In 1943 and 1949, Kanner described the children he studied in scientific papers. He thought the children's parents were not loving them enough. He wrote that this might be part of the reason why the children had autism. In 1949 he wrote that the children's parents showed no warmth, or love, to their children. He thought the parents were so "cold" that he compared them to refrigerators:"“[The children] were left neatly in refrigerators which did not defrost. Their withdrawal seems to be an act of turning away from such a situation to seek comfort in solitude”."This idea became known as the "refrigerator mother theory". For decades parents were blamed for causing their children's autism by not loving their children enough. Now we know this is not true.