Having a hard time giving him his privacy

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I'm 22 and I STILL scramble to hide things away when someone knocks. Sometimes the things I hide aren't even anything worth hiding, but I do it anyway. When someone comes into my room, its like someone entering my mind....and I HATE it.

This just disgusts me to read it. You seriously need to see a psychologist over your issues. This is just plain creepy what you are saying. Whether you like it or not your son is normal and healthy for his age whether you are ready for him to be masturbating as that is probably what he is doing. It's not your decision when to allow your son's hormones to kick in. As long as he doesn't have internet access in his room and isn't doing drugs or self multilating then you have no business demanding to know what he is doing when the door is closed. Just like he has no business demanding what you do in your bedroom when the door is closed.

It sounds like you have major control issue and you need to quit using AS as an excuse for this because it has nothing to do with AS. Your son is not your sexual territory to control and that's basically what you wish you could do when you say you are not ready for him to mature into a man. He is your son, not your boyfriend or husband you have no rights to control his own access to his body. He's not doing anything abnormal, he is normal for any guy or girl his age. You need to mature and get some professional help not him. Sorry I can't feel sorry for you on this as you were hoping for. This is just too perverted and creepy; I feel sorry for your son instead. You should be happy your son is at home minding his own business and not getting into trouble in town committing crimes.

Earlier, you spoke up about people misunderstanding you, and I don't blame them. Many of us aspies have been in your son's situation, so that struck a lot of nerves. My parents were (still are, but it was much much worse as recently as a year ago) extremely overprotective. Even when I was 18, they gave me an 11:00pm curfew. So when you said things like "everything he did was my business and revolved around me", particularly words like "me" or "my" when talking about your son, it nearly made my blood boil. I had to step outside in cold weather to smoke a cigarette, to keep myself from writing something I shouldn't. But as a reminder, your son is a rational human being, not a pet or property.

My parents "stifled and overprotected" me my entire life. I felt like a prisoner in my own home, since they gave me much less freedom that my friends' parents did. They treated me like they literally owned me. I had to come up with numerous lies and deception, just so I can hang out with my friends and basically, have a normal life. A few years ago, when I wanted to go with my friends to another city, my parents yelled at me and called me an "immature little boy" for even considering that decision. Every weekend, when I stay out late, my parents call me every hour, and stay up waiting for me. (If anyone tells me it's because they love me, I'm going to F'ING SCREAM!! !) To keep my sanity, I still hide 90% of what's going on in my life from my parents, and blatantly lie about what I don't hide. And I barely feel any love for them at all.

Now, here are a few questions for you. Do you have a job, full-time or part-time? Do you have a hobby? Do you have a friend(s) to spend time with? If the answer to all questions is "no" (basically, you stay home), then maybe your son, in a way, is an obsession for you, and e very unhealthy one. After all, obsessions are a major characteristic of AS. While you seem to be dealing with it pretty well, obviously, it could backfire later, in ways you don't expect. Remember my post where I mentioned a documentary about families in Russia? Read through it again.

And what's the deal with keeping him close and small, anyway? That sounds pretty sick, my opinion. You sound too much like my parents, so unfortunately, so I'm going to have to agree with Ticker here. I just can't bring myself to feel sorry for you.

Ticker and Aspie 1 - It is obvious to me that neither one of you are parents. You could ask ANY parent on the street if they found it easy to watch their babies grow up and I guarantee that a majority of them would say it was HARD!! It is VERY bittersweet to watch your children grow up!! ! It is also obvious to me that both of you are reading something into my post that is simply NOT there. I am in NO WAY obsessed with my son or have any kind of perverted interest in what he is doing and I am extremely insulted that you would even insinuate that was the case. You are both being extremely unfair here. I do NOT think of my son as "property" or a "pet" and I sure don't know where in the hell you got THAT from. I DO have a life of my own that I am very pleased with, thank you very much. I also have NOWHERE said that I DEMAND to know what my son is doing. I am NOT trying to STOP him, I have NEVER said ANYTHING about any of this to him!! !! !! !

Ticker - I hate to tell you this - but as long as that child is in my house, under my roof, that I pay for, I have every right in the world to know EXACTLY what he is doing behind closed doors. I will not cross that line, however, because I do have a measure of respect for him and his privacy, but you need to remember he is 13 for G-ds sake!! !! !! Still a CHILD!! !! ! You cannot make the comparison to him not having any business about what I'm doing behind closed doors because it is not the same thing. I am an ADULT, I pay the bills, I have the responsibilty for raising him, I am the PARENT here, not him!! !

