Tough Question

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Mental and Psychological disorders are common on both side of my family including those on the Autistic Spectrum. Since I have Asperger's myself it makes it much more likely that I could have a child with a severe case of Autism. I guess my question is, if you knew that you had a high chance of having children with severe Autism would you still choose to have kids of your own or would you choose another option. Personally, I don't know what I would do, I'm only 20 and not in any kind of relationship so having children is not something I have to worry about for a while. It's not only autistic disorders that run in the family but I have a cousin with bi-polar disorder on dad's side and a cousin with severe learning disabilities that can't be fully explained also on dad's side. I guess my grandpa's siblings also had children who were severely ret*d (also on dad's side). Mom's side is where the Autistic tendencies show up, though my dad also has ADD so there must be some on his side too. Basically, my genetics suck when it come to Mental and Psychological health... so I must eventually choose to pass that on to another generation and hope that I am as lucky as my parents were, or choose something else. What would you do?

This is not a tough question for me at all!

I do want kids when I am older but since I have AS I don't want to conceive naturally.. I don't want them to have the life I have been 'blessed' with (more like 'stuck' with, if you ask me...) and I want my kids to succeed as much as possible.

I'm going to adopt them.

I feel that a person should prepare for the most difficult possibilities, plan ahead, and then work on becoming a parent when they believe they are capable.

I forget all the details about you, I haven't been keeping track. You seem fairly normal though. By that, I mean your writing indicates you are at least around average intelligence. If I recall right, most of your writing seems upbeat. I would think you have a fair chance of having a normal, or HFA/AS kid. Just make sure the father is not much worse off than you.

Retardation and learning disabilities can be due to LOTS of things like old parents, premature birth, drugs given to the mother, forceps, oxygen deprivation, etc... And Retardation is NOT really autism, because autistic/MR people would be labeled LFA.

ADD isn't NECESSARILY Autism. They only think there is a 30% link. As for depression? A LOT of people are depressed these days.

Basically, the biggest fear I would have, if I were you, is any damage on the 23rd chromosome. That is more likely to show up in boys. Anything else could conceivably be countered by the father. Still, you can probably have as good a chance as anyone else of having a healthy capable child. Think about the fact that he or she probably has about the same chance of being BETTER in a lot of ways.

Besides, concerns like yours are why the US generally doesn't allow close relatives to marry. There is too much of a chance that the same gene could have a defect and show up.

knowing beforehand there are possibilities such as the ones you mentioned, you could give a special treatment to your kids from the very beggining, according to their needs, of course..

but id advise you not to make it too special, or it might worsen the situation, i mean, growing up being treated differently than the other kids by your parents might be just as bad as growing up being treated differently by the other kids themselves.. both might be kind of traumatic
the point is, since you know there is such a possibility, you work on it and try to fulfill your future kids' special needs

i hope i havent been too confusing, and i hope i helped

I could never adopt a child... Children are basically made of their parents. It's all their genes. Personally, I don't see people as valuable simply because they exist. I don't think anyone really does; otherwise, all the pro-lifers would be making up for all the abortions by having tons of babies. If I were to have a child, it would for the purpose of carrying on my genes into the future. No one lives forever except through his progeny.

I knew there was a good chance that my kid would be weird because I was weird. It didn't stop me. I guess I just always figured that I would raise him to deal with it. I never once wanted my child to feel like there was something wrong with being weird and I never wanted him to think that I thought there was something wrong with him the way that he was either. I always had that feeling growing up, like I wasn't really accepted by my parents. You know, the whole alien feeling. My son doesn't feel that way. I'm glad of that.

I have some of the same worries as the OP, but I've decided not to decide until I've found the right person to have kids with and am ready to look after them. If my partner wanted the kids to be ours, no matter the consequences, I'd probably get sentimental and agree. But if they preferred adoption, for whatever reason, I'd be happy with that too. I see no need to make up my mind ahead of time.

At the risk of being yelled at by pro-lifers, I'll add they might have screening for more conditions by the time I want kids - I need fertility treatment anyway, I may as well pick the cell-group that I'll have a better chance of looking after well - I doubt I'd cope with a child with a very low IQ.

you could always marry someone with good genes. You're only half the source, y'know... they ma y turn out to be recessive. But don't turn it into a Eugenics experiment.

There's an old story about a famous actress and a renowned scientist late in the 19th Century.
The actress approached him and said "We should conceive a child. With your brains and my looks..."

To which the scientist replied " but what if he had your brains and my looks?"...

Thanks for the advice it is very interesting. I don't plan to make any decisions until I get married and my husband and I discuss it together... if he didn't have any history of such problems in his family I would feel better about trying to have kids of our own... Out of us 3 girls (that's myself and my sisters) I'm the only one that is definitely on the spectrum and I have a relatively mild case so my parents did quite well, however my mom said if they had the son they were trying for he would have very likely been autistic, like another of my cousins on my mom's side of the family. Anyway, I would love to hear more ideas on this matter so if you have any other comments please post them.

If you feel ready to raise a child and you want one of your own, don't let fears like that stop you. Even if your kid DID have bi-polar, ADD, etc, tons of people do today and it wouldn't really get in the way of having a normal life. AS/HFA shouldn't be too difficult to live with since you already know about and understand those issues and could help him/her along. I definitely hope to have children of my own once I find the right woman. I'm only 18 though, so I've got a while.

well, get ready for a bit of a shock. My daughter was taken from me by the State and adopted out. I have tried to get in touch with her for ages through International Soundex Registry and several reputable adoption search connections on the Internet. Nothing.

I used to think she might have passed on, but you know. . now that I know I am AS, she just might be too, and far more affected than I. What a shock that must have been for her adoptive parents to find out!

Merle

I've told myself for many years that if I ever want children in the future that I will adopt. I don't see a reason of having more children when there are so many more that need good homes.

Generally speaking I maintain the same attitude.
I'm very much against breeding...



But that said... you could never convince most of the mundies out there of that, and our moment of selflessness could be our downfall.


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As such, though I don't plan on spawning again (long story) ..... if I did, I'd want the result to be Aspergian or Aut.... I couldn't handle a Mundie kid. And if I could find some way to train them to assassinate other peoples' kids without being caught.... all the better.

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ok SotiCoto either you have created some sort of personality which you use for these blogs or you are starting to realy scare me. I have heard that you have some legitmet reasons to hate NTs or as you call them 'Mundies", but there are some good NTs out there. just dont shoot the messenger.

(smacked by post)

I'm prone to exaggeration.
Does that ease your mind?

I was assigned the "freak" role as a kid and dived headfirst into it. Unless everything I do is freakish, I start to lose my sense of identity. Does that make things clear to you?


So no, I guess I wouldn't be training kids to kill.... but I WOULD protect them from common human morality. I would teach them that all situations are subjective, and that all people will be trying to turn things to their own advantage. I would teach them how to play with other peoples' minds, to twist the truth without actually lying, to use and manipulate those around them to their own ends. I would tell them the cold, bitter facts of the world rather than sugar-coat everything.... as many of the things I learnt, I learnt far too late.

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