Author | Wuyi Mountain
In March 2021, Beacon Press published the book Intelligent Love: The Story of Clara Park, Her Autistic Daughter, and the Myth of the Refrigerator by Ms. Marga Vicedo, Professor of The History of Science at the School of The History of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto, Canada Mother (translated by the author as "Love of Wisdom: The Strange Story of Clara Parker, Her Autistic Daughter and Refrigerator Mother").
Marga Vicedo, who published the book "The Nature and Nurture of Love: The Cognitive Shift from Inscription to Attachment in The Cold War" published by the University press of chicago in 2013, traces the development of psychological theories about motherhood and mental health in the mid-20th century.
One day in the early 1960s, Clara Parker, a writer and housewife at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, and her husband took their 3-year-old daughter Jessie (Jessica's nickname) to see a psychiatrist because they found that their daughter did not like to have contact.
The expert diagnosed that Jessie had autism (considered a psychosis at the time) and said Parker was responsible for her daughter's illness, saying that Parker was a typical "refrigerator mother," a cold intellectual woman who deprived a child of the natural emotions needed during normal development— "natural love."
Parker can't accept such accusations, so she begins to carefully document Jessie's daily behavior and her family's interactions with Jessie.
In 1967, Parker published The Siege, a book detailing his daughter's upbringing, challenging the "refrigerator mother" theory.
Parker's insights and appeals have also inspired parents of other children with autism to seek intellectual support. Arguably, Parker lit the first fire.
Later, with the joint efforts of all walks of life, children with autism were granted the right to attend public schools; parents became partners and "co-experts" of medical experts, rather than objects of disdain by experts; new understandings and new measures enabled many autistic patients to gradually integrate into the family environment and gain a certain degree of independence in the future.
At the same time, Parker educates and nurtures her children with her love, empathy, practical approach, and empirical thinking, while Jessie is constantly trying to learn, and her actions and deeds expand the horizons of her mother and others.
The Siege and several of Parker's other books vividly describe Jessie's "emotional weather system," her love of numbers, and her outstanding artistic expressiveness. Jessie later became a well-known artist, and her work has been exhibited in several galleries in New York.
Using previously unnoticed archival resources and first-hand interviews, the authors explain why the idea of a "refrigerator mother" as the cause of autism in children is widely accepted, recount how Parker and other parents struggled with the prevailing attitudes of the medical community at that time to autism, described the experience of discrimination and hostility between autistic children and parents, and introduced major scientific advances in the understanding and treatment of autism in the United States.
Understanding autism is still evolving, from early on as a psychosis, later as a stunted condition, as a disabling behavior, to a spectrum disorder from a neurodiversity perspective. Even the latest understanding of autism, the authors say, is an "unstable entity."
This book sharply defends the mother's right to exercise wisdom and love, affirms the important value of parents' first-hand understanding of their children, and emphasizes the right of individuals to be cherished by society.
The authors point out that some people criticize Parker for portraying herself as a hero, but that Parker's approach to "success" in educating children also has its historical limitations.
Parker's story shows how powerful negative forces are confluence between scientific ignorance, lack of service, distrust of parents by medical experts, and the naked misogyny that Parker experiences in some people.
The reactions, defiances, and cries of Parker and other parents of autistic children are related to what they have suffered.
One pediatrician wrote in a review of the book that in his 30-year pediatric career, autism cases have gone from a few cases a month to now. We should pay attention to this book in this context.
He also made a little technical observation in the book review that Parker developed measles in the sixth week after she became pregnant with Jessie, which may have some connection with Jessie's later autism.
His overall opinion is that any pediatric health professional, medical historian, social historian, social worker, and parent of autistic children will find this book worth reading.
China Science Daily (2022-03-18 3rd Edition Reading)
Edit | Zhao Lu
Typography | Zhi hai
【Source: China Science Daily WeChat public account】