lifeisbeautiful,
The autism killings are very unusual, as it is very rare for parents to murder bigger children and young adult children. There is a well-developed pattern of fairly normal parents trying to cope, right up until their severely autistic children get too big to handle, and then killing either just the child, or the child and themselves.
There may be some sort of psychosis going on on the part of the parents, but even a 100% normal parent would struggle with being effective with an adult or teenage child who is not really potty-trained, may be violent, has a tendency to run off, and has to be supervised 24 hours a day (a lot of severely autistic children do not sleep on a normal schedule).
These are very serious cases, and as scientists are finding, paternal age does in fact contribute to autism risks.
nytimes.com/2014/02/27/health/mental-illness-risk-higher-for-children-of-older-parents-study-finds.html?_r=0
In fact, that article states that “Children born to middle-aged men are more likely than their older siblings to develop any of a range of mental difficulties, including bipolar disorder, autism and schizophrenia, according to the most comprehensive study to date of paternal age and offspring mental health.”
“Compared with the children of young fathers aged 20 to 24, those born to the same men age 45 and older had about twice the risk of developing psychosis, the signature symptom of schizophrenia; more than three times the likelihood of receiving a diagnosis of autism; and about 13 times the chance of having a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder. They also tended to struggle more with academics and substance abuse.”
If one already has diagnosed autism in ones family or familial tendencies toward schizophrenia or ADHD (both of which my extended family does), this is all very concerning.
“There is a difference between the fear of having to care for a child with unknown issues/not wanting to give up part of one’s “retirement” and actually knowing one has serious reasons to avoid any other children. When we all die, or 10,000 years from when we die, it won’t matter whether we had a retirement early or later, but it will matter whether we welcomed all the children God wanted for us to welcome.”
One of our relatives started just with ADHD, and through a series of unfortunate choices and events (that was undobutedly fueled by the ADHD), is now permanently brain-damaged (along with other issues) and will probably never be able to make good choices or live completely independently. For the better part of a decade, her parents have been in pretty much continual fear that she will go too far one day. That is a burden of pretty much continual dread.
Who is talking about retirement? And what’s wrong with wanting to spend one’s golden years changing diapers on grandchildren instead of changing diapers on adult children? Is it wrong to want to move on to the next phase in one’s life, and to be able to devote one’s efforts to spending time with the next generation?
I think it is wrong to encourage people to take on duties that 1) are not obligatory and 2) they may not be equal to 3) we are not going to be around to help them with. Also, it’s quite possible that any individual parent might be an adequate mother of two or three, but a terrible mother of six or eight or nine. They might shortchange their kids’ educations (both secular and religious) because they simply do not have the energy or the time. Every material (including human beings) has its breaking point. I mentioned earlier how my relationship with my mother deteriorated once my baby brother was born–I had a great relationship with her right up until then. At that point, our relationship pretty much was reduced to just having HUGE fights over chores. Looking back, I think there were probably a number of issues going on, but we were not helped by the fact that she simply did not have the time or energy to invest. From that day forth for nearly the next two decades, I did not have much of a relationship at all with my mom. That’s a pattern that I am trying to avoid, now that I have kids who are similarly spaced.
I think that having a large family is a vocation, and not everybody is called to that vocation.
