This film broke my heart. How many times have I asked myself what I could have changed, what I did wrong to have a child with autism? Our doctors, friends, and other parents of autistic children have all said that it’s not a “refrigerator mother” issue, but as a parent you still wonder. The women in the movie are not feeling sorry for themselves. They live incredibly difficult lives that people without special needs children cannot possibly understand. You can read about something or watch a show about it, but that doesn’t equate with living it. Those women blame themselves enough without the medical community adding to their burden.

Larry is a regular poster on all the autism-related question on the public Yahoo! health answers forum.... while debating me over the cause of autism, he called me a “refrigerator mother” more than once. Me, who he has never met, ever, diagnosed my child’s autism and blamed me for it. So, take his hatefullness and idiocy with a grain of salt.

I saw only part of the film but what is clear here is not that the diagnosis refrigerator mothers is correct but that it is incorrect and based on a psychiatric diagnosis that was not only wrong but destructive to the family unit. This is precisely why many of us in the medical community have no respect, none, for psychiatry as medical discipline because quite simply it is not. Many of the people that go into psychiatry are themselves mentally unstable from past experiences just like Bettleheim. They are people trying to ameliorate their own problems so they go into psychiatry to try and figure out what is wrong with themselves so they can be made “normal”. This is clearly the case with Bettleheim who was improsoned at a Nazi concentration camp. The depth of his mental and physical abuse which could range from beatings to being sodomized in a Nazi prison camp are incalcuable and should have disqualified him from entering into this field until it was determined that he himself was mentally stable. That Kanner, who proposed this absurd and bizarre deduction and called it a medical diagnosis and then popularized it among his colleagues, is mentioned in any positive context by anyone is an enigma to me and an indictment of their judgment.
Larry you need proffesional help unforunatley all of these psychiatrist have abandoned psychotherapy whic itself is controve4sial in favor of psychotropic drugs whih you may actually need from what I am reading in your comments as it appears that you are quite delusional. Do you also have auditory or visual hallucinations? Were you abused? Clearly you are not seeing what the rest of us are and your experiences have distorted and thwarted your ability even to recognize that the intent of the film is to point out the absurdity of the assingment of the cause of autism to the mothers and their being cold or unloving. Therefore you could not have met any refigerator mothers as there are none. Many mothers and fathers are exhausted, depressed concerned, hurt,and fearful for their child but cold calloused and unloving? No as it has been well established that autism is in this context is a failed diagnosis.

beautiful documentary. I was engaged for the full hour, and it absolutely gave me strength as a mother with an autistic child. I had this vision of my sons future that was quite scary, but these adults with autism are abosolutely BEAUTIFUL. They have an innocence that cannot be mimicked. I feel absolutely sadened that the mothers of these beautiful people could be blamed for their children’s autism. I felt guilty myself, and if I had a professional telling me that was so, I could not look myself in the mirror nor sleep at night. I will keep these mothers and their children in my prayers, and hopefully they will keep me in theirs.

Very touching. Thank you for posting this. One gift that history can give us, if we listen, is to not repeat the mistakes of the past. It is hard to believe that anyone could possibly blame the mothers for their children’s disability but, sadly, it was done. This film is a lesson in love. As a person who dealt (sometimes badly) with a mother who suffered from Parkinsons for 25 years, the guilt sometimes experienced by those who are NOT disabled is a terrible burden. I have great admiration for these women.

These women are very courageous. We now know that autism is a neuroligical disorder. It is appalling to me that the one mother was misdiagnosed as “psychotic,” when in reality she was simply overwhelmed with the care of her special needs child.

What an insiteful movie. I too was engulfed in the movie the whole hour. Some of those mothers are heros. My nephew is Autistic and I enjoy being around him. We have long conversations on “who is smarter” Godzilla or King Kong?.
Most of my family and his cannot even stand to be in the same room with him for very long, but I throughly enjoy his company even more than being in the same room with his mother. She has no time for him, nor even wants to be near him. It’s so sad. Thank you for a movie well done!

Very moving film, you could see the anguish in these mother’s faces, yet also see the great love they have for their children.And you can see how autism also affects siblings and other family members as well.It is very unfair that these mothers had to go through having this stigma placed upon them, when it was no fault of their own for their child’s affliction. It only served to make the burden they already had that much more difficult to bear. I’m glad they were vindicated and can’t help but feel a bit of animosity toward the doctor who labeled these mothers in such a negative manner.I wonder if he had any children of his own? I give them a lot of credit for doing their best to raise their children while facing such daunting challenges. These were just a few who were portrayed in this film, I wonder how many more there are who also had to suffer the guilt and pain associated with the label placed upon them.......I shed tears as I watched this film. Thank you.

