Raised by Aspergers parent

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Chickachicka,
You are so right about a child having to have a strong soul to survive in an aspburger household. I realize now that I lack the fundamental foundation most children received from their fathers. I didn't realize until adulthood how important it is for a child to please his/her mother and father. I was fortunate in that I would get nurturing from my mother, but the lack of any emotion from my father really devastated me and my older brother. I remember asking my father to help me with a science project in fifth grade (building a door bell), and when I took the hammer and nailed the nail in crooked, he jerked the hammer out of my hand and did it himself, looking at me with so much contempt, I just wanted to crawl under the table! Nothing I did was ever good enough, and if it hadn't been for some kind schoolteachers who mentored me along, I don't know if I would have survived his wrath. I try to be forgiving, realizing that he has a life-long disability (and I know I have some of these traits in my DNA too), but I do feel he could have tried harder to fill the role of a father and emulate some of the people he saw out in other families. I have tried talking to my mother about these feelings, but she is in complete denial that he has aspburgers. As long as he could bring home a regular paycheck, and didn't drink, she was happy. I really don't think she had a clue as to what was going on in our household! Sometimes I refer to my father and her as Archie and Edith Bunker (from All in the Family). He always thought he was right, and she had no clue what on earth was going on!

I'm 24, pretty NT except for some OCD traits, but I'm pretty sure those are more environmental and less genetic and may lessen when I finally move out of my parents' house.

from SusanVA:
" I was fortunate in that I would get nurturing from my mother, but the lack of any emotion from my father really devastated me and my older brother. I remember asking my father to help me with a science project in fifth grade (building a door bell), and when I took the hammer and nailed the nail in crooked, he jerked the hammer out of my hand and did it himself, looking at me with so much contempt, I just wanted to crawl under the table! Nothing I did was ever good enough, and if it hadn't been for some kind schoolteachers who mentored me along, I don't know if I would have survived his wrath. I try to be forgiving, realizing that he has a life-long disability (and I know I have some of these traits in my DNA too), but I do feel he could have tried harder to fill the role of a father and emulate some of the people he saw out in other families. I have tried talking to my mother about these feelings, but she is in complete denial that he has aspburgers."


My father was also angry, noncommunicative, dismissive of the idea of personal space and sometimes abusive. A good day at home with him was a day when he ignored me. When I was his current obsession, he talked about the need to "crush my will." I didn't have a father so much as a boring, cruel older brother who saw me as competition for my mother's affection. My mother has also been in denial a long time, but is finally thinking of divorcing him because his comorbid depression and anxiety (which also runs in his family) combined with his Aspie lack of empathy response/need for routine/need for control has made our home life unbearable. I think part of her inner conflict about admitting what's wrong with him is that she doesn't want to feel like she's abandoning a disabled person. But I've seen Aspie people who are challenging to deal with but still good-natured, and I think even if my father weren't on the spectrum he'd still be an a**hole; his NT but depressive sister is a real prize. Not.

My father is what parents today are so afraid their Aspie children will become without help: a socially inept bully functioning under the assumption that everyone else has the problem.
But to play devil's advocate, he was born during the Eisenhouer era when no one even knew what autism was and was far more worried about their kids being communists than anything else.


My theory: my father had his symptoms under control when my parents met, but after his mother died (I was 5) and his comfort zone was permanently destroyed the spiral out of control began. --as I pointed out to my mother, these are not NEW behaviours, but merely things he's always done, now amplified. He has always been obsessed with/regimented about his sleeping patterns; my mother recalls one of the first times they spent the night together at her apartment his demanding that all the lights be out.

He is ritualistic, controlling, prone to acting out (sometimes accompanied by excessive consumption of alcohol), self-centered, and spends money the way I've read that people with Asperger's can sometimes spend money: putting their own hobbies first and the needs of their family second. He received a huge inheritance 2 years ago, would not let my mother know how much, and spent all the money on 2 cars, 2 boats, a gun collection, and all the accoutrement thereof. My mother has to pay my college tuition, and neither of them can retire.

