Chapter 5: The Invention of Toxic Parenting

     While Kanner was able to to continue his studies and writings, he made one of the most difficult and brutal accusations imaginable: that the parents of children with autism were to blame for their children’s condition. Kanner observed some of the parents being cold with their children and particularly some of the mothers spending time as professionals in the workforce. Some of the relationships seemed almost mechanical to him. He attributed this to refrigerator parenting, and while he attempted to suggest that this didn’t mean that the parents were directly at fault, it was a huge implication. 

    Kanner wasn’t alone in this. Bruno Bettelheim, a survivor of the Dachau concentration camp, came to New York City. In the 1960s, Bettelheim wrote books such as the Empty Fortress, in which he suggested that parents wished that their autistic children did not exist. The book was widely read and reviewed, and became an introduction to many on the subject of autism. 

    This obviously created an intense amount of shame and guilt for parents of autistic children, causing them to be outsiders and social pariahs. Kanner, who had such an incredible bedside manner with his patients and their families should have seen that this was egregious, but instead he joined in on the condemnation.