Should an Aspie adult have children?

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Decisions, decisions topic

Genetics is a roulette wheel. I am Aspie but my three children are NT. I have a sister who is NT but ADHD, and a brother with Tourettes/NT personality. My father had Narcolepsy. Interesting how those chromosomes divide!

well if you want to have kids thats ok but it is obviously important to keep in mind the possibility of genetics and what the consequences of having an AS child are. It can cause a lot of conflict in families from personal experience. On the other hand I know a couple of aspies who are married with kids and it worked out really well.

If you are going to be a good parent, sure, why not?

If I fall in love and have a stable relationship with a partner who also wants them, I'd love to have children someday.
Two at the most though.

Too late!

I had children, one is undiagnosed aspie or at least a good dose of aspie traits. I am not sure what I would have chosen to do had I known I was on the spectrum. I was as most young people are: idealistic, and would probably have had them anyway.

I have a 15 yo who's completely NT. She thinks I'm as weird and annoying as everyone else does. But it wouldn't have made any difference if she had been as Aspie as me. It's a difficulty, it can be a real disability, but it's not a deformity and it's not a disease. I really don't see why it's a serious topic for discussion. Have kids, don't have kids, but you're not condemning them to life in the circus freak show if they do turn out to have AS. For my part, (and I know not everybody feels this way), having a child was one of the only things I ever did that made my existence on this planet seem to have some real purpose. I'd rather have an otherwise healthy Aspie child than not have a child at all.

I have a 4 year old profoundly gifted NT. I suppose that would have to be the long term cure for Aspergers... marry NT's and just blend the genes back into the general population.

Dear ACG,

Even though I'm only in my 20s, I worry about this all the time. My father is undiagnosed, but shows traits of AS. I have AS myself, and I have three siblings: one has severe anxiety disorder, one has autism, and one is seemingly NT. Autism & the like have a strong genetic & hereditary presence - I have heard that the chances of a passing the gene on are well into the 60% range. Scary, huh?

I want to have kids someday as well, but when I think about how much trouble my parents had with me and my younger siblings, it's quite a turnoff. Call me selfish for wanting a NT child, but I think my generativity is showing as well - I'd hate for my child to experience what I experienced.

The one consolation is that I have a much better understanding of spectrum disorders than my father did and I'd be better prepared to handle a child with AS.

I never wanted to have children: I just don't like them. I knew myself well enough to know that I'm not capable of handling a lot of things that come with the kid package: the incessantness, the constant stimulation, the need to be functional all the time... I also worried about passing on a tendency for depression that runs in the family, and I worried that I wouldn't make a good mother: I was too perfectionistic, impatient, short-tempered. And I worried that I wouldn't be able to handle motherhood, and that I would "flip out" and either abuse or neglect my children. Also, pregnancy and childbirth horrified me.

Then I "matured" (read: learned how to tone down my perfectionism etc.) and fell in love with a man for whom having children was a REQUIREMENT. And I managed to convince myself that having children with this man would be fun.

Boy was I wrong! It turned out that all the reasons I hadn't wanted kids were true... and then some. Along with my family's tendency for depression is a tendency for post-partum depression (PPD), and let me tell you, bad time to be depressed! Also it turned out that the man I fell in love with was a chicken-shit who ran away from his parenting responsibilities (and his responsibility to take care of me in my time of need) and stuck his head in the sand. So we broke up. We got separate apartments about a month ago and now I'm a single mom of a delightful 16-month old girl who I have a very hard time enjoying.

I have spent the better part of the past year believing that having a child was a mistake. People hate to hear me say this. They will say, "Don't say that!" or "No you don't!" But having a kid has destroyed my life. I have given up everything that was of value to me.

But:
In the past few weeks, I have started thinking that maybe it wasn't such a terrible mistake.
It was my therapist's completely useless reaction to my PPD (even though she knew I was high-risk and we had discussed the possibility beforehand) that led me to dump her and start cognitive behavioural therapy, which I am finding much more practical.
It was my difficulty handling motherhood which led me to explore Wrong Planet, which has been absolutely enlightening and my one ray of hope (other people have these problems too! Maybe I can learn to thrive in spite of them!).
And my daughter is such an incredible little person that even though her existence has made me miserable, I can see that she brightens the lives of everybody else she comes into contact with.

Then again, there are days (like today) when I just have a shutdown and just don't feel fit to be a mother. Fortunately her father (ADHD) comes through in times like these and takes her off my hands. He claims everybody has days when they're not great parents...

