Sometimes the Portrayal of Reality is Important
Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I look at something that really got to me this past while. It involves a long running show. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!
I’ve long been a fan of General Hospital and Days of Our Lives. I have watched soaps off and on since my Grandmother and Mother used to sit and watch. It started with The Edge of Night and then moved on to General Hospital and a few others as I grew older. I actually started watching Days of Our Lives off and on around the time Marlena got possessed…the first time (makes me a relative newbie), not when she got repossessed, but watched that too. Have had a few breaks over the years when I had other things going on in my life. But, fast forward from then to now. In one part of my career life, I had worked counselling adults in a college setting and of course, keeping up on professional training goes with that. One of the things that we started to examine at the time was FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders). We did have some clients with FASD. They were not bad people. Often they had the entire psychology lingo down better than I did. They had been to more therapists who tried to help them deal with their issues than many could even remember. Some knew their diagnosis. Others, it was not caught but some of my coworkers were suspicious. So, we went to conferences to get a handle on it. We found out that it was one of the only preventable conditions. It does not belong to one particular type of people, it does not belong to one race, and it does not belong to one socioeconomic status. It can make a difficult future for many people growing up with it. What, in the world does this have to do with the soap opera you say? First, you also need to know; the one thing that is necessary for a child to develop FASD is maternal drinking of alcohol during pregnancy though currently there has been some suggestion it could potentially also be paternal drinking of alcohol. There is NO safe amount or time for the expectant mother to drink alcohol. https://camh.ca/en/health-info/mental... It is not necessary for the mother to be an alcoholic...it’s not a disease of alcoholics. It is simply necessary for the mother not to know, or to forget or be uninformed. It is not a parent blaming thing. It is a fact. Parents don’t try to harm their children for the most part.
So, where does this information come in that made me so very upset? I saw a scene where 3 young women were getting together to celebrate an anniversary with some of their partners. They sit and have champagne. Later the same young woman who said she’d take some after a hesitation told her sisters that she thought she was pregnant. My mouth fell open. They were literally showing a young woman accepting alcohol thinking that she was pregnant. I literally blew a couple of gaskets and freaked out. I was beside myself with upset that they would allow this to go on a show…especially since it is supposed to be about a hospital. The writers could not know. I don’t know if anyone saw the posts, but I was definitely on a rant. Rant I did to anyone who would listen. It is not to say that a child growing into an adult with FASD could not be successful. I’m sure many are, but a great many also struggle. With so many disabilities and so many children that have to struggle growing up, this is the one thing that we can educate people on and save millions of babies and their parents a lot of heartache. I apologize for those who are successful living with FASD, but I was beyond relieved when they made her pregnancy a false alarm and I hope there is a note up on the walls of the writing team to never ever do that again or have a pretty strong story line about FASD…and yes, that is an option. What makes me afraid is that in the process, in that one moment, other women might not know. In fact, I’d be super excited if they wanted to make a story-line of someone planning to be pregnant and inform everyone in some nice sophisticated soap opera way that both spouses were abstaining from alcohol because they wanted to give their baby the best chance at a healthy and happy future. Maybe give a little info on FASD, birth defects and parental drinking. In the show they have a resident student (TJ) and his partner might be a good way to start this difficult conversation. I’m sure they could save millions of babies in so doing and save millions of parents from heart break.
Wait! Back up; did I just say both parents? Why would I say that? There is some connection between fathers drinking and other issues for the baby. https://www.parents.com/pregnancy/eve... To write this part, I honestly had to look it up. Early in my career, it seemed the focus was mostly on maternal drinking. They thought it was just the mother that had to be careful. I had read something about ADHD/ADD more currently about men drinking (this is not the particular article), but the idea came up in a conversation once and I checked it out. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30353... does talk a bit about it. So, people were mainly focused on the affects of maternal drinking early on for obvious reasons. Even in the time since I was attending conferences; there has been more research on the topic. So, both maternal and paternal drinking can have affects on the baby.
