or braille versions of War And Peace is not being affected by their disability but by the fact an accessible version is not available.
You might argue the end result is the same - an inability to read War And Peace - but the point is that for the person with a visual disability the situation is fixable if society is prepared to make the effort.
In regards to your situation you’ve had terrible experiences but they are not down to the fact youre autistic, they’re down to the fact your NT ‘friends’ weren’t really friends at all. I’m sorry they let you down but I’m pretty sure I could find similar stories where nobody in the story was autistic.
Autism is a disability. A person with an IQ of 50 simply isn’t going to be able to understand War and Peace; you can’t dumb the book down sufficiently for someone to understand if they’re going to struggle all their life to be able to put on shoes that lace instead of using Velcro. People with dyslexia can listen to audiobooks; there’s no audiobook version of deep, fulfilling friendships and social support networks, because people on the autistic spectrum are going to have a hard time offering neurotypical people the what they need. A person that’s on the autism spectrum is never going to be able to have social interactions in the same way that neurotypical people can, and those social interactions are necessary to being able to function in society. Some people on the spectrum may be able to appear normal on a surface level and will be able to get by, but it’s fucking exhausting. People that have the misfortune to be lower functioning than I am may not be able to mask effectively at all.
That’s without even getting into constrained interests, difficulty with coordination and forming positive habits–I still struggle to remember to brush my teeth daily in my middle age–or executive dysfunction.
I never claimed autism wasn’t a disability. The fact that autistic people are disabled in some ways isn’t in question. But its neither just a disability or - like all disabilities - something that isn’t disabling by virtue of the world its part of rather than its intrinsic nature.
For example, you say an autistic person cannot experience social interaction in the same way as a non autistic person. True. But the non autistic person can, with very little adjustment, be aware of that. My kids have good relationships with NT friends and whilst they might not experience them in the same way as NT friendships, they still find them fulfilling.
Those people are likely your kids’ best friends. Your kids are likely not their best friends.
Aside from marrying someone that is also neurodivergent, it is unlikely that your children will ever be the best friend of another person. They may be the friend that offers the most help, the person that always shows up to the party with lots of food and a keg, the ones that are always there with tape, boxes, and a truck when someone needs to pack up and move, the one with a spare couch when someone needs a place to stay for a couple days. …But not the best friend. If they’re very, very lucky, they’ll end up married to someone else that is also neurodivergent; otherwise, they may end up married to someone that is neurotypical, and will be taken advantage of and/or abused by their partner for their entire life.
That’s what you’re missing.
Social interactions end up being lopsided, and can never be anything but.
The fundamental problem is that autistic people, broadly speaking, don’t fit with neurotypical people. A high-functioning autistic person will eventually realize that, and realize just how utterly alone they are in life. They will realize that the people they think of as friends will never think of them as a friend.
First, I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. But from my personal experience, I know that I have three friends who have autism and/or ADHD. In each case, I did not know this until they told me. If I can’t even know who is autistic without them telling me, how can I treat them differently?
Now I understand that it is possible that some behaviours of mine could make my autistic friends uncomfortable, while not affecting my other friends. But if I am doing something like that, it is out of ignorance rather than malice, and I would of course adjust my behaviour if asked to.
So I don’t get why you think autistic people ‘don’t fit with neurotypical people’. I have friends who speak other languages, and autism is also, in a sense, speaking a different ‘body language’. With some effort, we should be able to improve communication.
The fact that you just aren’t understanding what I’m saying is demonstrating my point. You aren’t able to understand my point of view, and think that everything can just be solved by people working harder. It’s the same kind of belief that says that depressed and anxious people can be cured by just thinking happy thoughts and touching grass.
Can you be more specific? Why cannot autistic people fit in with others? Is it that others recognise them as being different and exclude them? Or is it that there are differences in the way we speak or behave that make you uncomfortable? And if it is the latter, what in particular should we change?
sounds like you resent your mom
How dare you say that to someone with autism about their own experiences? Seems like you’re just inflammatory and an asshole.
hi, i am in fact someone else with autism (undiscovered for 30+ years, it was quite a find) but also with a physical birth defect, which was very much defining and way more impactful.
“didn’t ask being born” is a trend most people go through at some point, especially in lower classes, where life itself is a struggle if not outright suffering. but who else can you blame for your existence if not your parents?
this is a pain point, which can not be ignored forever. “put on a front” only works until it doesnt anymore, and its better to talk about it instead of waiting until someone snapped. resenting and rebelling against parents is part of growing up, no matter the mental or physical condition.
but no one is really at fault, personally, everyone did their best they could at the time, and the best everyone can do is help each other.
just popping in to say I love being alive and I’m thankful for my parents keeping me! I made friends with a seagull today. couldn’t have done that if I was never born. fuck yeah!
