A Mother Hen/protective/doting tendency?

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Does anyone with AS or elsewhere on the spectrum notice that they feel a sort of protectiveness towards those who are younger than they chronologically or emotionally? I tend to be like that, even with people who don't need it....like my dad and my roommate. With my roommate, she does just fine for herself, but since I'm a junior and she's a freshmen, I feel like it's my job to make sure she's okay, to always put her first, make sure she's comfortable and has enough food to eat, etc. My dad is now in his 70s and is doing okay, too, but I still feel the need to protect him from things, to check on him to make sure he's all right, and to help him with things he didn't need help with before. I get the impression that since I'm gone a lot and no longer around all the time for my stepmother to take all her anger issues out on, that she harasses and picks on my dad now, and I don't know what to do about it and that makes me sad.

My dad always tells me that he's used to her moods and doesn't let her obnoxiousness bother him the way I do, which makes me even sadder because that means he's had to become "numb" to it somehow. My father is a strong, hardworking, and profoundly loving and caring man who has done nothing to deserve being talked down to and treated like a child the way my stepmother does to him when she gets p!ssy. My father is a professor emeritus, for the love of God. I mean, if I had a domestic partner like my stepmother and he/she verbally harassed me the way my stepmother sometimes does, I would more than likely leave or separate from him/her because the things she says can border on verbal abuse. Of course, this is probably just me being "too sensitive" and "lacking theory of mind," but I simply.interpret.things.differently. from the way most people do, and it's unfair to ask me to try to force my brain to interpret things in a way that it simply cannot. There, I said it.

Also, I read the book Aspergers and Girls, and one of the contributers (I think it was either Liane Holliday Willey or Jennifer McIlwee Myers) who said that girls with AS tend to seek out/gravitate towards slightly older girls/women and "adopt" them as mentors or surrogate sister/mother figures who help them to navigate the world. I have that tendency too, but I guess for me it goes both ways - I like to care for and to BE cared for. I just want to prevent the possibility of anyone else feeling as lonely, scared and isolated as I quite frequently do.

So, what do you think? Do other people with autism or AS have this need to be protective of those smaller/younger/more sensitive than they? (I purposely say "people" rather than use gender pronouns bcuz it tends to be a trait attributed to females, which I think is unfair because men can be doting and protective as well)...or am I just plain co-dependent? Also, one of my first special interests was babies and infants and playing with/caring for them, if that indicates anything.

The emotional impulse might be there, especially if one has been bullied a lot, I think it becomes a natural tendency to feel protective toward others unable to defend themselves, regardless of age. However, that said, Autism by definition, is a condition that tends to cause one to be so wrapped up in one's own head and thoughts that we often neglect even the people we care most about, because we're so distracted we forget to even notice them, much less fuss over them and be vigilantly protective.

I was the at-home parent when my daughter was an infant and toddler and while I was very protective in the sense of ensuring her environment was a safe one, and always keeping her within eyesight (which sometimes meant taking her to work with me in her car seat carrier and keeping her on the floor beside me as I worked), I've never been a "Helicopter Parent," afraid to let her do things for herself, even when it meant falling down and getting bruised in the process.

I'm horrible at getting so wrapped up in my own personal interests that I just tune out the people I love and forget to interact with them for hours or sometimes days on end. I'm sure they often wish I were more "doting."

My protective instinct is kind of muted. It exists for small furry animals, a very small handful of people, and some of my students. That's it.

This

I am drawn to children and animals so I must have a nurturing/protective instinct. However, I get fed up with children and exhausted after awhile when working with them so I'm not exactly good with kids (they're too loud, I lose patience when they disobey and their attention spans are so short-I want to finish reading a book to a child but they're on to something else etc.). Not that I blame children for the qualities that make me lose patience with them and I still have a lot of sympathy for them, I'm just not good at working with them for a long time.

People who have nurturing/protective instincts seem drawn to me sometimes. Some people want to take care of me......though most are put off by me. I have a friend (the same age as me) who calls me "little sister" and "sister from another mother" who fixes my appearance (re-adjusts my clothes and hair) and points out to me when I miss social cues or make mistakes and when I went out with her friends or boyfriend she'd explain things to them like that I'm bad with non-verbal language when her boyfriend was confused because I was asking him a question while looking at her. I can give her advice about her life and she calls me when she's upset so it's not a completely one-sided relationship but she does treat me like she's my caregiver sometimes. She's also like this with other people and gets in bad relationships because she wants to take care of and help guys with serious problems.

I am extremely nurturing. I cannot stand seeing people suffer. I feel a compulsion to ease their pain in whatever way possible. I used to bring homeless people to stay at our home [before we moved into a travel trailer] constantly and only stopped doing that when someone I asked into our home wound up murdering 2 people, coincidentally good friends of mine. [ Daryl Rasmussen aka Miss Puppy, oh, and the murders had nothing to do with inviting this person to our home] I think that my nurturing is totally tied to abuse I have suffered over my lifetime.

At the retreat in a week and a half I am trying to set it up for autistic space, have good entertainment, great speakers, wonderful but fairly simple food, workshops and leisure activities. But mainly, more than anything else, I am doing everything I can to make each person attending know that they are incredible and cherished. I guess I live for the Golden Rule, of which my interpretation is 'Do unto others as you wish like hell they had even considered doing unto you,"

i guess that makes me a co-dependent personality. My husband is the same way. Two codependents spoiling each other silly makes for a very loving and supportive marriage. Despite all the horrible things said about itm I would kind of like it if people in general were more co-dependent and just loved and supported and nurtured each other.

Babies and child care are one of my special interests to. I can spend hours reading up on child care or playing with little kids, even though I tend to avoid my peers. (Less so now that most of them have learned to act like adults, still hate teenagers.). And I was always happy to spend time with the special ed. Kids in school. Now I work in a retirement home.