"Nurturing Instincts" and Women

Post Reply New Topic

I do care about people and often find myself wanting to help, but "nurturing" as such doesn't really occur to me. It's pretty much always some sort of "concrete" help - I'm more of a problem-solver, I guess. I can't handle people who just want a pat on the head or something, because they'll be describing their problem and I'll say "well, you could do this or this or that about it"...which usually gets a response like "RARRRGH, I wasn't ASKING for a solution!"

Ha! I can relate.



Ah, I didn't think to add an option for those who aren't sure if they're autistic or not...my apologies. If you haven't voted already, and you're sure you're not neurotypical, then go ahead and vote as somebody on the autistic spectrum.

I'm on the spectrum and I'm not a nurturer. I can nurture my husband, but that's it. When our daughter lived with us, he did the nurturing to her.

It's alright. I submitted my vote then

I'm not a natural nurturer even though I do love my husband and daughter. Unless it's really obvious what they need (or the tell me) I'm clueless. I am, however, good at fixing problems and they seem to appreciate that.

Thank you all for your votes/replies so far! I'm honestly very surprised that there are so few women here at WP (who have visited this thread) who see themselves as consistently nurturing...it's very intriguing.

I'm curious about why you're surprised?

Im about the furthest from being a nuturer. I would guess in many ways women learn to be nurturers but then I also wonder if aspie women just aren't that keen on traits like that. When someone needs nurturing, I often dont know what to do. I can help people in a practical sense like bringing them things, giving advice, doing things for them but as for giving emotional support...nope. I cant nurture to save my life. When it comes to kids, I just let them do there own thing.

It's really dependent.

I am with people close to me, kids and animals.

But adult strangers or acquaintances I do not do the small daily stuff with.

Me too.

Not a nurturer by nature if it comes to humans. Can't see an animal suffer though. Can't see humans suffer either, but I don't really know how to handle the emotional part, just the practical issues.

exactly the same for me (except the animal needn't be furry for me; I love turtles more than anything else). Based on the OP I assumed the poll was about people though, so on the spectrum and NOT a nurturer here.

I don't know any other women with a confirmed diagnosis on the autistic spectrum, and I haven't read much about Asperger Syndrome, so I wasn't expecting a huge difference between the nurturing tendencies of NT women and women on the autistic spectrum. Now, I know I'm not consistently nurturing, but that's all I knew for sure prior to creating this poll.

I think you need to do some reading on Aspergers if that is the case.

Often it's not the fact that we "aren't", "don't", "won't" or "can't" do something like we are told so much of the time, and that is presented in the official literature on the subject by professionals - usually it is a matter that we tend to do it in a completely different way than normal - a way that is not recongised or acknowledged by NT's.

They label us with this condition because they cannot relate to us or empathize with us. Nobody labels NT's with a condition in a negative manner because they are the majority - despite they have no ablity to empathize or relate to us (the same thing they accuse us of). It is only because we are a minority that we are pathologized for how we are.

You may find that rather than being nurturing consistently to everyone in general like NT women are (which is how everyone defines nurturing, because it is the NT definition), that AS women instead to to get very attached to and nurture a toy (if we are still a child), an particular animal or a particular person to a much more intense level than is usual, and with everyone else, we nurture in a practicial way usually, as opposed to emotional.

I knew a woman once who said that a lot of people think they are caring because they care for their kids, but that doesn't really count because even animals do that.