I honestly can’t tell if this is sarcasm.
You’re in the right place then
unfortunately, I get that a lot. I’m just kind of a weird dude.
Is reasonable to assume people wouldn’t be that sarcastic in a place like this imo.
I made friends with a seagull today.
I need more details about this.
This
Experience has shown me that the people who are thankful for their life is in the minority compared to the people who suffer their life.
That sucks
I have seen people behave in all sorts of ways
ITT: people advocating eugenics on themselves. I hate it. I hate seeing it. And stuff like this is psychologically destructive to read for me.
If people here don’t like others with similar traits to them advocating that their life and perspective is not valuable and that they should hate it and wish no-one new experience it, I recommend avoiding this thread - even moreso if you have suicidal tendencies. It was very upsetting for me ;-;, even though I personally have no intent to have kids.
frfr, it’s so fucking tragic.
An autistic life isn’t a ruined life.
I went 36 years without even knowing. Corporate greed has done more to ruin my life than my mental illnesses have.
Same. Out of all my lost jobs, only two can be proven (by me only of course) to be because of some autistic trait I have.
While I don’t value my own life as much as I should, I know I have value to others, and most of that is due to my traits. In fact, I’m starting a job today that wants me specifically because of those traits. I never thought I’d work again.
I have saved dozens of kitten lives, who go on to make their new human’s life better.
I used to hate myself. I’ve learned to embrace the way I am and couldn’t imagine being any other way. The people whose lives I have made a positive impact on would agree. I don’t have to rule the world, but my household is efficient because of me.
Eugenics isn’t the answer. I’d bet if we had the right resources available, none of the people in this thread would say that. Everyone deserves a chance at a good life. Corporate greed is the reason we don’t have those resources.
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As someone on the spectrum its ridiculous to say there life ruined first off its a spectrum so who knows how server there condition is and they can learn to live with help
“Now you have ruined three lives forever”
bruh
The sad thing is there’s tons of autistic people on that sub that geniuely think like that about themselves. One of my worst experiences posting was interacting with that place and getting another autistic person talking about how they wish to die, how they wanted to be hate crime’d and literally talked about offing themselves just to spite me. That person blocked me so I have no idea what they are up to these days. This was nearly a year ago and there’s a good chance they’ve taken their life since then.
I fucking hate r/antinatalism. Its 100% should be banned. Its literally just severely depressed people talking themselves deeper into depression.
I’m a long time.lurker there before leaving reddit for good. I’ve seen most of the posts for years.
Antinatalism is not a depression cult, though it does attract that type but more of a “we see life as a net negative experience and it isn’t our right to inflict it on others”.
It’s why they’re so pro adoption since those kids are already born so the damage has been done. I don’t think those people are depressed or suicidal.
I’m 40 so I’ve been around. Ever since middle school I knew I love my theoretical kids too much to have them born into this world. So far, there hasn’t been any kind of evidence or experience I had to change my mind. I’m a wage slave. My “kids” would be wage slaves. They might have to fight in resource wars when climate change or rise of Nazis start really ramping up. I don’t want them to have a worse life than me and I cannot provide or promise one. I don’t think there ever was a time in history where procreation was a good idea.
You can do everything right and still get a rocket dropped on your home. Your kids can still become target practice for the next psycho at school. Hell, your kids could become the psychos! Every evil person that exists or has has been someone’s “beautiful baby”.
To me this comes off as gambling. You are gambling that you will have a bright, kind, Neurotypical kid that will grow up to be great and spread happiness and what not.
Thing I don’t get is why people find Antinatalist philosophy so goddamn triggering. We can’t change your mind you are going to do whatever the fuck you want. So many hateful responses to it when you can just walk away. Why?
And as far as the OG post, if you are autistic, know that autism is hereditary and still have kids in spite of all that, that’s an evil sadistic act! How can you hate your theoretical kids so damn much? I feel sorry for them, but fuck the mother.
It’s true though. Living with autism is like choosing the Nightmare difficulty option in life.
Source: me
Look here, Mario. You are speaking for exactly one (1) person. Your personal experience of autism is not universal. Some of us just have better circumstances. Some of us are spiteful removed who live for the difficulty. My point being, some of us actually like being alive, and are okay with being autists.
The ratio of votes says otherwise.
Good for you for having an enjoyable life. I hope you continue to do so.
Ironically they do
Well, used to. I stand by my statement.
I politely disagree.
Autism can* be terrible, just as autism can also allow to have a great life.
