Aspie men and babies

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I would question whether it's the lack of desire to nurture children though, or just the fact that they are put off ever finding out about their nurturing potential by the knowledge of the sensory problems making them not want to find out.

I have strong protection instincts for my children, If nurturing means the feeding and cleaning and other responsibilities that come with having children, then I admit I do not enjoy those. I take my responsibility as a parent very, very seriously though and have always tried to be a good parent to them and kept them out of danger and attended to their every need as best I could. I enjoy the cuddling, and I used to like the cuddling up for bedtime stories and singing to them (although I do like singing anyway).

I did not excel at playing. I tried playing dolls with them once and felt very awkward and had to stop. I am good at comforting, although if it becomes over-demanding I do lose patience with it after a little while.

I have found the sensory side incredibly hard. The screaming and crying and colic and tantrums and demanding nature of them, has reduced me to tears many a time. I also got very run-down and the HV had to give me extended visits and with both I had some baby-sitting from their special baby-sitter that was meant for families of twins.

I just think Aspies parent a bit differently, not necessarily badly (and in some ways better), although there are of course elements that will be far more problematic for an Aspie than an NT parent. I have found being a parent means putting them first has left me feeling a shadow of my former self in many ways and taken away the time I need for myself to zone out and there is conflict between parenting duties and special interest time.

But what I would like to say, is that I love them desperately, I have a deep emotional connection with them and do love them unconditionally.

Meh I think it has far more about the not perceiving the social pressures that nt men face.

Many men feel very inhibited with children, as traditional there suppose to be more reserved than woman.

I completely agree with all of this.

And this.

My wife often complained that I did not play enough or in the right way with our kids. I guess this is true, but my feelings were much like yours. There is no point in trying to fake that kind of thing--no one sees through it faster than kids. I think it would be worse to be consistently dishonest with them than somehow not quite adequate as a playmate. I also think that they have other children to play with and that a father's role is not to pretend to be a child... but to help them grow. I don't know if this is right or wrong, but I did what seemed best.


I am good at comforting physically by hugging or snuggling. Verbally, I tend to analyze problems and discuss logic. This seems more effective with my son than my daughter. My wife sometimes says I need to stop talking to them and just tell them what to do, but that would be really going against my nature.

I have twins and at one point was getting only two hours of sleep a night. I was reduced to tears and it was the most difficult thing I have ever endured. My son had digestive problems and this caused him to scream for a while, which was hard to bear, but when the pediatrician discovered the cause and we took remedial measures, it got much better.

I would guess it would be hard to generalize accurately. I have seen many, many NT parents who were obviously terrible: ignoring and abusing their children. I can recall taking my kids to the swings in various city parks, and seeing parents chatting on their cell phones, completely ignoring their miserable looking children (sometimes the kid was sitting crying in the motionless swing seat while mom or dad stood six feet behind them, apparently having forgotten their existence.) And the NT adults saying "shut up kid, or I'll give you something to cry about."

I suspect there are good and bad aspie parents, too. I can imagine that there could be nurturing problems for an aspie who was very, very aloof--but there are NT parents who are quite aloof and their children seem to survive the experience.

In a way that always irritates my wife, I will say that I don't really believe in unconditional love--if one of my children were to become an avid neonazi or serial killer, for example, I don't think I would be able to love them any more. But I think I know what you mean and I feel it to. I had an experience that made me realize I would give my life for theirs without hesitation-- I am sure some of the parents reading this will understand.

Looking after babies is hard, but it only lasts for a year, then you are looking after a toddler, then kids, finally and adult. My understanding is that thats when it gets really complicated.

This^^ but I only have 2, and raising 1.

Yes, but only their own babies. I never really cared for babies until I got my own, and once I got them, it seemed I transformed into a parent all at once. I certainly had no problems with the bonding process.

When my child passed away I was able to hold my child and feel the nurturing feeling. It was one of the few times in my life, I felt that way. Completely selfless.

I have a nurturing personality, but do not have the same ability to gain connection with people that I recognize other people enjoying. It is not hard to see, but much harder to feel. It is not the same as emotional contagion; which I have experienced to extreme degrees in my life.

