Mother Teddy Bears Unite

Bear with me here, Dear Reader, as I make my case for a coalition of mothers...once known as Refrigerator Mothers, and herein reborn as Mother Teddy Bears--of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, schizophrenia, and--how should I put this--any and all iterations of LGBTOMG.

I'll let Rachel Maddow provide the front story. Saves my carpal tunnels.

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Christine O'Donnell and the Value Voters (and, by implication and association, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, and all the Republicans who showed up at the Value Voters Summit) believe that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry; many still believe that gays can and should be cured. O'Donnell founded The Saviors Alliance For Lifting The Truth and promoted Americans For Truth About Homosexuality.  The cure touted by Values Queen Christine for "the gay" is to address a man's repressed anger at his mother for not being warm enough. (It's always men in these scenarios. Do they consider lesbians beyond hope?) Make that pillow the surrogate for your cold, hard, rigid mother and beat the crap out of it. Yeah, that'll work.

Dear Reader, they are talking about a psychogenic theory of mental illness that was debunked by psychologists and psychiatrists in the 1960's!

Photo by Darth Bengal

Back story: In the fifties, the refrigerator mother was blamed for schizophrenia. And she was blamed for what we now call Autism Spectrum Disorders (which include Aspergers Disorder, autism, Rett's Syndrome, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder). In theory, her cold, hard, rejecting persona wrecked normal development in her children.  This theory was based on Freudian concepts, notions that we now largely find quaint, if not bizarre. Back then, it was believed that autism and schizophrenia were primarily socialization and behavioral disorders caused by bad Betty Draperish moms.


Sixty years ago, whatever science did not understand was laid at the feet of parenting. Don't get me wrong, parenting and early childhood experiences are highly significant in personality development, but schizophrenia, autism, and homosexuality are not personality problems.

Schizophrenia is a genetic disorder that occurs in 1% of the population in all countries and results in differences in the make-up of the brain. The National Institutes of Mental Health states:

In fact, recent research has found that people with schizophrenia tend to have higher rates of rare genetic mutations. These genetic differences involve hundreds of different genes and probably disrupt brain development.

Other recent studies suggest that schizophrenia may result in part when a certain gene that is key to making important brain chemicals malfunctions. This problem may affect the part of the brain involved in developing higher functioning skills. Research into this gene is ongoing, so it is not yet possible to use the genetic information to predict who will develop the disease. Scientists think interactions between genes and the environment are necessary for schizophrenia to develop. Many environmental factors may be involved, such as exposure to viruses or malnutrition before birth, problems during birth, and other not yet known psychosocial factors. [emphasis, mine]

Please note that no Refrigerator Mothering is even suspected. Likewise, for Autism Spectrum Disorders. Now, back to those bad mommies who made their kids gay or lesbian.

So-called Christian Fundamentalists believe that parenting and bad choices create homosexuality and that there's a two-part cure: the bible and the right therapy.

Bible first: Fundamentalists primarily cite two verses. Levicus 20:13 (Old Testament, the third of five books of the Jewish Torah) offers the definitive cure,

 "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

So much for gay Jews. When Paul and Sosthenes were trying to build a minority religious movement in Corinth and encountered the legendary throngs of Greek perverts, they prudently tried a less drastic approach:

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

Basically, Paul's letters to the Corinthians recommended that they baptize and convert all the homos...right along with what sounds like the entire population of Corinth.

And the therapy recommended by the Fundamentalists to rid gays and lesbians of their curse? Taken directly from the Primal Therapy of the 1970's--a period when the Refrigerator Mother theory was slow to die and better science had not yet taken hold.

 Most treatments for homosexuality, at that time still considered an illness, were based on the work of Masters and Johnson, who published Homosexuality In Perspective in 1979. That work was supposedly the result of a fourteen year study of 300 homosexual men and women; in it, Johnson claimed a 70% conversion rate for 12 homosexuals who were dissatisfied with their sexual orientation and accepted treatment.

 William Masters and Virginia Johnson appearing on "Meet the Press" in 1979

Looking into those "conversion" cases, staffers and therapists at the clinic have since cast doubt on their validity and, in fact, think that Bill Masters invented specific cases and concocted success stories. His wife and partner, Virginia Johnson, agrees. From Scientific American, April, 2009:

But were Masters and Johnson's claims of "conversion" in those 12 cases -- nine men and three women -- even true?

Prior to the book's publication, doubts arose about the validity of their case studies. Most staffers never met any of the conversion cases during the study period of 1968 through 1977, according to research I've done for my new book Masters of Sex. Clinic staffer Lynn Strenkofsky, who organized patient schedules during this period, says she never dealt with any conversion cases. Marshall and Peggy Shearer, perhaps the clinic's most experienced therapy team in the early 1970s, says they never treated homosexuals and heard virtually nothing about conversion therapy.

"That was a bad book," Johnson recalled decades later. Johnson said she favored a rewriting and revision of the whole book "to fit within the existing [medical] literature," and feared that Bill (Johnson) simply didn't know what he was talking about. At worst, she said, "Bill was being creative in those days" in the compiling of the "gay conversion" case studies. 

There's the "science" on which the Value Voters base their position. That's where Values Queen Christine put her fundraising energies and her time. Note that the saviors of "the gay" don't rely on faith alone; they use outdated, debunked, and fabricated pseudo-science.

