autism mom

• autism mum

autism mom (plural autism moms)

1. (sometimes derogatory) The mother ("mom") of an autistic child or children.
   • 1997 August 12, Teresa Binstock <Teresa.Binstock@UCHSC.EDU>, “Re: Blood types: O moms of A kids”, in bit.listserv.autism‎^[1] (Usenet), via Google Groups, archived from the original on 24 January 2026:

     So, Wendy, in the tradition of autism moms, you looked at an abstract with a very complex topic and saw therein some of its possible signficances in autism...

   • 2009 May, Liza Gross, “A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine–Autism Wars”, in PLoS Biology, volume 7, number 5, PLoS, →DOI, →ISSN, page 5:

     In April of 2008, CNN’s Larry King hosted a show on the vaccine–autism ‘‘debate’’ featuring Jenny McCarthy, a celebrity ‘‘autism mom’’ promoting a book about her son Evan’s ‘‘recovery’’ from autism.

   • 2015 April, Mitzi M. Waltz, “Mothers and Autism: The Evolution of a Discourse of Blame”, in AMA journal of ethics, volume 17, number 4, →DOI, →ISSN, page 355:

     No longer the abjected “refrigerator mother,” today’s “autism mom” is supposed to be a child-saving hero, expected and encouraged to do anything and everything in pursuit of normalcy, from special diets to special schools, from medications to therapeutic toys.

   • 2019 March 1, Sara Luterman, “The toxic myth that kids with autism destroy families”, in The Washington Post‎^[2], via EBSCOhost:

     Why does the narrative that autism destroys marriages persist? Last year, at the Autism at Work conference, an otherwise wonderful gathering of business leaders from across America, autism mom and pseudo-celebrity Holly Peete Robinson gave a presentation trotting out the claim that 80 percent of marriages with an autistic child end in divorce.

   • 2019 August, Benjamin W. Mann, “Autism Narratives in Media Coverage of the MMR Vaccine-Autism Controversy under a Crip Futurism Framework”, in Health Communication, volume 34, number 9, Routledge, →DOI, →ISSN, page 987:

     Similarly, another article came from a woman who described herself as an “autism mom” while discussing the challenges of her “surviving” her child’s diagnosis, presuming that the child did not. Moreover, being an “autism mom,” according to this woman, meant being the mother of an autistic child, not being an autistic mother herself.

   • 2024 October, Kimberlee McCafferty, “Adult Autism Transition”, in Exceptional Parent, volume 54, number 10, via EBSCOhost, →ISSN, page 27:

     Due to starting my research early, my invaluable connections to other autism moms, and sheer perseverance, my son will be attending a wonderful day program.

Sometimes used derogatorily to refer to such a mother who claims to speak authoritatively on behalf of autistic people. May be used as a form of self-identification.

• refrigerator mother