He is currently seeing a shrink for his depression and I'm urging my mother to call and present the Aspie theory; this doctor is sending my father to a neurologist to address his "speech delay" that the doctor thinks has to do with the new medication. My mother herself said that the speech delay was not new, he has always talked that way. He has noticable trouble with eye contact (staring) and is always 2 or 3 steps behind in any given conversation. His laughter sounds contrived.

His motor skills have always been subpar: my mother acknowledges the pattern of anything physical involving my dad ending with someone getting hurt; he was supposed to be holding the back of my bike while we walked down a steep hill, he slipped, let go and I sitll have the scar on my knee. He has been known to pick up knives with the blade facing in. Etc. "Your father is...clumsy." "My father has a deficient limbic system because he has Asperger's."


If I can say anything good about him it's that he does have a mechanical/digital savante; if it is any kind of machine or appliance, be it computer, car, what have you, it WILL get fixed. Could take days, weeks even. But he can fix it.


I'm encouraging my mother to finally divorce him because he has convinced himself that he can't work anymore (following a bout of jealousy that his brother is retiring; he used his inheritance wisely) and currently follows her around all day like a dog, crying, sniveling, staring at her. She can't concentrate to finish her resume so she can get another job--ASIDE: my mother had high blood pressure from acute stress at her old job, so at my and her doctor's urging she quit, but my father resents her for this; he can't understand the equation of the alternative; her ending up dead--I can't study, and she really wants me to do well in school. His continued presence in the house (they'd been living apart for a few months and it was great, but he refuses to live in his other house alone, but also refuses to rent it) is costing her sleep, causing her to gain weight, and I'm terrified the stress of this will kill her.

I love my mother. I want her to live a really long time.
And I want her to have peace, happiness, and the financial security she worked so hard for and he screwed her out of.

I'm trying to convince her that it would be the right thing; 80% of marriages where one partner is on the spectrum end in divorce. Just because she was tricked into marrying him (I'm pretty convinced his parents knew more than they let on; that he was 'sensitive,' 'special,' and 'who's going to take care of him when we're gone?') does not mean she has to sacrifice her life taking care of him.

I'm terrified of the gene I carry; I plan to have 2 sons, in case one turns out to have Asperger's (or a daughter, but i read it's more commonly diagnosed in boys). I plan to get the best of the best preventative behavioral therapy if the worst happens. I will not raise a tyrant, and should this son ever want to get married, I'm going to tell the girl up front. I'm not saying I never should have been born, but my parents should never have been married.

I will love all my children, but I'm still afraid of the possibility that one will "be born broken" as my mother put it, and that then I'll project my bitterness towards my father onto my child, if he is. I hope not. We'll see.


/venting

Genetictimebomb, you are only as much of a "time bomb" as you wish to be. Children are products of much more than their genes, and even if you just focus on the genes, my AS son and my AS husband are nothing like your father. NOTHING. My AS father may have been more similar to yours, but still not that similar - he had a better sense of his responsibility to those around him. In fact, perhaps TOO much sense, with too few tools, but that would be a whole other conversation; the end point being, I didn't grow up hoping I would never have a child like him. I did grow up hoping to never marry a man like him, and in some ways I did, but in others I didn't, and that is kind of the way things sometimes go in life. I have no regrets.

You do need to deal with your negative feelings from the situation with your father before you have children, however. It wouldn't be fair to the child to start life tainted with your fears. Every parent carries baggage, of course, and it affects how we raise our kids, but with your choices of words I would suggest your baggage is still too heavy. Are you working with a counselor at all to deal with this feelings?

You can't blame it all on your father anymore than some of our AS members can blame every imperfection in their lives on their parents. Every relationship, including one that involves someone with AS, involves give and take. As a parent to an AS child, I work with my child to develop strategies to reach through the layers and understand my son's needs, then teach him how to meet those needs on his own so that he will grow to independence. As the daughter to an AS father, I had to learn to understand how hard he tried, and much more difficult certain things were for him, and to focus on all the wonderful things he did for us so that my memories would not be tainted by the failures. I also had to learn to see how all of our expectations of him, which it turns out weren't always reasonable for who he was, may have contributed to those failures. Granted, that will be more difficult for you, given how you have described your father, but it remains within your power to make a similar choice.