Not all people on the spectrum are hypersensitive, some are extremely hypo-sensitive to emotion and the sensory experience. Those folks are more than likely not communicating 'socially' like this in written text. They are more likely engaged in video games, and other special interest pursuits that do not include written communication with other people.

It is highly unlikely I would ever have communicated in written text, if I had not developed vision problems. I was connected to the environment more than people, when I had better vision.

People in the online autism communities will tell you there is no problem with empathy and people with asperger's syndrome, but it is only reflective of people who are communicating in written communication, and have a desire of some type to connect in the first place, which inherently presents a bias of propensity toward a greater degree of shared empathy/social emotional contagion with people.

Tony Atwood is the expert in this area with over 20 years of clinical experience specializing in Asperger's syndrome. It is the major focus of his therapy to help the 'male' individual with asperger's syndrome connect with other people, somehow, without that oxytocin connection.

He identifies generalities of differences in how females with Asperger's syndrome are more likely to feel that empathic connection than males with Asperger's syndrome. Of course that is not everyone; just the average...

And by the way, this is not to say that those same people on the spectrum that don't feel the same levels of the shared empathy experience, do not have high, if not higher levels of compassion for people when they intellectually determine what their problems are.

That is true altruism, as it does not come with the same oxytocin intrinsic reward that drives most people in the experience of bonding with other people.

I am so sorry that happened to you.




I'm not sure if I would have the same reactions as a male as I do test as extreme male brained. I have often thought that I think more like a man (even before knowing I had AS).

That's very interesting about the oxytocin, I don't get any feeling of reward from bonding with other people. At all, that I can recognise. I don't want to be lonely, but I don't seek people out whatsoever and like all Aspies, socialising is draining for me. It is so fraught with trying to cognitively work out when it's your turn to speak, if they mean what you think they mean, if you are answering the type of answer they want to hear etc. that there is no room for any rewarding feeling. No glow of pleasure about it. Even with e.g. my best friend, if we talk about experiences in common (mostly to do with children these days) it's just a relief to hear you are not the only one with those type of issues raising children, I don't feel any warm glow or anything.

Babies have always given me the heebiejeebies, even my own monsters, but I worked through it to do the Dad thing. I do not really like "children" per se, but have nothing against them. Strangely, kids seem magnetically attracted to me, possibly because of the childlike elements in my makeup, and I can get along really well with them in small doses.

I love my kids, because I accept that it is a non-negotiable part of parental responsibility, and have made no further suicide "attempts" since their births because although in many ways I'm probably a terrible parent, I feel that my life belongs to them now. Does that make sense?

Other than the suicide stuff, you sound eerily similar to me torquemada.

I'm guessing, Pragmatics? Lol. I've had to adjust my outlook towards the kind of demise I prefer, and would now settle for shuffling off this mortal coil aged 93, via coitus-induced cardiac arrest, whilst drunk in a harem....

I perceive too many people having children for selfish reasons, but consciously refuse to take my attitude out on the innocent. In that way, having children sort of "saved" my life, but in others has destroyed it BUT I do love my kids, and have grown, and am growing as a person because of them.

I try really hard to remember that they are "flowers to be nurtured, not a vase to fill" and sometimes even succeed. They seem to enjoy their limited time with me which is nice, and because of my lack of instincts and willingness to try stuff, am the "fun" parent who is willing to do cool stuff they want to try. This year's camping trip is to a surf hut literally on a small beach! I built their bikes, they have their own inflatable kayaks, and we do silly stuff together but they respect my "authority". They're good kids who didn't ASK to be born, lol. My "job" is to love and comfort them, help them, defend them and teach them to think, rather than to know.

It's not all bad

Thanks for the kind words.

My mother is 'Super Oxytocin' woman, and my father is a fearless, law abiding 4 decade law enforcement officer, with little to no ability to connect, to anybody but cats. Not too different from me, but not diagnosed on the Spectrum.

I have pictures of them on my blog, and you can almost see it by looking at my mother, because there is this radiant glow of nurture about her.

