The Proud Parent of an Autistic Child?

I saw a bumper sticker the other day. It read something like, “The Proud Parent of an Autistic Child.” The word AUTISTIC was in all caps.

I have to be honest here. Is it any more rational to be proud of the fact that your child is autistic than it is to be ashamed? As I understand it, autism is an inherited condition. It’s nobody’s fault, and nobody created the condition on purpose. So why be proud of it? Pride, like shame, applies to something that you chose, or allowed to happen, or are in some way responsible for.

The deeper problem here is political correctness. We’ve gone from a society dominated by individuals who hide in shame from things they shouldn’t be ashamed of, to a society consisting of people who exclaim with pride their various conditions and neuroses. I don’t like this sort of cultural attitude any more than the one that preceded it.