Do Your Parents Fit The Assortative Mating Theory of AS?

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My mother is a state investigator (past jobs were working in hotels & working at airports when she was younger-she has been a state investigatory for ~20 years and is 41 now), My father is a firefighter (Chicago fire department). Think he retired (rarely see him-LOL divorce). He was [also] a police officer for some suburbs and a paramedic for Chicago as well. Oh, he's a MINISTER. HAHAHA [given the ~10 children by several females].

Hmm. My mother has some different ttraits apparently. Likes old hose music (e.g. patterns & whatnot) and is a -slight- science fiction fan. A light Trekkie and fan of old and new Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Who. And I mean -slight- she watches more normal shows. Though she liking old BSG is cool-I remember atching some eps with her when younger, the first season when the Cylons exterminate all of the human populations of the colonies and sme of the later eps. Need to watch new and old BSG again. I have this weird memory of one of the eps when they're stuck on this ice planet (yes it's BSG-later on I saw the ep and it was that ep-pictures fit-NOT ep 5 of Star Wars) and it's from years ago. :/ (maybe it was from this one time we went out into the far out suburbs that is 1-2 hrs from the city center for some social thing-liked the dude's personal library there-was nice and big.

My father apparently has some internet skills and has a YT account andd contacted me via that surprisingly. Doesn't make vvids or whatnot-faves stuff for his church stuff. One time I went on a vid he faved and they were discussing 'earth' for th video (some church service on that), I naturally asked 'so what about other planets . I got 5 thumbs down from the people there and some people said 'they are okay too' or something similar. He also keeps up to date on politics to soem extent uding YT and whatnot. Also aware of the 9/11 truth movement and whatnot. That and some other stuff/knowledge on things/obscure politics stuff. Also he's a Star Wars fan (slight). And...hmmm

this post should help you gain information on me and my parents and whether they're "Aspie" enough or whatnoy.

I wouldn't call my mother nerdy. I got my AS from my aspie father, and my mother was always sporty and on the honor roll. or whatever it's called.

I don't even know how to begin to describe my parents. While probably both NT, they certainly aren't typical people. My dad is extremely quiet and shy and never took to having lots of friends. My mom is the total opposite: extraverted like you wouldn't believe. Then again, I wonder if they didn't both have some social problems when they were growing up. (I have some reasons to believe that they did, especially mom.) I think they might both have some really mild spectrum traits. I'm pretty sure that I fit somewhere on the spectrum, although I think I'm pretty mild now (I certainly had some difficulty growing up).

My wife is wickedly smart and a bookworm. She was reading at age 3 and was an advanced reader by pre-school. She went to a private "gifted" school, and I don't think she had too many social problems growing up. She certainly never fit in with the popular crowd. She can do some freakish things with spatial relations, like being able to tell the difference between 74 inches and 73.5 inches from a distance. While I wouldn't say she's on the spectrum, she has some rather interesting traits that make her trend "nerd" in some ways.

We have a 10-month old son who is about the happiest baby I (and many others) have ever met. I'll let you know how he turns out.

Last edited by fiddlerpianist on 11 Jun 2009, 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My partners do not fit this theory. My parents are both NT, as are my two siblings. They are not even remotely close to being on the spectrum. My brother and sister were both incredibly popular at school and are both very charismatic with tonnes of friends. My mother is a counsellor so her job is to read people and she is very good at it. She is introverted but likes to socialise, is good at it and shows no other traits of AS. My dad has many personal problems but they relate to drug abuse not something like AS. He is very social and charismatic apart from that.

Though, there are less immediate family members that are on the spectrum.

Actually this theory we are discussing right now is a theory produced by one of the "pros" (Simon Baron Cohen from memory).

Baron Cohen is very far from considering AS normal or properly evolved people,
his pseudo science rejects autism the same way the bullies at school rejects and tortured the nerds because they were supposedly lacking "social skills".

The theory presented by the is a theory produced by Simon Baron Cohen. Why you think this relates to your entirely different and in my view rather silly idea about evolution, I do not know.

Mine don't. That seems to be somewhat atypical.

My dad shows some AS traits (his entire family does, really), and he has a brother with full blown AS.


My mom... is very strange. NOT AS, but in no way normal, either.

I don't think there has become more aspies - I think they just receive more focus these days, because the demand for social abilities has increased. Now, we all have to be ready to accept constant change and be good teambuilders (shudder!) and here the average aspie will stand out.

In the old days you could be a watchmaker and be really nerdy about it, which in time would make you a very good watchmaker. Today you have to be a part of he watchmaking team.
In the really old days (like 3000 years ago) the aspie would probably have been revered as a priest or priestess.
Think of all the old fairytales where the weird kid (the good for nothing son or the introverted sister) goes on a religious quest of some sort, whether it is catching dragons or marrying he monster. Cinderella is just sitting stirring the ashes/cinders (hence the name) - talk about autistic behaviour .

I think aspie traits have been with us always (genetically or developmentally based or both) and these traits have been deemed "good" or "bad" depending on cultural context.
So, a "cure" for AS would be to make society more tolerant.

... and to stay on topic:
My mother is comparatively normal, I guess.
My father is definitely not. I think he is AS or psychopath or both. Zero empathy/sympathy/compassion, really bad meltdowns, no remorse and good at playing the marthyr.

In addition to a genetic burden I have been born way too early (about 10 weeks) so that may account for some alternative neurological development as well.
I always thought I survived my birth without any permanent injury (I wasn't exactly ret*d and obtained a master's degree in molecular biology) but today I am not so sure.

Forget AS for a moment.

"Geniuses", "artists" and creative people in general have always been seen as a bit odd by the general population.

Can you think of any really creative person who wasn't a drunk or a drug addict or a womanizer or gay or a general nut case?

This makes sense to me.

Both my parents have some AS characteristics (different ones to each other though) and some NT characteristics. I seem to have inherited all the AS characteristics from both sides, and they're more extreme in me.

Bach. He was, by all accounts, a very normal church man.

Brahms. Very stable and normal... just extremely talented.

Or were you looking for recent history?

Possibly both have traits.

Some social communication/anxiety issues which they've muddled through.

My temperament is distilled version of both parents characters.

I'm descended from at lot of ordinary engineers, craftsmen and a musician on one side of the family.

Both sides seem to think in an object orientated way.
They talk about doing things with stuff.
Most social gatherings are set up with an item or gadget (usually new), in the centre as the main focus.
A lot of the time is spent moving, aquiring, setting up or finding objects.

There's common themes of: acquiring/collecting/selling objects, sorting/organising objects, taking them apart and putting them back together again on both sides of the family.

I haven't read Baron-Cohen's theory, but I imagine that, to a certain degree, this theory is kind of stating the obvious.

People are generally attracted to like-minded people. If you are different than the rest of the world, and you run into someone of the opposite sex who is either also different or sympathetic to differences, that adds to the chances of getting married and having children.

It's obviously not the whole story, but I would be surprised if it's not a chunk.

Baron-Cohen is the guy that put out the "autism is an extreme version of the male brain" theory, right? From what I gather, that is a load of crap.