It sounds to me like the two of you have your own share of issues you need to grow up and deal with!! !! !

Aspie1 and Ticker, I think chipmunk deserves a break here -- I misinterpreted her original post (and she acknowledged that she didn't quite state her main point as clearly as she could have), and I think you may have as well. Being that I'm a mom of an Aspie girl, I understand chipmunk's desire to protect and shield her child from all that is harmful in the world. I believe she wants to be there always for her son yet not smother him. But her dilemma lies in that she is having a difficult time letting her "mama bear" instincts slide. I completely get that. It also seems to me that chipmunk is a loving, sensible mom who came here for advice because she wants to do the right thing, and is NOT here to seek agreement that intrusive behavior is acceptable.

Bad parents don't give a flying, greasy taco what anyone thinks about their parenting skills, or attempt to get advice on how to better parent their kids -- bad parents just do what they want, and the rest of the world (and their child) be damned.

What sex positions do you like doing in your bedroom? What do you think about when you masturbate? What makes you cum? Have you ever been forced to have sex? What was that like? Do you like to be dominated? Can you send me some large format pictures? Oh, and can you install a camera in your bedroom so I can watch you sleep?

Now, unlike yourself, I don't want to know the ins and outs of people's private lives - that is their business. Your son is not your property. He's becoming a person in his own right. Set some ground rules (like no stealing, smashing up the house or doing drugs, full stop) and let him have his freedom. If you don't, he'll probably grow to hate you. My mum was largely liberal but with a guiding hand with me and I turned out to respect her and I owe a lot to her. I despise people who try to control others.

NB: Don't respond to those, I'm not interested. It's supposed to set an example.

I have 2 sons who are now grown and in college. I can remember though my youngest son, at that age, would go to his room a lot with his door shut and I too would hear the scrambling and shuffling when I would knock on his door. I wouldn't think much of it until I heard that so of course the first thing out of my mouth when he opened the door is "what are you doing?", Lol. I think it helped that I don't have control issues but I still wondered about him. I just talked to him when I could without being invasive, just to see what his interest were and things like that. I would also from time to time remind him if he was having any problems I was there if he needed me. Of course, some boys think it's weird when Mom's say stuff like that, mine did.

I don't think my son has AS but I sure do. So when all of my growoing up years I stayed in my bedroom and insisted on the door being locked. I think that helped me understand that better and could deal with it better because of that. I see it as just something teenagers do but I have always preferred being alone so now I don't know how normal it is. I would be in my room in my fantasy world, pretending this or that, and if my parents knocked on the door, they too heard the shuffling before I knocked on the door. I've never like anything about me and my world being noticed or on display. I think I'm a lot like Geistmann in that sense. I'm still the same way.

Lady, you've got issues. Once, I don't give a rat's ass how hard it is to watch your son grow up. He's person in his own right, not a ventriloquist's dummy you can control as you wish. Let him grow up in peace, or he'll stop talking to you as soon as he moves out of the house. So what if you gave birth to him and raised him? Big deal! Any mammal on this planet Earth is physically capable of doing that; just watch the Discovery Channel. Most of us aspies had overbearing parents all our lives. Then you come here, talk about your control issues, and expect sympathy? Give me a break!

As for what you said to Ticker, that just totally pisses me off. It seems like the control is more than just about being the biological parent; IT'S ABOUT MONEY! You said you pay the bills, so you automatically deserve to intrude on your son's life? Now THAT makes you a control freak. Hypothetically speaking, if your son earned his own money and paid his own bills, I bet that you would still find another excuse to control him. But I'll stop spewing advice, obviously you're the world's perfect parent, so I'm sure you can figure it out on your own from here.

That's pretty much the same feeling that I get. I'm also 22 and it frustrates me to no end when my grandpa just walks into my room without knocking. I try to remember to lock the door, but I forget to do that a lot of the time, and I guess it's because I feel I shouldn't have to. When I'm in my room with the door closed, it means I want to have time to myself.

That said, I think Ticker's comments were out of line. It's clear that chipmunk respects her son's privacy, and just as it is healthy for a 13-year-old boy to masturbate, it is also healthy for a parent to get a little worried about what their son is doing. Of course, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that he was masturbating so easily - maybe he was just in his underwear and didn't want to be seen like that, so he put a pair of pants on. And as Geistmann noted, the knee-jerk reactions from your knocking on the door may just stem from him eventually being shattered out of his own little world.