Mostly, though, I don't want you to fear autism, or see your father in every child or adult that has the same diagnosis. Individuals with AS can no more be painted with the same brush as a group of individuals with blond hair. They remain, each and every one of them, unique individuals. While they may share a diagnostic list of challenges, how those play out in their lives varies by the full 360 degrees.

The 80% statistic your cited, btw, has been widely disputed. We really don't know the answer there.

Aspie =/= Jerk

I'm pretty sure my dad was an aspie and he was a really great guy, strange, but great. It infuriates me when I hear the negative stereotypes of aspies. I'm also bothered by the idea that a mother would think of her child as "broken" because they are born with a neurological, or even physical difference. If you're not prepared to lovingly parent any life you are lucky enough to receive, then you should seriously re-think becoming a parent.

As far as marriages go, there are no guarantees there either. Your spouse could become sick, get into an accident, or something else could happen that would make the other spouse their caretaker. If you can't handle the "in sickness and in health" part, you shouldn't get married.

As a background note, I'm the proud parent of a child with AS and a husband with MD (and probably AS too) and I'm the luckiest lady in the world to have them both.

My parents are a big can of worms.

Silly me, I once tried to explain to them how I hadn't felt loved growing up.
This caused my Dad to cry. Immediately my mum was on the phone telling me what a terrible person I was causing him distress.
They are both such odd people, in a seemingly unloving, disfunctional relationship, that it is hard to separate who is what.

My mum also does that thing of saying you're lieing/making things up, that was mentioned on another thread (suggested bpd or narcisstic). So it has been impossible to discuss.

Some experiences mentioned reminded me of little things forgotten. Lectures at the dinner table on pronouncing 't's properly (dad). Shouting at other people from my school for dropping litter (dad) and criticising how much money they had wasted on their trainers (mum).

And then I turn out an odd person who can't connect with my peers. Who looks odd (as dressed by them) and doesn't share the same experiences.

And then I have my own kid and watch them interact with him. Mostly my Dad seemed to connect with him better, but be rigid about things like hair length ("thats disgusting") and getting angry quickly about rules being obeyed.
My mum again, a whole nightmare of paranoia, making every little thing difficult.
Accusing him of lying, cheating in games, before he is able.

Estranged from my parents now and separated from my childs father, I struggle without any support to be the balanced, loving, nurturing parent I want to be.

My dad probably deffinatly has AS but there was no diagnosis when he was a kid. My mom admits she never really had any close friends as a child and she never pressured me to make them myself. My best friend is eight years younger than me and both my parents are perfectly okay with that. My mom has always told me that if a "friend" makes fun of you for liking a certain group or TV show then they weren't really my friend. I can't remeber my mom ever having friends of her own over and has never really expressed any grief over it. She also also admits she played with her Barbies until she was fifteen. My mom has some very aspish veiwpoints about friendship and the more and more I think about it, it wouldn't surprize me if she had AS too. I was adopted and my mom and dad always say that just becuase He didn't give me to them the usual way, God still intended for them to be my parents and that even makes sence from an athiest prospective. My mom and I are always being told how much we look like each other.

My uncle has Asperger's from father's side, and I have one cousin on mother's side with Asperger's as well. It's in the family, so it might be possible that some other family members have traits.

Asperger's is genetical, so this applies to everyone with the syndrome.

For me, having an Asperger's father (maybe full blown Autism im not sure)... was very difficult.

With all his own deficients, he expected me to be the perfect one he just couldnt be. Nothing was good enough for him as he always thought there could be better. So I could never please him.

I hated my family home life and childhood (i have Asperger's too) due to his attitude.

He almost killed me one day with one of his Aspie blowouts.. He lost it and strangle me. (my mother saved my life by getting him off of me as I went unconscious.
...........