My sister has Asperger's, and she also misses this thing with people too. I have no ability to hurt people intentionally and never have, nor has she. In fact I often find myself defending people to my 'Super Oxytocin' mother.

My wife is super empathy woman. She has to be to live with me. However, she is the aggressive one not me. Hard to believe if one looks at our photos, but she is the 'man' of the house. If you do look at my blog, my latest post is 'out there'. I have been trying to connect to emotions and a spiritual side of me that is a lost continent.

The oxytocin thing and the spiritual thing, is something that many people with Asperger's syndrome experience very differently, and in my opinion is part of crux of the issue of disconnect of language and emotion, along with Alexithymia.

In observing myself connect to what I see as the spiritual side after never pursuing writing in my life, I have come to believe that the people that wrote religious text are likely somewhere on the psychopathy or Autism Spectrum scale, trying to release 'demons' in the walls of mind that divide social and mechanical cognition.

What can result is an unusual expression of the 'Universe' that cannot be found in emotional expression alone; an algorithm of religion.

It was enough to scare one of 2 people that 'friended' me on facebook away. :) However. that is part of what I mean; folks with friends cannot afford to go out on those type of 'spiritual' limbs and expect to develop and maintain friendships. It's not a big deterrent if one already can't make friends.

I remember hearing Temple Grandin say that people with Asperger's syndrome often have to work so hard to be accepted that they develop an almost flawless moral code of behavior, because in the real world, acceptance can be a life or death scenario, when it comes to things like getting hired for a job and keeping one. It is exactly what I did to adapt.

I sense that my cat is more human than I am when it comes to oxytocin. I wrote a 'poem' about it called AutisticS peeks. I sense the thing the cat experiences, by looking at his face, and listening to him purr when he connects to me; he is the lucky one. Cats have literally been that part of a 'vicarious' soul in life.

It is another Universe of pleasure. I know it because I could experience it when I was a very young child, before the 'real' smile left my face.

I have one cat that rarely connects, but is fearless and has never been hurt in a 'street fight'. At 18, fur and bones, all he has to do is give the look, and the other young cats back down. I suppose the cat is a 'psychopath', of fearless nature; like a combat soldier. The other cats don't sense any fear.

I haven't had anybody lay a hand on me, in my life either. Your eyes are pretty intense in your avatar, if that is you. The first time I saw a video of me looking back at the camera, it was unsettling to me. I don't mean that in a bad way. I can relate to it.

My wife and my mother, don't have the ability to give that look. Neither does my sister. I think it is the warrior gene they talk about. If I was born a stronger child without motor skills and language problems, there is no telling where I would have ended up.

Christopher Gillberg identifies the motor skills deficit as a main point that separates psychopathy and 'Autistic psychopathy'. He considers psychopathy as very much related to Autism. I have to agree.

One will not find many surgeons that don't fall on the psychopathy scale. There are places where fear is not allowed. Those people are valuable too.

Sorry, that was quite a ramble, but it is the focus of a special interest, lately. :)

That's another thing I'm always saying. And I feel this huge responsibility to get it right, (not saying that I always do) because I decided to have them, it wasn't their choice. I see it like a role (so there is almost this very Aspie abiding by the "rules" thing to it) that has to be done a certain way. And it makes me mad when I see neglectful parents who clearly put their own needs before the child's. Because I have this thing about justice and fairness too, and it's an injustice against the child when parents are crap.

^^yup. I agree. In the UK we have people who pule about (whiny voice) "My right to have a baybeee" which matters far more to them than the duties that exercising that "right"

This IS beginning to worry me, I suspect if we ever shook hands, the universe may implode!

^^yup. I agree. In the UK we have people who pule about (whiny voice) "My right to have a baybeee" which matters far more to them than the duties that exercising that "right"

This IS beginning to worry me, I suspect if we ever shook hands, the universe may implode!

Yeah, you know like when in the films people travel back in time and are not meant to meet their past self, or it will cause some weird paradox that will affect the space time continuum!

Arrggghh! It's my other self! (And I am also in the UK, and we don't want to disintegrate this lovely place now do we (much))