I heard this on the radio and then I read it on the Internet, but according to Denis Leary our Autistic children are just lazy. There is no advent just lousy parents who don't want to fess up to the issues that are their children. This was posted from an article by Marc Bernardin on Entertainment Weekly.
He's chosen to write a book, Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Lazy, and Stupid. And in this book, Leary writes "There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks...to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a s--- what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you-yer kid is not autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."
As I sit here reading over what I just posted above I have so many feeling running through me right now. Anger, outrage, disbelief, and I'm just plain old pissed off. I have an Autistic child and I'll tell you another thing I never took to him a shrink. Does this man know anything about Autism at all???? Does he realize that Autism starts way before they even go to school? Way before they even get to kindergarten?
Ethan was 3 when I first noticed things weren't going quite to schedule. He was talking but not in any form of language I could understand. We communicated by pointing or I as his mother just anticpated his needs. Finally I called around to see what kind of programs were out there for him to receive speech therapy. I had just gotten divorce and I had no money. I was told about an early childhood development program at one of the elementary schools where I live. I immediately had him evaluated and the psychologist there told me he definitely needed to be there. She said he has the three defecits associated with Autism.
The three defecits as they wre explained to me were:
Inability to communicate
Fixations to certain things at different times
Routine oriented behavior
Initially when I heard this I was vehement that was not my son. All I kept seeing in my mind was Dustin Hoffman in Rainman. My child liked to be touched, my child didn't rock back and forth in a corner. What the heck was she talking about? Then she told me about the spectrum and how all children score differently. My son scores low so his Autism isn't as severe as other children.
Since his diagnosis when he was 3 Ethan can now communicate quite well, and has been able to finally develop friendships with other kids. No one ever knows except his teachers and close family. I haven't paid a thing for his treatment unless of course you count my tax dollars that have went into our fantastic public school system.
That man needs to just keep his big fat pie hole shut about issues he obviously knows absolutely nothing about. If Autism is something he feels strongly about this is not the way to garner attention for the cause or for himself. If I see this book on the shelf I'll protest it.
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Comments: 45
Please realize that this kind of ignorance is not as widespread as it appears, although any of this neanderthal thinking has got to go.
Bless you and our hearts ache for how much this must have hurt you.
NEW YORK, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Denis Leary issued the following statement today in response to comments about his new book, "Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid."
The people who are criticizing the "Autism Schmautism" chapter in my new book "Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid" clearly have not read it.
Or if they have, they missed the sections I thought made my feelings about autism very clear: that I not only support the current rational approaches to the diagnoses and treatment of real autism but have witnessed it firsthand while watching very dear old friends raise a functioning autistic child.
The point of the chapter is not that autism doesn't exist -- it obviously does -- and I have nothing but admiration and respect for parents dealing with the issue, including the ones I know.
The bulk of the chapter deals with grown men who are either self- diagnosing themselves with low-level offshoots of the disease or wishing they could as a way to explain their failed careers and troublesome progeny.
Of course, this entire misunderstanding can be easily avoided simply by doing one thing -- reading the book.
Taking one or two sentences out of context -- especially when it involves an entire chapter devoted to the subject -- is unfair and ill-advised.
Too often in this country, everything gets reduced to simple sound bites and very very often those sound bites are not truly representative of an author or artist's point of view.
Please give me the benefit of the doubt by reading all of what I wrote before attacking me.
As far as Autism goes, My best friend is raising three autistic kids so I have seen its effects first hand as well on both the kids and the parents who get funny looks or cant get playmates because of ignorant parents who think their kids will "catch it"
2) I too will have to read the book to see where he was headed with this before saying much more about the subject.
3) A friend of mine has an autistic child and I know for a fact that she is a wonderful, loving and attentive mother.
She also has experienced the parents who go overboard. Last year in the school district she worked in, a fairly affluent one, in nearly half the assessment/evaluation meetings she had with parents to lay out the course of treatment she planned for their kids the parents brought a lawyer. These meetings covered kids with needs ranging from lisping and lazy r to severe developmental disability.
So, don't buy the book. It would only encourage him and others to do this type of thing again.
Ethan being labled was the very thing I was deathly afraid of. From the get go I actually said they can call it whatever they want, I don't belive it but I want them to help him. Then when I was studying for my degree I had to take a basic psychology class and when I said that very statement to the insturctor he told me I wasn't helping Ethan by being that way. If I let them call him that and treat him for that very thing then I had to accept that is what it was. If you ever talk to the austism coordinator for our school corporation she can attest to how very hard for me it was to accept. Then after that discussion with my teacher I did my own research. I read the book Evidence of Harm and did my psychology paper on it. Ethan has the deficits. No matter how much I tried to see otherwise they are there. What is really frightening for me now is these ridiculous standarized tests they have to pass to graduate from highschool. They have strict rules on the formatting and that is the cruth Ethan has. He knows the answers but because the way it presented he doesn't understand. He has yet to pass these tests and he is in the 4th grade. I dont' know its scary. I appreciate everyone's comments and maybe if I wasn't a mother of an Autistic child then I could see the humor in what DENIS Leary was writing, but as it is I just can't.
Jennifer, I'm glad that your son is doing so well!
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
For those that may be looking for a "diagnosis" as a way, as he claims, why doesn't he attack those people instead of those that actually have the disorder?
Another problem only recently being noticed in Canada is that some chemical in clothing and bedding can cause a variety of symptoms.
I am no expert on this subject and my friends are understandably not willing to discuss this subject. I wish you well with your child. Autism does not mean a person has to live a sheltered life. With love, training and guidance many with autism grow into good citizens and have a normal life.
Oh, and that guy is a D**k..
Celebrity/notoriety is a piss poor excuse for instant expertise. He should try to walk a mile in the shoes of a family member with an autistic child.
How old is Ethan now? Do you think vaccines caused his Autism?