Sorry, I’m not being judgmental. There just is no good way to protect everyone’s feelings and still get the facts out. It is not about mother and father, it is about giving the baby the best chance they have of being healthy and happy. The article, https://www.healthychildren.org/Engli... does give the good news that there is not a genetic component as such and even a woman who has FASD can have a healthy child without FASD as long as she does not drink alcohol during pregnancy. The reason it is a preventable disorder is because of the lack of genetic factors.
Now, I’m going to bring you to one of the conferences I attended. A woman got up on the stage. They had social workers and other professionals who were involved. She looked very professional. We thought she was a presenter. She got up on stage and started to talk about her child. Her child had FASD. She had gotten drunk in college, gotten pregnant and her child was born with FASD. I still remember this many years later. Yes, she was a presenter, but she was also a mother of a child with FASD. As I say, there are no socioeconomic boundaries etc.; there is nothing but drinking alcohol that can cause FASD. The saying at the time I was taking conferences was…they can talk the talk; they just can’t walk the walk. Often as kids, they can get into situations that are inexplicable. They are not bad kids. Some have trouble with moral judgment and there is where the confusion about consequences and such comes in. It can cause a lot of serious trouble. There may be large discrepancies between what they say and what they do. It all depends on the degree of the disability. They may know what you want to hear. They may not understand some things that you think they should. Sometimes memory is a problem and they can be creative in their explanation of their situations in life (confabulation), in other words, they don’t have a true memory of the event and so they fill it in. This article gives you the more professional definition https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/.... This is different from actual lying as they don’t intend to deceive. If you want more information, the articles in the blog post and podcast will be a starting point for learning more.
Much to my relief, a few days later, she announces to her partner that she is not pregnant. I’m not being cruel…I had worried about the effects on society from the one scene. It might not mean anything particular to much of the world, but it should. I still do find it upsetting because there is so little direct information given to people. I only hope if they make plans to have a baby in their fictional world (because that seems the way it is going) that they find out about what they need to do to have a happy healthy baby. I hope they communicate it and thereby use the reality of their world to make a positive change to the reality of our world. At the same time, as the following article points out, https://preventionconversation.org/20... “We don’t hear about those [people with FASD] that are doing well, have jobs, and are raising children,” “There’s a lot of stigma attached to the disability, so I think once we get past that, we probably will talk about it.” Of course that was a 2017 article and I’m seeing this scene in 2023. I counselled in the late 1990’s. I really think we need to move past the stigma and start talking sooner than later. So, please don’t let stigma, fear, and lack of clear language muddy the waters. We can’t change that there is a connection between alcohol consumption by parents and FASD. Don’t let that blind us to recognizing that we can do something about it. We need to have the tough conversations. As the article also points out, parents don’t usually do things to try to harm their kids. So, if we inform people, many could have a somewhat easier future. Life is hard enough; the world is not always a forgiving place.
The following article shows FASD from the eyes of parents and from the person who has FASD. This might be the best teacher of what the issues can be and how proper supports can make a world of difference. Of course one has to recognize that each and every case is different and different approaches may be needed. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/stori... . If there is any take away from this, it is that there is a connection between drinking and pregnancy. It is not something parents are doing to harm their child. It is something that can nonetheless. Lack of information is not only detrimental to families who want to have a baby, but also if the child has a disability, you do them no service by not understanding the issues. We don’t do them service by placing them in situations which will end in failure or worse. So, whether General Hospital decides to have a story line of children with FASD and show the whole spectrum of issues or if they decide to pass on more information about not drinking during pregnancy, I hope they will choose to continue to help educate people on mental health and health conditions. Until we get the proper information out and help for those who have FASD, then it is best to start with baby steps and get the information out. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!
The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few
All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...