I know my own daughter having an Aspie mother, found it difficult.... I just wasnt into the things she expected me to be eg I didnt really care what grades she got at school, so never bothered to attend the parent/teacher interviews etc. She took all this to be a lack of caring for her...

Looking back, I think she may of done a lot of negative things, to try to get my attention.... but I didnt understand what was going on.... so just ignored all the behaviour. (she now hates me).

In our family it looks like Asperger's skips every other generation. My grandmother was definitely an Aspie, my mother is a NT with a pinch of Aspie, her sister is a NT if I ever saw one, and it's me and one of my maternal cousins that are family history repeated.
My mother and my maternal aunt remember their mother as a very rigid person, a strict disciplinarian that was never 'fun' but was very loyal to the family. Al in all a good mother though, if even a little hard to please.
I was raised by my grandmother until the age of three and then I spent the holidays with her until I was 15, so it was much like having a parent with Asperger's. As I remember her, she was all work and no play, but I think she was a good grandmother, albeit very demanding and with a pronounced tendency to think in absolutes. But she stood firmly for her grandchildren. I am really grateful to her that she provided a lot of the firm, calm, non-emotional upbringing that I needed when I was growing up as I had trouble understanding the emotional undertones in the other members of my family.
Funny thing is, not only have I inherited my grandmother's neurological setup, I look very much like her physically.

Awful.

Awful, awful, awful, and continues awful even though I'm in my 40s now.

Mind, this is not some enlightened AS parent who recognizes that his neurodelights have real effects on other, quite real people. This is a guy whose emotional hygiene consists of yelling at his wife and poisoning her home with his negativity till she retreats in tears.

It's absolute madness. I'm trying to figure out what to tell my daughter about why her zayde shows interest in her once every few years, then, after she's responded and become excited about talking to him, vanishes again. I've told him that he's done, that he can't pick her up and drop her like that, that it harms her. He reacts with rage. It can't, of course be his fault. No, I'm the one with a mental problem, and obviously I must hate him. He's the victim. For the first time, I feel sympathy for his old departmental colleagues. I suppose I'm lucky that he got tenure (engineer, natch) back in the 70s; he'd never get tenure in today's hypercompetitive, hypercollegial departments. At least we were fixed for money, insurance, etc.

I really don't know why I should expect anything better at this point. My mother was seriously mentally ill, depressed for years, doctor recommended hospitalization, and she was physically abusive at times. He managed to sort of whitewash his own eyeballs. Everything was fine. He was busy building his career. Could not see his children disintegrating in front of his face. Was not at all curious as to why they spent so much time crying and acting out. Is amazed now when it's brought up, as though he hadn't been there for any of it.

Quiet, yes, everyone had to be quiet. Fits of explosive rage were par, though -- this supposedly showed what a mensch he was -- he never hit us. The social insensitivity was legendary, though he presented himself as a guy who really knew his way around town. As I got older I realized he wasn't in fact interested in what we were doing, and, much later, realized that he never would be.

He's made endless excuses for not visiting since we've been grown, despite retirement, health, and plenty of money. Wouldn't come to my wedding, said he had a class to teach next day. He's got two grandchildren; has seen each of them twice. One's 7, one's 3. Last time I went to see him, I found him accidentally on campus; he didn't recognize me and looked distinctly nonplussed to see me once he figured out who this young stranger calling him by name was. His greeting used to be, "When are you leaving?"

And he's the victim. I've finally told him that if we're going to talk any more about his having contact with my daughter, we need to do it with a therapist, and that I'm willing to skype in. It's completely pointless trying to have reasonable conversations with him about these things; he just turns into a huge bullshit-spraying machine and rages away, blaming anyone available. Do I really have time and energy for this? No. I'm a single working mother (having picked someone *really* choice to have a child with), I haven't much money, I'm raising this child, I am, you know, busy. And he's this retired well-padded guy who complains to me that he gets too much in Social Security benefits. Again, the self-absorption, epic. If he's not willing to go with me to the therapist, I think I'm done. It's just enough, and I'll figure out what to tell my daughter. Luckily her father's parents are warm and loving and very much a part of her life.