They completely ignore the groundbreaking work in genetics and brain imaging of the last twenty years that has pointed science toward a real understanding of the Autism Spectrum disorders and Schizophrenia. And to the differences (not disorders) of sexual and affectional orientation in humans. All of them.


So, I call on all of you who are mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, kin and kith of children of any age with schizophrenia, Autism Spectrum disorders, and what Maddow ironically dubs The Gay to band together and stand up to the Values Voters who would ignore twenty years of science. Investigation into the genetic causes and brain differences of the disorders (and I don't include LGBTs in that group) offers the first real hope for treatment that families have ever known. And for LGBT's, those investigations offer understanding and acceptance that is long overdue.

Refrigerator Mothers, refudiate that designation, declare yourself Mother Teddy Bears, and make your presence known--on line, in your communities, and at the polls.

How Many Words Is This Worth?

From Rene Maltete, via Octopus at Swash Zone:

My dear Peeps, how many words does it conjure for you?

p.s. The lettering on the sign: Is that 7 Peaches or 7 fishereries?

Disinterring Ophelia

"It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter."

Bristol Palin's coupe de mere this week, the ubiquitous airing of Mel Gibson's verbal sexual abuse, and my accidental viewing of Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" video have convinced me that it's time to re-empower those who mother adolescent girls. I am reared up over the cynical forces that undermine and threaten to bury the tender developing selves of our daughters, so break out your copy of Hamlet (or watch any filmed version other than Gibson's); it's time to disinter Ophelia.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia's fate demonstrates the fragility of a young girl's hold on stability and safety. In adolescence, she begins to live for the approval of her father and of Hamlet, with whom she has fallen in love. Hamlet is pre-occupied with his own demons and rejects her; subsequently she loses her grip on reality, dresses in her best and drowns herself. Hamlet comes upon the gravediggers; here, Shakespeare inserts a cruelly ironic moment of graveyard humor before he allows Hamlet to discover for whom the grave is intended. Ophelia will haunt you.

In 1994, Mary Pipher, PhD, published Reviving Ophelia: Saving The Selves of Adolescent Girls as a wakeup call to families, fingering modern media and culture for increases in the rate of depression, anorexia, and suicide attempts in teen girls.  The book made its title a household phrase and Mary Pipher was deluged with speaking requests. I recommended the book to dozens of families who were trying to save their girls from illnesses exacerbated by America's sexualized marketing of teens. It pleases me to report that many families realized how wisely, carefully, and persistently they were going to have to fight in that cause; they were able to shut down the gushing well of exploitation that was drowning their daughters. 


Other families, sadly, felt helpless; their attitude was, "If she doesn't get it on MTV (or through magazines, books, ads in stores, etc.) at home, she'll just get it at her girlfriends' houses." They didn't realize that, if they could set and hold strong boundaries at home, they would be giving their daughter a critical safe port. The daughter could then internalize that concept of herself as precious. The sense of being worthy of careful nurturing, of possessing a selfhood worth fighting for, could operate to help a girl protect herself as she moved toward womanhood. 

I happened to see segments of Stefani Germanotta's (Lady Gaga) music video for "Alejandro" (a worthless waste of audio perception) on the screen of an adjoining exercise bike at the gym. The rider of that bike looked to be about 40 and perfectly normal, but she was glued to the video.  I have to admit, it was the proverbial train wreck; my neighbor's screen was so hard to ignore, I almost missed the news on my own screen that the BP oil well had just stopped gushing. Imagine what the Gaga video would be like for a thirteen year old girl! You can it see it on YouTube here, but approach with caution. It's not that the video is objectionable in a new way (it pretty much struck me as picking up where Madonna left off), but that it is objectionable in the same old way.

I often despair at how each generation has to relearn lessons that the previous generation sweated to master.  Not only did absolutely NOTHING change in the exploitation of teenage girls since Pipher's book was published, but the trend has accelerated. As age of menarche declines (as measured in decades) and secondary sexual characteristics (telarche) appear even earlier with the rise of obesity in children, America's media, driven by the unchecked profit motive, reaches further back into childhood to sexualize and exploit our daughters.

In Bristol Palin's passive aggressive decision to alert Us magazine, instead of her parents, about her decision to marry the father of her son, I see the fear and anger of a daughter whose family failed to protect her adequately. Bristol learned from her mother to live an overexposed life, and she applied that lesson to her television debut on the reality show "The Secret Life of The American Teenager."  Specialness that special can only be learned.  To me, it all further demonstrates the Palin family's willingness to exploit its most vulnerable members relentlessly.  They seek celebrity rather than substance.

There is a segment of the country's middle and lower class women who slavishly worship Bristol's mother; in their idolization of her, in their--typically inaccurate--identification with her, I see a feminine cohort that Feminism has failed.  Perhaps especially when they try to wrap the cloak of Feminism around themselves.


In the huge popularity amongst teens of Stephani Germanotta's pornographic music video, I see another failed crop of adolescents, both male and female. The lyrics of "Alejandro" are explicitly aimed at a young audience: "She's not broken, She's just a baby. But her boyfriend's like a dad, just like a dad/ and all those flames that burned before him. Now he's gonna fight your fight, gonna cool the bad."


Now, listen to Mary Pipher, PhD.  The video will sound and look a little dated, but its message is more applicable now than when it was filmed.




Who do you know that needs to hear it?