I’ve long been a fan of General Hospital and Days of Our Lives. I have watched soaps off and on since my Grandmother and Mother used to sit and watch. It started with The Edge of Night and then moved on to General Hospital and a few others as I grew older. I actually started watching Days of Our Lives off and on around the time Marlena got possessed…the first time (makes me a relative newbie), not when she got repossessed, but watched that too. Have had a few breaks over the years when I had other things going on in my life. But, fast forward from then to now. In one part of my career life, I had worked counselling adults in a college setting and of course, keeping up on professional training goes with that. One of the things that we started to examine at the time was FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders). We did have some clients with FASD. They were not bad people. Often they had the entire psychology lingo down better than I did. They had been to more therapists who tried to help them deal with their issues than many could even remember. Some knew their diagnosis. Others, it was not caught but some of my coworkers were suspicious. So, we went to conferences to get a handle on it. We found out that it was one of the only preventable conditions. It does not belong to one particular type of people, it does not belong to one race, and it does not belong to one socioeconomic status. It can make a difficult future for many people growing up with it. What, in the world does this have to do with the soap opera you say? First, you also need to know; the one thing that is necessary for a child to develop FASD is maternal drinking of alcohol during pregnancy though currently there has been some suggestion it could potentially also be paternal drinking of alcohol. There is NO safe amount or time for the expectant mother to drink alcohol. https://camh.ca/en/health-info/mental... It is not necessary for the mother to be an alcoholic...it’s not a disease of alcoholics. It is simply necessary for the mother not to know, or to forget or be uninformed. It is not a parent blaming thing. It is a fact. Parents don’t try to harm their children for the most part.
So, where does this information come in that made me so very upset? I saw a scene where 3 young women were getting together to celebrate an anniversary with some of their partners. They sit and have champagne. Later the same young woman who said she’d take some after a hesitation told her sisters that she thought she was pregnant. My mouth fell open. They were literally showing a young woman accepting alcohol thinking that she was pregnant. I literally blew a couple of gaskets and freaked out. I was beside myself with upset that they would allow this to go on a show…especially since it is supposed to be about a hospital. The writers could not know. I don’t know if anyone saw the posts, but I was definitely on a rant. Rant I did to anyone who would listen. It is not to say that a child growing into an adult with FASD could not be successful. I’m sure many are, but a great many also struggle. With so many disabilities and so many children that have to struggle growing up, this is the one thing that we can educate people on and save millions of babies and their parents a lot of heartache. I apologize for those who are successful living with FASD, but I was beyond relieved when they made her pregnancy a false alarm and I hope there is a note up on the walls of the writing team to never ever do that again or have a pretty strong story line about FASD…and yes, that is an option. What makes me afraid is that in the process, in that one moment, other women might not know. In fact, I’d be super excited if they wanted to make a story-line of someone planning to be pregnant and inform everyone in some nice sophisticated soap opera way that both spouses were abstaining from alcohol because they wanted to give their baby the best chance at a healthy and happy future. Maybe give a little info on FASD, birth defects and parental drinking. In the show they have a resident student (TJ) and his partner might be a good way to start this difficult conversation. I’m sure they could save millions of babies in so doing and save millions of parents from heart break.
Wait! Back up; did I just say both parents? Why would I say that? There is some connection between fathers drinking and other issues for the baby. https://www.parents.com/pregnancy/eve... To write this part, I honestly had to look it up. Early in my career, it seemed the focus was mostly on maternal drinking. They thought it was just the mother that had to be careful. I had read something about ADHD/ADD more currently about men drinking (this is not the particular article), but the idea came up in a conversation once and I checked it out. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30353... does talk a bit about it. So, people were mainly focused on the affects of maternal drinking early on for obvious reasons. Even in the time since I was attending conferences; there has been more research on the topic. So, both maternal and paternal drinking can have affects on the baby.