What a touching film. I sat rapt for the whole hour just feeling for all the beautiful mothers who have been through so much. I really loved watching this, even though it made me cry.

Larry
your comments are ugly and hateful.  What is the point of posting here if only to be hurtful.  People who are dealing with this condition need love and support, not criticism or condemnation.  If you had ever spent time with anyone who lives with an autistic family member I doublt you would be so quick to judge. 

It takes an extraordinarily strong parent to raise an autistic child today in 2009, I can only imagine what these mothers in 40s, 50s, 60s etc suffered without any social support.  It’s not about their own self-pity or self-esteem.  It is about having no resources in place for care or help. The majority of parents wouldn’t leap at a chance to institutionalize.  No one wants to admit they are incapable of raising their own.  That’s primal to us as humans.

Bettelheim’s speculations caused decades of insult and distress on what was already a horribly painful situation.  These mothers had every right to be angry with him.

The mothers in this film are repulsive.  So full of self-pity.  It may be true that they aren’t to blame for the autism, but we will never know; because that is reseaerch path that is now blocked for political reasons.  This in spite of the fact that 100 percent of children in some Romanian orphanages turned out autistic.  The one thing they had in common was that the staff is so overworked they didn’t have time to hold the babies.

Anyway, it was Leo Kanner who first noticed the prevalence of autistic children with cold parents.  He was the one who coined the term “refrigerator mother.” It’s impossible to assign cause and effect or blame.  Kanner thought that maybe refrigerator mothers were autistic themselves and that was evidence of autism being genetic. Also, he didn’t profess to know whether the coldness was in response to unloving autistic babies. Who knows.  I do know one thing though.  I have met refrigerator mothers.  They are horrible loveless beings who don’t give a #### about their autistic children. They would just as soon institutionalize their children as cure them. All they care about is their own self-esteem.  That’s why they get so angry at Bettelheim.

So sad what those mothers were told that it was there fault! I really feel for them!  My friend has a child with Autism, he is a wonderful boy!  I enjoy his spirit, and the love he exudes! I am in his circle of support, and this movie helped me to want to be even more supportive of my friendand their family.  They work hard to advocate for him, and also other children who have autism. The parents of Autistic children are the real heros. Forging ahead to find solutions to the enormous challenges they face every day. Thanks for the post!

BEAUTIFUL! I have a 10 yr old nephew “Hunter” that has Autism, unfortunalty my brother(Hunters Dad) lives in Montana, and I live in New York, so I never get to see him. I am trying to understand autism, learn about it, so one day I can have a relationship with Hunter.
God Bless all of you, and your right"someday you will see Paul as himself without this disease, in Heaven!”

I would like to know what the machine is called and where i can get one that the young man was using in the film.

What an amazing film--I have a 9 yo son with Autism and I thank god that even with all the challenges we still face every day we do not have the added burden of what these poor mothers & families had to face in the 50’s and 60’s.

We will all continue to fight for the rights of our children and giving them the best that we can in their lives.

Thank you for posting this important film.

God bless all of you who took the time to film this wonderful movie. As a gtandmother of autistic children i can feel the pain and love that all of us feel in this situation. I also noticed and made the comment to my daughter when michael was in her arms as to how angelic he was. Thanks again to all of you! patty

This was an incredible movie and I have nothing but admiration and respect for the mother’s and their adult children who took part in this amazing production!

As a mother caring for a severely autistic teen I thank these brave individuals who have paved the path for all parent’s now following in their footsteps.

Individuals living with autism teach us every day how to love each other as we should and be better people and I thank them all for enriching every life they touch!

Thank you very much!!!!

Thank you for putting this on your site for people to see.  I have a son who had PDD.  He is doing so well, if re-evaluated he may not even be on the spectrum anymore!!

This film broke my heart - I cried so much - I cried for the children, for the mother’s and father’s and what they had to go through. 

I am so busy fighting my fight and tearing down my walls and kicking down my doors...... I never thought about who dug the trenches!!

Thank you!

This is an amazing movie.  I never knew that any of this happened. Thank God we have wised up on the truth about autism. What heroic women these mothers were who endured this humiliation.

Thank you for this film.