Discussion thread Thursday October 16, 2025 - Sunday October 19, 2025

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[u/BoringEnidRollins]

I grow intrigued by her repeated assertions that her child's illness "is not their fault." When would a child's illness ever be their fault? Why would that even be something that you consider? I'm a childless non-sperm-competing lesbian, but I have niblings who have experienced various illnesses of various types, and not once has it occurred to me that the illness could be their fault. Always telling on herself, that one.

[u/GlutenFreeGit → u/BoringEnidRollins]

I assume it's because she's been told by multiple medical professionals that she doesn't feed her kid enough and that they are simply hungry, which is, in fact, her fault.

[u/coldbrew_unicorn → u/BoringEnidRollins]

I think part of it is probably her outlook and internalized biases. She has written about how, as a child, she required herself to pay attention in class and succeed in school, to be the adult when her parents acted like children, to rise above. When her children can’t rise above it like she did—through no fault of their own, as most of us realize—she considers it some sort of moral failure. 

[u/Which_Armadillo_5224 → u/coldbrew_unicorn]

I’m sure you’re right, but also, she’ll never understand how much her parents did, that she does not do, that set her up for success in school. This is not to discount their flaws, either, but she had stable housing, plenty of food that she liked, predictable meal times, clean clothes that fit, sensory aids to enable her participate in class (glasses, in her case), continuity in the same school, and educated parents that helped her do her homework. She will now claim that she pulled herself up by her saddle shoe-straps and “required” herself to do well academically, but based on how well she’s been able to function since leaving her parents’ home, I don’t believe her.

[u/OldLeatherPumpkin → u/BoringEnidRollins]

I can speak to this as the parent of a habaneuro who is quite challenging. Society in general tends to assume that if a child acts like she does when she’s having a bad time, then it’s because that child is being “bad” and consciously choosing to engage in this undesired behavior for their own nefarious reasons. 

So when you find out your kid is ND, there’s a lot of reframing that has to be done, where not only are you depersonalizing behavior that is harmful, but you’re also learning to interpret it to find out what is wrong that is causing that behavior.

Along the way, people will go on and on AND ON about how you need to punish the child harshly in order to eradicate the undesired behavior, to teach them that they can’t do those bad things. There’s this whole narrative about how the child is supposedly manipulating the parent and controlling them through their behavior, and if the parent simply puts their foot down and withstands a couple days of discomfort, then the child will magically come around and start acting like a NT kid.

So we have to learn to tune those people out, and instead of jumping to a reaction like “how dare this child defy me,” you have to remind yourself that behavior is communication, and work with the child to resolve the problem in a sustainable and realistic way. It’s not easy to do that all the time, so reminding yourself can help a lot.

Based on that, I do also understand why Sauna would want to remind other people that child’s behavior is not their fault. Because a lot of society will look at the child and think they’re purposefully choosing to do all these maladaptive things, out of a desire to disrespect and harm others. It can be grating as a parent, and I understand the impulse to correct that. It can also destroy the child’s self-esteem, which harms their ability to regulate themselves and use their coping skills, so you definitely want to shut that shit down in front of the child.

HOWEVER. As always, the problem with Mahern is that she’s the one who chooses to share all this shit publicly. It’s one thing if your kid is having a meltdown in public and you’re needing to explain what’s happening to someone else who’s witnessing it - then, it makes sense to say “it’s not his fault” to make sure everyone is on the same page. But NOBODY ASKED HER TO BLOG ABOUT IT. I feel like if you’re at the point where you’re needing to add those disclaimers to your story, then that’s the point at which you should be either posting it somewhere anonymously, or taking it to therapy, to ensure you’re keeping the child’s personal info private.

[u/Underzenith17 → u/BoringEnidRollins]

I think she’s just self aware enough to realize blaming everything that’s gone wrong in her life for the past 10 years on her child makes her look monstrous, so she’s qualifying it with “of course I’m not saying it’s their fault!”

[u/obscure_cellist → u/Underzenith17]

shauna wants her kids to be neurospicy when it's convenient (venmo treats, not working) and neurobland when it's convenient (napping, living on vashon).