Sorry, I’m not being judgmental. There just is no good way to protect everyone’s feelings and still get the facts out. It is not about mother and father, it is about giving the baby the best chance they have of being healthy and happy. The article, https://www.healthychildren.org/Engli... does give the good news that there is not a genetic component as such and even a woman who has FASD can have a healthy child without FASD as long as she does not drink alcohol during pregnancy. The reason it is a preventable disorder is because of the lack of genetic factors.
Now, I’m going to bring you to one of the conferences I attended. A woman got up on the stage. They had social workers and other professionals who were involved. She looked very professional. We thought she was a presenter. She got up on stage and started to talk about her child. Her child had FASD. She had gotten drunk in college, gotten pregnant and her child was born with FASD. I still remember this many years later. Yes, she was a presenter, but she was also a mother of a child with FASD. As I say, there are no socioeconomic boundaries etc.; there is nothing but drinking alcohol that can cause FASD. The saying at the time I was taking conferences was…they can talk the talk; they just can’t walk the walk. Often as kids, they can get into situations that are inexplicable. They are not bad kids. Some have trouble with moral judgment and there is where the confusion about consequences and such comes in. It can cause a lot of serious trouble. There may be large discrepancies between what they say and what they do. It all depends on the degree of the disability. They may know what you want to hear. They may not understand some things that you think they should. Sometimes memory is a problem and they can be creative in their explanation of their situations in life (confabulation), in other words, they don’t have a true memory of the event and so they fill it in. This article gives you the more professional definition https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/.... This is different from actual lying as they don’t intend to deceive. If you want more information, the articles in the blog post and podcast will be a starting point for learning more.
Much to my relief, a few days later, she announces to her partner that she is not pregnant. I’m not being cruel…I had worried about the effects on society from the one scene. It might not mean anything particular to much of the world, but it should. I still do find it upsetting because there is so little direct information given to people. I only hope if they make plans to have a baby in their fictional world (because that seems the way it is going) that they find out about what they need to do to have a happy healthy baby. I hope they communicate it and thereby use the reality of their world to make a positive change to the reality of our world. At the same time, as the following article points out, https://preventionconversation.org/20... “We don’t hear about those [people with FASD] that are doing well, have jobs, and are raising children,” “There’s a lot of stigma attached to the disability, so I think once we get past that, we probably will talk about it.” Of course that was a 2017 article and I’m seeing this scene in 2023. I counselled in the late 1990’s. I really think we need to move past the stigma and start talking sooner than later. So, please don’t let stigma, fear, and lack of clear language muddy the waters. We can’t change that there is a connection between alcohol consumption by parents and FASD. Don’t let that blind us to recognizing that we can do something about it. We need to have the tough conversations. As the article also points out, parents don’t usually do things to try to harm their kids. So, if we inform people, many could have a somewhat easier future. Life is hard enough; the world is not always a forgiving place.
The following article shows FASD from the eyes of parents and from the person who has FASD. This might be the best teacher of what the issues can be and how proper supports can make a world of difference. Of course one has to recognize that each and every case is different and different approaches may be needed. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/stori... . If there is any take away from this, it is that there is a connection between drinking and pregnancy. It is not something parents are doing to harm their child. It is something that can nonetheless. Lack of information is not only detrimental to families who want to have a baby, but also if the child has a disability, you do them no service by not understanding the issues. We don’t do them service by placing them in situations which will end in failure or worse. So, whether General Hospital decides to have a story line of children with FASD and show the whole spectrum of issues or if they decide to pass on more information about not drinking during pregnancy, I hope they will choose to continue to help educate people on mental health and health conditions. Until we get the proper information out and help for those who have FASD, then it is best to start with baby steps and get the information out. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!
The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few
All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...
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A & J PEI Treasures/E Jean Simpson, BEd, BA, MA
A & J PEI Treasures is located on Prince Edward Island, Canada. We are a husband and wife team and our companion animals. There are a number of things that drew us to the Island…one of which was the n
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