Anyway. Yeah. Just horrible. The worst of it was I didn't even know families could be so very different, so much warmer and kinder and more supportive, until I went to college. Covertly, I learned so much from my professors, my friends and their parents. The only sad thing was that I felt so defective around them, like a fraud who didn't know how to be with people -- I felt like some kind of wolf-child, just watched them and tried to learn from how they treated me, treated each other. I just wish I could get a do-over for, like, even just part of childhood. Or now, much better would be a do-over for now. Be fabuloso if my daughter had a zayde who really loved and was interested in her.

As for "loved" -- something I don't believe will ever penetrate: that sitting in a room alone and thinking warm thoughts about a person is not "love". Neither is working out abstrusely some amount of money to send, calculations entirely to do with oneself, and writing a check, however helpful that check might accidentally be. Love requires communication, interest, etc., etc. The other person actually has to know how you feel because you've told them or shown them, consistently. The solipsism business is for the birds entirely.

Bah.

Oh. As for those who say, "Move on, it happened long ago, it's over, you're obviously fixated":

It would be wonderful if it were over. However, for those of us who live in a social world, no, it isn't over. It's a nightmare that never ends. We have children who expect that their grandparents will love them, and we watch them doubt themselves, think themselves not good enough, when their AS grandparents do not. We have to help them through this even though we know they're simply too young to understand that the problem's not them. This is extremely painful all around.

We have friends with normal families where people travel to see each other and are happy in each others' company. At holidays they ask if we'll see our parents, because that's a normal, happy thing to do. So, over and over, we are reminded and must explain that no, we do not have this love and joy in our lives. And they're sorry for us, which is also painful.

We try repeatedly to build surrogate families to make up for the lack of love, cohesiveness, and support that other adults have in their families. It doesn't work so well, in part because the people available tend to be pretty messed-up themselves, other familyless strays. We're sometimes invited to be with others' real families, and it's warmly meant and often very nice, but it's impossible not to know that you are not, in fact, part of the family, that you are in some sense an object of charity. This hurts. The easiest thing to do, after a while, is to isolate yourself. This also hurts and is counterproductive.

Parents do not stop being parents when a child leaves the house. In normal, functional families, the parents are involved, in some way, in their adult children's and grandchildren's lives. The absence hurts profoundly when one lives in a social world among people with warm, functioning families.

I am sorry that you did not know this.

I'm 32 years old. My 54 year old step-dad who I grew up with has recently been diagnosed with Aspergers. The diagnosis was made three days after my mum died from brain cancer. The last year of my mum's illness was hell, mainly because of my step-dad's inability to handle the stress associated with her illness. Friends and family declared privately that he was lazy and selfish, that he couldn't look after himself let alone take care of her. He wasn't able to cook or clean or cope with any of the changes in routine, and he had to manage appointments, medication, complicated doctor's schedules and chemotherapy requirements. He also needed to relate to an intensely charged emotional situation and try and deal with my mum's grief and losses as she got sicker. This situation would have been difficult for anyone, but for my step-dad it was impossible. Every time I tried to talk to him about how my mum was doing he would focus entirely on himself, speaking solely of his own problems and various obsessions. He was not capable of seeing anything from her point of view. He complained that he couldn't go bush walking or rock climbing anymore because he had to stay home and care for her. He said this openly to a woman who was so sick she couldn't even walk.

Both the doctors and family members were aware that he was not up to the task of caring but for a long time he resisted accepting any professional help. He told her my mum he liked her better with long hair after her hair feel out from the radiotherapy, and declared that she was getting fat - she had put on weight as a side effect of her medications. He openly confessed to her and to family members that he no longer found her physically attractive. He couldn't bear the idea of her snacking between meals or eating outside of meal times. He insisted that she eat less, even though the medications she was on were stimulating her appetite.

