News flash! Mom's of autistic kids make less money!

Hello! Tell us something we don’t know. The first time I read about the amazing epiphany that a cutting edge researcher came up with regarding the under productive nature of the mother of a child with autism, my spouse and I had a good chuckle.

It’s 14 years later and this “
new” breakthrough, published in the Journal Pediatrics in 2012, has just been reported around the world by Reuters News. In 1998, researchers noted that women with disabled children were disproportionately employed part-time. In 2012, it was reported that mothers of children with autism earn 56% less than those without a disabled child, they are employed less, and when employed, work 7 hours a week less than mothers of non-disabled children.

Don’t you think it’s time to solve this problem instead of rediscovering it with ever increasing precision over the years? Any parent of a children afflicted with autism can give you a content analysis of their day. It’s full of managing crises, coordinating schedules, managing treatment teams, and completing paperwork. Added to this is the daunting task of functioning as the child’s rights advocate, in seemingly endless struggles with government functionaries in educational, medical, social welfare and legal departments.

The Solution? It’s easy to say, but hard to achieve. The sooner parents of children with autism have access to high quality treatment and education for their child from the moment of diagnosis to adulthood, and humane living arrangements for their adult disabled children, the sooner parents will be able to concentrate more energy on their careers instead of disproportionate effort on their child’s well-being and equal access to services and education. Until such time, be prepared to see more of these “groundbreaking”research articles that measure yet another aspect of human misery.