So no, is not a true but a loose may.
Antinatalism is a more deranged branch of eugenics. It’s not simply “promoting eugenics” it’s a belief that giving birth is the greatest evil one can inflict upon a child and the world at large.
That they’d clearly see us as subhuman isn’t surprising given that they at best want our entire species to voluntarily go extinct. Their entire worldview is best summed up as gentle genocide is good.
It’s like these people have forgotten there are people with different set of beliefs than their own.
No matter how justified your beliefs are, you cannot impose them on others. This is true for religions and this is true for every single ideological stance out there.
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They’re nuts, for sure.
It’s also ridiculously cruel to create a consciousness knowing it’ll die.
Unless you are religious and believe in eternal torment after death, death isn’t cruel, it’s simply an end to life, a permanent return to nonexistence no more or less cruel than having never been born.
Additionally, while they aren’t exactly wrong in that going from nonexistence to existence results in an infinite increase in potential for suffering, that holds true for joy/happiness/pleasure.
Imo bringing someone into being is not cruel nor wonderful, not moral nor immoral. It simply is.
This is the only good logical argument I’ve heard against it and I’m on board. People get too emotional talking about this and antinatalists generally approach this from a point of logic.
Most of the arguments I’ve seen so far are from sheltered first world people that have never suffered. They almost believe it’s a choice or that depression is just being really sad.
They deny that depression can come up from actual consistently repeated experiences that someone can have no control over.
The fact that most people on planet earth are suffering is what drives the idea. If your consciousness randomly hopped to the next person born on earth, would you want to live that life?
What is the alternative? Giving up on humanity existing?
We can’t change that this how life exists in our reality.
It’s also ridiculously cruel to create a consciousness knowing it’ll die.
No, it isn’t. There, now we’re on equal rhetorical footing unless you’d like to support that incredibly bold statement with … anything? A link? A train of thought?
By that logic, wouldn’t the very existence of conscious life be cruel?
I would say absolutely YES.
Not sure how a product of chaos and randomness can really have cruelty, as it supposes intent, no?
Why is this subreddit full of idiots? They are misrepresenting antinatalism so fucking hard.
Yes.
The people that want to restrict reproduction are acting like eugenicists? I’m shocked. This is my shocked face.
Antinatalism says nothing about restricting reproduction, it is just the principle that people should abstain from reproduction. Going about that by forced sterilization, coercion, abuse, or eugenics would be bad for obvious reasons.
it is just the principle that people should abstain from reproduction.
Which is griping about reproduction followed by trying to shame people when they don’t take the same principled stand. And a quick visit over to the sub shows a few people taking principled stands for themselves and a whole lot blackpilled edgelord “I hate breeders” horseshit. And sure enough there’s a different post on the top page ranting about parents with disabilities having kids. Which sounds like… what?
The people that have hard opinions about reproduction are acting like eugenicists in that sub.
I think antinatalism is a really interesting philosophy. But it falls apart as soon as you discriminate - It is fair to question the ethics of reproduction, but as soon as you discriminate you end up in eugenics territory. This subreddit is really hostile sadly. there is a lot of ableism under the disguise of antinatalism
True antinatalism would say everyone should not have kids, regardless of anything. Of course nobody is enforcing this so it’s a kinda do whatever but maybe think twice before having kids.
The antinatalism subreddit (and similar groups elsewhere) is one of the most toxic places on the internet. It just reeks of hatred, and worse yet, treats that hatred as some sort of virtue.
Go live your life however you want, kids or no. But grouping up to talk shit about children or people who start families is just gross.
They can’t, they have to tell the world how better they are because they didn’t finish inside.
“It’s not a toxic stew of depression and misanthropy guys, it’s a totally valid belief system!”
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen it here or on reddit either, and it’s honestly sad.
These groups always seem like doomers who have ingested so much negativity that they’ve developed depression. Either that, or they’re taking the loooong way to just telling their moms that they don’t want to start a family.
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It’s great that they aren’t procreating then.
I lurked for a while there, and the most horrible realisation is that many had children, they just regretted so much. Those kids are fucked
That’s really sad.
And it also has the same energy as your divorced uncles telling you their theories about how “marriage is horrible”
That’s… why they’re there.
That isn’t a dunk lol
I have this theory that negative affinity groups (a term I made up for groups based on antipathy for something or someone) have a tendency towards toxic behavior. When you gain connection and social clout for dunking on someone or something, there’s very little incentive to be fair to them or show any kind of nuance.
Contrast with groups with affirmative goals or a defined object of interest. The positive groups can measure progress towards their goals or new and interesting perspectives on their objects.
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