When I got my economic stimulus payment, I was one of the individuals who did not get “dependent pay”.

I figured that I would be one of the ones “screwed over” by the current administration and IRS, left it at that, was thankful that I had even gotten paid to begin with since it had been months since I had filled out the Non-Filer form and gotten that automated approval e-mail from the IRS, and went on my way spending it.

So imagine how surprised I was to wake up one morning and find out that I had gotten my dependent pay.

Several days later, I began to see news agencies covering it. Apparently I was part of a “programming glitch” that omitted all dependent pay from those who got their economic stimulus payments, and that had been rectified so that those individuals got the dependent pay that they were supposed to get when their initial economic stimulus payment was issued. Again, being extremely thankful that I had even gotten my initial economic stimulus payment in the first place, I began to spend it on some of the things that I had not been able to afford or would have had to save up for months for since it was actually there. I began to do some Christmas shopping with it, knowing that if I began to get that out of the way (or as much of that as I could out of the way with what had been disbursed to me), I could buy Bub and Monster some nice things over the remainder of the year with their regular sources of income. Some of my friends joke that I start birthday shopping and Christmas shopping earlier than most people to begin with, so I mean… why not?

I don’t know if it’s because of the… faux pas in grammar that this bothers me so much or the fact that they are taking their child’s diagnosis, attempting to wrap themselves up in it, and live vicariously through their child in spite of the fact that many of them claim to “hate autism” and exhibit obvious disdain for their child’s neurology, but there’s always been something about the phrase “autism mom” and “autism dad” that bothers me, even though the title gives away the fact that there seem to be a lot more “autism moms” on the Internet than there are “autism dads”. Sometimes I like to call it exactly what it is though… “assholes who try to live vicariously through their child” (since almost no other diagnosis has parents who come up with monikers like this to the point that this is a thing, and I will take correction if I am wrong), “people who claim to love their children but hate their child’s neurology, which is a fundamental part of their child”, and “people who hate their children so much that they want to cure their child, which would then give them a completely different child” — oh, pardon me, I must be running off a bit at the mouth again. That’s a thing that I do, heh.

Anyway, points to ponder:
Are you a mom? A dad? Are you autistic? Great! You are an autism mom or an autism dad!
Are you not autistic? Sucks to be you. You are not an autism mom. You are not an autism dad.

Your child’s identity is not your identity, although attempting to find a community similar to your own (“parents of autistic children”) is not a bad thing. Admitting that you may have struggles due to your child’s behavior is one thing. Attempting to martyr yourself due to your child’s struggles for attention is different, and is one of many reasons that autistic adults do not trust many neurotypical parents of autistic children.

Remember, though, that your child’s autism is fundamentally linked to who they are.

You can not “hate autism” without hating core, unchangeable components of who your child is.