So far she does not seem to have any autistic traits (something we were worried about). She may turn out to have AS, and if she does, it won't upset me. I was raised in an AS family, where AS traits were admired and praised. I grew up happy. My one resentment is that my family were unable to teach me how to cope with interacting with the rest of the world, because they weren't very good at it either (in various ways). But now that there are communities like WP, and the traits are well-recognized and defined, and there are people like us talking to each other, I think that if my daughter is an Aspie, it won't hold her back or make her any more unhappy than she would be otherwise.

I have a teen daughter with NLD and I couldn't imagine life without her. We understand each others quirks and have an amazing relationship. Although I don't socialize with other parents, having this relationship makes up for everything. She is a good kid, a little geeky..lol, and wonderful. I had her long before I knew about my condition. I was diagnosed later in life. But I love her and love having her as a daughter. Sure she has problems, but what kid doesn't?

I don't want kids, and am considering "taking the necessary steps" as one poster said. I have a host of problems in my family that are all genetic-obesity, diabetes, bipolar disorder, autism/aspergers. My dad has bipolar and my childhood was one long nightmare of abuse. My grandfather is likely on the spectrum, and is in the final stages of type 2 diabetes. I think that the risks in my case would simply be too great. My parents are begging me to reconsider, especially my mom, but I've wanted to get fixed for 10 years, all because I'd likely be a terrible parent since I had no role models on how to be a good parent, and because if I had a boy that was say severely bipolar I would never forgive myself. Bipolar is sheer HELL.

My autism made my life hell, and human nature does NOT change. Tolerance is only skin deep. The communists tried to change human nature for 150 years, and failed. If auties and aspies are ever "accepted" it will be because the government FORCES people to accept them. Muslims in Bosnia thought that the Serbs had "accepted" them. Those Muslims are now resting in mass graves, having badly misjudged the tolerance of their neighbors. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire went from full citizenship to fully dead because they believed that the Turks had accepted them. Jews in Germany and Poland in the first couple decades of the 20th century enjoyed full rights. Fat good it did them in the end. No, I'm not dumb enough to have kids. Sorry, Mom.

Don't!

Because kids need their parents ALL the time, not just when the parent feels like it.

I am Aspergian and was the child of two Aspergians. I am not as autistic as they were. I wanted love, hugging and attention. If I tried to climb in my Mother's lap she would push me off. If I tried to get her to hug me she would push me away. She would ask, "Why are you being such a pest? I would tell her, "I'm lonely." She would say, "Why don't you play by yourself? I used to love to play by myself. "

I was not allowed to have anyone come in the house and I wasn't allowed in anyone else's house because, "then we'd have to reciprocate."

For some reason few wanted to play outside in 90 degree heat. I had the usual trouble making friends anyway. The isolation my parents forced on me did not help.

The sound of my voice was a sensory issue for my Mother. She could not stand to hear me talk. One day I touched her arm and her skin crawled. She was that repulsed by me.

At two and a half I decided not to have kids. I didn't know what was wrong but I knew it was not natural for a Mother to feel no affection towards her child. None. She lost be twice in public due to her inattention. Whens he finally found me she yelled at me for it being my fault. I was two years old. Up until then I had been brave and had not cried. When she started yelling at me, then I cried. But there was no empathy for how terrified I'd been. No comforting. She never comforted me. Never. All she understood was the terrible inconvenience it had been my not keeping up with her.

I was always being told I was a bad girl and she would threaten to have the orphanage come and get me.

My Mother could not understand that I had feelings. She would try to bath me in water that was much too cold or too hot, try to scrub off sores thinking they were dirt, would try to bend my arms the wrong way when dressing me. She didn't understand that I couldn't just be put back up on the shelves when she was tried of playing with me. I didn't have an off switch!


One day social workers came to the house and warned my Mother they would take me away from her if she did not clean up the house. I noticed after they left, she just sat there. i went to my room and took a toy out of my toy box and put it on the floor and thought. Did I want them to come back or not? I knew there were mean people out in the world too. So I could not make up my mind about this. But my Father's job transfered us to another town before they could come back and check.

One day a boy many years older than me chased me with a bull whip. My Mother said, "Why were you antagonizing him?" and then rolled over and went back to her nap.

My father who was also along the spectrum just shrugged, "I can't do anything about it."

I knew I didn't dare call the police. I knew I would be the one in trouble.

She hoarded trash spoiled and ROTTING food, and used kleenix, and napkins. The refrigerator was full of green rotting stuff. So was the garage. We had thousands of cockroaches and mildew and mold everywhere. My father kept the outside of the house like an English country garden and no one was ever allowed in so no one knew. I had allergies. I desperately needed a clean house. But when I asked her why she would not clean up she told me truthfully and without having any comprehension that it would upset me, "Because I love the trash and the garbage more than I love you." I stayed exhausted all the time from breathing problems constantly interrupting my sleep. But on those rare occasions when I did have enough energy to try and clean up she would have melt downs and I would be in trouble with my Father for "upsetting your Mother."