Last Christmas I went to pick them up from the hotel they were staying in to find him in a dark, silent, sulking funk. It was as if he had mentally shut down or shut out the world. He was ignoring her requests for help to get dressed and showered. My mum was bawling her eyes out, unable to walk, begging him to please help. When I asked him what was going on he said he didn't want to go to the Christmas lunch. I was so angry with him I could barely speak. It was her last Christmas alive. He did even not understand why she was upset, or even that I was angry. No understanding at all.

Since the diagnosis has been made I feel many conflicting emotions. It makes a lot of sense, both genetically (his father was an engineer and stamp-collector with OCD) and also in relation to my own childhood. I was at first quite frightened of him and then later intensely disliked him as I was growing up. He lectured my brother and I for literally hours after we had done the tiniest thing wrong, or sometimes simply just because he felt like delivering lectures. My brother and I called them the sermons. He was renowned for delivering them. Even our school friends and kids in the neighbourhood copped the lectures - other kids' parents often had to intervene in order to cease the monologues. Meal times were also awful. We had to all eat the same things at the same time every day, with much attention to table manners, elbows off tables, how many times we chewed the food, how we held the cutlery, how long the meal was supposed to take. We were supposed to ask a precisely phrased question if we wanted to leave the dining room or go to the toilet. I remember him taking particular issue with the way I drank my water. Apparently I wasn't swallowing it properly. He made me practice swallowing glasses of water until my mouth hurt and I started crying. He cracked the glass of water against my front teeth so hard I thought it was going to shatter. I often told him he was hurting me and he refused to believe it was true, saying that I was a 'delicate little flower'. I was very confused and could not understand his behaviour. When I was eight years old I threatened to report him to child services for abuse. He was genuinely surprised and said 'why? nothing I do ever leaves any bruises.' I felt hopeless and anxious. When I was in primary school I had numerous migraines that made me vomit, and often had trouble sleeping.

He also suffered from wild mood swings. When he was in a black mood, the whole house felt heavy and I used to climb into my bedroom wardrobe with my cat to avoid him. He once got so angry he threw my 6 year old brother against a wall so hard that my brother's head put a hole through the plaster. He would get even angrier if we cried. He told one of best friends she needed to do more exercise and commented on her larger-than-average breast size. She was 12 years old. It made her cry. He seemed very cruel. My mother was an amazing, incredibly capable woman who raised us pretty much by herself. My step-dad was unemployed and depressed for most of my childhood. He spoke of killing himself. He was heavily reliant on routines and systems for managing day to day but incapable of actually doing anything on the lists he had made or following the plans he developed. He was plagued with insecurity and had very few friends.

When I was a teenager I developed an eating disorder, smoked a lot of dope and started cutting myself with razorblades. I became addicted to the ritual of cutting. I think now that I was confused about the relationship between physical sensations and 'valid' emotional responses. The pain, at least, was real - the physical cause had a measurable, visible physical effect and triggered a 'real', undeniable emotional response. This was comforting as many of the interactions between my family members appeared pathological and made no sense to me. I left home the moment I finished high school and moved to another city. I became involved in S&M practices and took a lot of drugs. I had difficulty distinguishing patterns of control from feeling of love.

I am only now beginning to understand why my childhood was the way it was. Having my step-dad diagnosed helps a lot. It provides an external validation of my own long-held opinions regarding his emotional incapacities. But even though I am aware that his behaviour is not his fault - I know that his intentions are not full of malice - it is still very difficult to forgive him for the pain he has caused. I hope I am able to do this in the future.

This was one scary thread. I know there are aspies out there who are good parents and anyone can be a bad parent. Just makes me wonder what my son will think of me when he gets older and is all grown up. I just take this thread as what not to do as a parent. I will go to my kid's games and other stuff for him and not push my interests onto him and I will give him praises since I know that is very important to the child and it helps their development and builds their self esteem. And I do not want to screw my kid up so I will do the best I can to not be a bad parent. I think I am already doing good with my child. But my husband thinks I am mean to him and too rough I don't toss him or throw him or carry him by his arms or legs. But since I am mild, I will probably not be like these other aspie parents.