If you do choose to have "the talk" with him, just make sure you do it in a respectful, non-condescending manner, ensuring him that it's perfectly normal for him to do that in the privacy of his own room. Judging from your posts, that shouldn't be too difficult for you.

It's great to see that you can understand the importance of privacy. My parents have never been that overprotective or intrusive, but I do think they sometimes get too nosy or worried, or wouldn't give me my space. I can tell you that it was hard to miss my mom while I was away at college, because she would call me 4 or 5 times a day, often for up to an hour at a time. Still, they could have been a lot worse, and I know they love me and just want what they think is in my best interest.

Don't you get it? She KNOWS that, and is making her best effort NOT to intrude on her son's privacy. She's just expressing how difficult it can be for her sometimes. And I can relate - as much as I want people to respect my privacy, it's hard for me not to get curious about what people are doing.



That's no reason for you to just lash out at any parent who expresses concern about their son's behavior.



Sympathy goes both ways. Don't expect people to have sympathy for what you've been through if you can't at least try to look at things from their perspective.



All she's saying is that since she's the legal guardian of her son, who is a minor AND is living in her house, she does have the right to be an authority figure over her son. But she made it clear in that very same paragraph that she does NOT want to be a control freak.



You just said before that she was talking about her control issues and expecting sympathy. So then how could she possibly think she's a "perfect parent"?

I was being sarcastic. I should have put the <sarcasm> tag in front of the phrase.

OK OK, maybe I got a little too aggressive with the remarks. But hearing about how a parent just can't give her son privacy really struck a nerve. While I was vaguely aware of the concept, I didn't even realize that I should have had a least a little bit of it. Until a few years ago, I was nothing more than marionette (a type of puppet) that my parents controlled.

Give your son his freedom. He'll respect you for it, in the end. If you refuse to to give your son freedom, he'll end up hating your guts.

Well, this certainly got more out of hand that I thought it would! Anyway, I thank you for all of your replies. I was looking for someone who would understand and validate my point of view and I was really unprepared for the passionate responses I got from a couple of you and I thank those two most of all. You have opened my eyes to my son's point of view. Aspie1 - The way your parents treated you must have been really painful for you, otherwise you would not have responded to me with such force. What I said must have really struck a raw nerve. This whole exchange has made me see that I must keep my nose where it belongs and let him have the freedom to express himself however he pleases as long as he's not hurting himself or anyone else. I do have issues and I realize that and I have been working very hard at letting go, which is the very hardest thing in the world for me to do.

I also would like to thank those of you who said that you just really like time to yourself and that it's like someone is entering your mind when they enter your room. I had never thought of it that way. This entire thread has been an eye opening experience for me. I don't want to be a hovering, controlling Mom and I am working very hard not to be. It would break my heart if he grew up with any bitterness or animosity towards me because I couldn't back off when I needed to.

It was very painful for me to read some of the things that were written here about me, simply because they couldn't be more wrong. I am not some sick pervert who is obsessed with my son and his sexual life. I do not see my children as property, I am really more open minded than you all are giving me credit for, what I want more than anything is for my sons to grow up happy and fulfilled and free. I was simply unprepared for my son to be at this point in his life. I fully accept that it is MY issue and I am trying really hard not to make it his.

To all of you who came to my defense - thank you. It really helped to have someone understand what I was trying to say!

Aspie1 - Truce?

Truce accepted. And thanks for understanding.

I don' think this has anything to do with AS. Being concerned about your son is NORMAL. Kids who were not overprotected often do not remember those experiences with joy either. Also, it is fine to discuss with your son that HIS behavior is being obvious and there is no need for subterfuge. If he needs to get dressed than he can say to hold on for a moment - needing to get dressed in your bedroom is not unusual. I think it is important to point out to some people who may have difficulty with social clues to realize how their behavior may look to others. Mad dashes and noisy banging make people look like they are hiding something. It is not bizarre for people to wonder about that - that is what the behavior seems like. So if you son does things like this any place else then he may look very strange when in fact he might just want to be very private.

The idea that nothing is any parents business is not true at all. Too many parents think that nowadays though and the result is the totally self absorbed kids with a sense of entitlement that cause so much trouble today. Too funny really the outrage here - like you are supposed to be a servant or something. Just leave the clean clothes by the door and don't dare knock.

It wasn't that. It was the mother who just walks into the room unannounced or just knocks and walks in that gets me. I have no problems talking to my mother - that's not a problem.