Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 09:53:13 -0400
From: Eva Whitley <eva.whitley at gmail.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: David Dance?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Candy Madigan wrote:
> At 09:43 PM 10/26/2006, you wrote:
>
>>Candy Madigan wrote:
<snipped>
>>
>>Hey, we let it slide when they banned my son Steven from their house,
>>and it just made them think they could ban lots of other people. I can't
>>say that was all bad, because it did get us to rediscover BSFS (now
>>hashing out a possible series of author readings, over on *their* list,
>>by way of contrast) but I can't say any of us are happy about it.
>>
>>Had we known that taking on a developmentally delayed 2 year old was
>>going to lead to banning Keith and Ted, we would have made more of a
>>protest at the time. But Jack felt like the club was OK with telling
>>Steven to leave, so we let it slide. Now I'm sorry we did.--Eva Whitley
>
> That was a slightly different issue.  Expecting parents to parent is not
> unreasonable.  If the parents won't or can't keep a child under control
> (i.e., reasonably behaved) then it is not unreasonable to ask them not to
> bring that child.  Steven got nothing from the club and the club got
> nothing from him.  It impacted you because you had to make a choice between
> getting a sitter and not coming, but you still could have attended meetings
> had you chosen to leave him behind.

You assume that Alexis and Lee are right in that I wasn't keeping Steven
  under control. (My memory is that I was doing a fine job parenting
him, just like I did with David, but I could be wrong.) And we could
have attended meetings at Stately Ginter Manor, too, but I think that
would have compromised our point.

What Steven got from attending SF meetings was a very low key
socialization with adults. Given how often we see our extended families,
I think that was good for him. And given that initial diagnosis was
later revised as high functioning autism (and, later, Asperger's
Syndrome), I think having him in social setting where he was expected to
behave was good for him.

I don't think BSFS got anything from Steven when he was a toddler, but
certainly having him attend meetings for close to a decade led to his
interest in becoming more involved in the club. He's a department head
at Balticon, and had we gotten him a sitter and left him home all those
years I don't think he'd be as interested in running cons. --Eva