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No, actually I'm not.

If you look at the range of behaviors and...ways of being associated with AS, and varieties of ways in which these things show up in people, that's a lot of latitude. But if you pair all those various manifestations with the sorts of things that you need when you're raising kids, including but not limited to:

- noise tolerance
- flexibility
- active social lives with groups of other parents
- the ability to forget oneself and be interested in someone else (without viewing that person as an object or special interest)
- the ability to empathize well
- the ability to demonstrate and teach social conventions
- minimal to nonexistent "me time"
- a ban on meltdowns and explosions
- good executive function and organizational skills
- presence in the kids' lives (rather than absorption in own projects, absent-parenting)
- ability to be positive about participating in things you deeply don't care about or enjoy
- ability to be tactful and encouraging

...you know, if you can tick all the "yep, kid needs this and has it" boxes, and can sustain that daily for years on end without having a breakdown, it's not looking recognizably like AS to me. I think it'd be reasonable to have a list to scan if you're on the spectrum: which of these things do I know I have problems with? Which do other people say I have problems with? What can I do about them, and if the answer is "nothing", how do I make the situation better for my kids?

Nothing in what I've said means that AS parents give some overwhelmingly bad childhood. I am saying that there are very likely deficits, and those deficits are important, can't be blown off by saying "the good outweighs the bad" or "some non-AS parents also do these things". And I don't think the impulse to do so is helpful.

No, it's your inference. Check difference between "imply" and "infer".

She monologues at length about how she cannot imagine how we can parent, how we can work, how we can manage not to be damaging to all the NTs around us, and then bleats that her generalizations don't mean all people with AS.

Tarantella64, The Bell Curve absolutely is relevant b/c it employed a very similar technique to what you are doing. I don't want to repeat odious stereotypes for any group, but what you are doing would be called out as offensive if you did it to almost any other group.

NTs do not do this all the time. Depending on the circles you travel in, you would get a virtual smackdown for this kind of intolerance if you did this any time, much less all the time.


Many of (X group) are (Negative Attribute) They are not employable because Y set of negative attributes. They are terrible to their families and anyone who deals with them on a regular basis is worthy of sainthood. If they choose to have children, they need to be in regular contact with a therapist to make sure they aren't screwing up their kids, because I can't imagine how being an (X) would not negatively impact their parenting.

You really think you could have a conversation like this about most groups, in civilized company?

You really think saying, "I didn't say all of X group! You are inferring! I never said all of them!" would get you out of that mess?

Not a chance.

Are there challenges involved in being AS, in parenting an AS child etc? Of course there are. I am not saying there are not. That is what we talk about a lot, especially when we feel comfortable enough that we won't get pounced on and used as some example. There are also positive aspects. These positive things are important. What you call 'defensiveness," I call trying to restore balance to an ecosystem that has been thrown out of whack by this endless negativity.

Tarentella, if the instructions told us to jump off of a cliff should we do this?

The point is if the instructions come across as weird to me I'm going to either a) use what I think is my own common sense or b) ask for clarification.

If you made a list of all parenting skills --not just the ones you think are hard for people with AS, how many people can check all the boxes? You are cherry picking traits and using the True Scotsman fallacy, to boot. Do you think every parent should have a list like that, or just the ones with AS? No, it is not shifting ground to tell you you are cherry picking traits. You are intentionally setting up the criteria to attempt to manipulate a certain result. I would not weigh all the traits you list as equally important,either. Even with the biased list you set up, I still think you would see a spray of data that would indicate many (NOT ALL) NTs would fail your little test.

And any aspie that managed to accumulate enough coping skills to pass your little test? Well, he/she is not a true aspie, right? True Scotsman.

Preach it ASDMommy.

I don't see a lot of tact these days. I hear a lot of folks blast their rap music and "What's up my n***a?"

Tarentella, a number of people curse at appropriate times and places and some talk about sex in front of children. Look at the culture around you. Do you see a lot of tact, truthfully? Honestly? Wake up and smell the coffee. As a game in a school my wife used to teach as a game boys were grabbing each other's privates.

Our enconomy is in the tank. We have over 1/4 of the population who is mentally ill. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publicat ... ndex.shtml

When I look around normal society how am I supposed to be impressed? We're supposed to measure ourselves against this NT social rubric especially in the USA. I'm sorry but I'm not impressed.