My Father was face blind and didn't want to go anywhere where people would be moving around so he couldn't tell them apart by where they were sitting. So we were not allowed to go to PTA meetings, church, or even weddings or funerals. He also would not let us have a phone. When I got severely ill and stayed that way he rejected me because he could not comprehend anyone else but him could have a sickness. He made fun of my Mother's health problems and frustration and mine. He could not teach either one of us to drive because he would start yelling at the first mistake we made. When he yelled at Mother she wilted and gave up trying to learn. When he yelled at me I yelled back and he punished me for this by no longer teaching me. I was 32 before I learned to drive. A neurotypical friend taught me.

They weren't socially skilled enough to realize that our family doctor was a quack. So both my Mother and I went without badly needed medical care. When I developed emotional problems because of the AGONY of constant 24/7 migraines from sleep deprivation, my Father rejected me for being a "bad girl." Because, "good girls don't develop mental problems." The doctor's opinion of me went into my medical records. I could get no care until I was 32 years old and a clinic lost my child hood medical records and I had a neurotypical friend to go with me to advocate. By then stress from half a dozen undiagnosed health problems has permanently damaged my health.

Think long and hard about having kids! Some of us are not cut out for it AT ALL! I have been banned from certain autistic support groups for saying this, but it had to be said. Being banned really hurt. I am rejected by neurotypicals all the time but that my fellow Aspergians would also ban me for telling the truth!

I know I'm not cut out for it. I used to think maybe I wanted children, but I'm glad I didn't. I'm OK with other people's kids, but only for so long. And, the sheer responsibility of caring 100% for a growing human being scares me spitless. I'm 39 and I've just barely gotten my head round the fact that I'm capable of being responsible for my life, let alone anyone else's.

Also, there's other stuff that I don't think is necessarily Aspie at all. My mother was, as far as I know, NT but narcissistic. That's a totally different thing to have grown up with; I only even found out what it was very recently. I can guess it could easily be confused with some autistic behaviors, but there is the crucial distinction that the narcissist is aware of his/her behavior, does it intentionally, and doesn't exhibit it to everyone - just the people they know they can control and manipulate that way.

Now, I recognize that I didn't have a healthy example of what motherhood means. But, it's often the case that women automatically fall into the same mothering patterns as their own mothers, and it terrifies me to think that I could ever inflict that much pain on a child. It took me decades to realize that I was any kind of a worthy human being. Nobody should ever have their self-esteem destroyed that early by the person who gave birth to them.

Having an AS child is the one aspect of all this that would not worry me. NT kids are, after all, not always problem-free to raise! I would worry far more that I - not as AS (which is something I can and have learned to compensate for), but as someone brought up dysfunctionally - could damage a child in other, much more far-reaching ways. And I don't want to do that.

Being a parent is one of the most difficult and the most rewarding jobs there are be you NT or AS. I had all five of my kids before I was diagnosed. I may not be the best mother in the world but I have been blessed with the maternal instinct. I do tend to be better with my Autistic children than with my NT children but I suppose that is just a given. If you want kids you should have them as long as you understand that there are times when they may grate on your sensitivities and steal a lot of your precious time. I tell myself that they are only going to be with me for a short time so I do my best to enjoy them....even when it becomes difficult for me to do so. There are many times when I have to be affectionate when Im not up to it and times when I have to be social for their benefit. The majority of the time I enjoy my children and I dont regret having any of them. They are certainly my greatest acomplishment and I think they have made me a more loving, understanding person.

I have a child. I am terrible at it. I have little patience and I have to force myself to interact with him when HE wants it, not when I want it. I believe he is on the spectrum too, and is much the same way. He will physically push me away sometimes.

With that said, I also believe it would be easier if I had been prepared for it; for his ASD; with his father. I believe his father has AS too, numerous reasons. We were an animal collecting, obsession-driven, overly-sensitive, slowly-drifting apart pair, we were. We wound up being one of the 80% of couples that divorced.

Still, I think the good times make up for the bad. I don't want to influence anyones' decision without acknowledging that this was written on a bad day. Most of the time I am very positive about this. But it is not without its struggles. Childrearing is hard, and whether you have AS or not, you will need help. Make sure you have that help, in the form of a spouse, a healthy grandparent, a faith-based group, or other family.

I would like to see more parents with AS raise children. Parents with AS beget children with ASDs and I look at the posts on this site and think the world would benefit. Greatly.

Maybe the world would benefit if I had children, but I wouldn't, and nor would my children. We would have a hell of a hard time having to relate to each other. I refuse to sacrifice my quality of life, or my potential childrens' quality of life, for the good of the world at large.