Taking mothers off the hook for causing autism

Why have the mothers of children with autism been the target of blame so often?

Over in Psychology Today, Vanessa LoBue published an article with the provocative title, “A History of Mom-Blaming for Autism: Blaming mothers of autism is as old as the diagnosis itself” on 6 October 2025. In it Ms. LoBue—who has a faculty appointment and a center directorship at Rutgers University to go along with her Ph.D.—traced examples of what she called “mother blaming” since the time of Leo Kanner’s 1943 observations about children with “fascinating peculiarities.”

Here are examples of “mom blaming” that Professor LoBue reported:

1. The idea of “refrigerator mothers,” a term based on anecdotal report by Leo Kanner and popularized by Bruno Bettelheim, explained autism as a consequence of cool and distant mothering.