My dad has aspie traits and ADHD. He has very poor social skills and I think mine are better than his. He has a temper too and used to just hit me for no reason or toss me on my bed when he be mad. But it wasn't very often. He often says inappropriate things and lacks empathy and other times he is very caring. He insults my mother a lot and then doesn't understand why she is so upset and he thinks she is being too sensitive and doesn't always think of her. But yet him and I are lot alike except I have gotten better. I honestly don't know when he is being inappropriate but I can tell when he is BSing. If it's something I don't want to hear nor like hearing, it is very likely BSing. I have learned the pattern. I think he likes to push my buttons and provoke me just to see how I react but I am so used to it I don't take him seriously. I do but I don't give a negative reaction like getting all upset or hysteric and then get told by him he is only teasing me and to relax. Then he wouldn't get why I was so upset and think I was over reacting and I needed to relax. My mom often says he is a jerk, an ass but then she loves him and gets over it what he does. She says he doesn't get it and she has gotten used to it. I feel I have learned a lot from him. I just learned how not to treat others.

His ADHD has never really affected his parenting nor his aspie traits all that much. Sure he he would sometimes hit me when he get mad or pick me up under my arms and toss me on my bed. But he loved all his kids very much and when I was a baby, he come home and ignore my mother and come to me and just hold me. Me was all he thought about a lot. He also took lot of movies of me, even with me eating. He also took care of us all three kids and he take care of our mother too when she be sick. He would do cooking and laundry too. But he thinks his mother may have had it but I was never sure if that was to make me feel better. But I am not sure what she was like as a parent except that her oldest son had to help raise his younger brothers because she didn't always do her job. My mom said it just got overwhelming for her. I also know she had anxiety and it was untreated so she never did anything about it so it made it hard for her kids. I also remember my dad telling me how she took things literal so they had to be careful what they joked about because she didn't always understand they were joking and my mom told me she get upset when they tell her it was a joke because she didn't know they were joking. My dad also told me how she get upset with them for being too loud so she used to walk in their room and spank them and also she used to kick my dad but I dunno for what reason. But she was a good grandmother to all us grand kids. She spoiled her oldest grand daughter like crazy because she never had daughters, only sons and she finally had a grand daughter. She and my grandfather would take care of us while my parents go on trips by themselves. She even used to have different plates and bowls and silverware and cups set on the counter for my little brother because he had this thing about "start over" if things weren't done a certain way. So she had everything out so she wouldn't have to go back in the cupboards again.

My mom's aspie trait is sensitivity to light and she has a special interest in home and gardening but it doesn't interfere. She also can't stand loud TVs and bass. She say a TV is blaring when it's not or say it's hurting her ears when it's not even that loud. I also remember her coming in my bedroom every school morning and start hugging and kissing me. I hated it. Either she was clueless or she ignored it because it was to wake me up and get me going. But since she hardly had any, it didn't effect her as a parent.

Edit: removed personal info since I don't feel safe anymore revealing much on WP due to hostility (not in here, but those people can still read what's here). Gist of it: My father was AS for sure, my mom NT with AS leanings, they were good parents.

OK. This is scary, right here:

"I think I am already doing good with my child. But my husband thinks I am mean to him and too rough Wink I don't toss him or throw him or carry him by his arms or legs. But since I am mild, I will probably not be like these other aspie parents. "

HELLO, ARE YOU LISTENING? Your HUSBAND thinks you're mean to him and rough! And are you listening? No!! ! Instead, you fall back on your own warped self-assessment. "I am mild." No, you aren't mild!! Do you understand how rare it is for the husband to be the one saying the mother is mean and rough? It almost never happens! It's nearly always the other way around!

GET HELP WITH YOUR PARENTING NOW. If what you're saying here is representative of your world, you're in no position to judge the effects of your parenting on your child. You need -- your child needs -- for you to accept some manual override from others.