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are ... t-1-2012-6

Tarentella, our culture is screwed up and corrupt yet we're the ones who are mentally ill. How is the USA and the culture #1?

People are more worried about Kim Kardashian's tushie more than our economic issues and political issues and people know a lot about pop singers and rappers but some people don't even know who we fought against in the revolutionary war and some people don't even know who George Washington is.

You're saying to conform but what if the culture is screwed up?

ASDmommy, I can't stop you imagining things I haven't said. I've tried to make plain that you're misreading me, and misreading me pretty radically. I'm not going to try to argue it with you anymore.

Yeah, actually I do. Where I live, people are remarkably tactful -- more tactful than I'm able to be, which isn't a high bar, but it's impressive how they handle criticism. I'm very much impressed by the tact of the faculty at my kid's school...all over here, really. As for the boys...well, boys don't raise children, do they?



NIMH is talking about "in a given year". A quarter of the population isn't currently mentally ill. They also count controllable things like depression and anxiety.



I'm sorry, cubedemon, I lost you in this part....What's this all got to do with raising children? Also, I don't think autism is a mental illness.

I was talking about job skills. In a lot of jobs, yeah, the motto really is "follow the instructions out the window." There are some good reasons for it. If something seems weird, then yes, ask, but to go freelancing away "improving" things on your own because you're convinced it's justified, without the authority to do so...no, that's a good way to screw up other people's work, also a good way to get fired.

I have some pretty smart, talented employees, but there's lots surrounding the things they work on that they don't know about, and don't need to know about. So if they have changes to suggest, fine; if they just start making changes? Nooo, not fine at all.

Okay I'm listening.

If the total space isn't the American population that is 18 or over then what does it mean? What does "in a given year" mean exactly? You state my reasoning is off so where is it off?

They're saying that 57M people in the US are diagnosed each year. But that doesn't mean we're a large mental hospital, or that 57M people are under psychiatric care at any given time. It means people go to the doctor or see a therapist and are a bit depressed, or anxious, or they're trying to handle a very stressful situation, or have a child coping poorly with divorce or a move, etc. Most of these problems aren't going to require a year's treatment. If you read further you'll see that only about 6% have serious mental illnesses, the sort of thing that interfere with basic getting-through-life. And that's too many, but it's not a quarter of the population.

Got it! I understand. I will retract what I said on this. I misunderstood.

This begs the question though. If I misunderstood this then what else have I been misreading and misunderstanding? Therein lies the problem. Telling me to simply to follow the instructions as given is not so simple. I could misunderstand the instructions just like I misunderstood this.

Still, if you and those at aspartners believe we're incompetent and dangerous to ourselves and others then go out to the media and start a petition on whitehouse.gov to have us all committed. Don't come here and drone on and on about how we make others miserable and we f**k lives up. This is for you ladies at aspartners as well. If you believe we're so dangerous then put your money where your mouth is, go to your social media, and petition to have everyone on the autism spectrum committed to a mental institution or shut the f**k up.

Simon Baron-Cohen claims we have less empathy than a sociopath. So, why don't he put his money where his mouth is, sound the alarm, and recommend we all be committed then as well.

I don't own any of his books, Cubedemon, but I was under the impression that he (currently) distinguishes between cognitive and affective empathy, and that he says that autistic people may have trouble reading signals, and/or expressing empathy appropriately, but do have the feelings of empathy. My understanding was that his view of sociopaths was the exact opposite. If I am mischaracterizing his work, please let me know.

Let's say you were an Italian visiting France and then complained that the native French were misunderstanding you. Instead of arguing with them about how poor their Italian is, and then speaking it louder, why don't you try speaking in French? I am not going to argue with you about how bad you think our metaphorical Italian is. If we don't understand you, perhaps the burden on you is to speak clearer, and if that means clarifying what you are not saying, then do so.

I want to clarify something. I am not FROM AS Partners - it's a forum I participate on. I actually found it via a link from here - so started off here first.

Do some of the members vilify people just because they're on the spectrum. Yes, they absolutely do. But that is not something I have ever meant to do, nor (I don't think) something I would do. And I certainly don't think that's a helpful approach...even if in a moment of weakness I engaged in that behaviour.

But behaviours in relationships do matter. And people who are on the spectrum have some characteristics that make relationships harder for them - with colleagues, with kids, with spouses, with friends. They can unwittingly offend and hurt - but it is REAL HURT to the people on the receiving end. People on the spectrum who are as*holes or sometimes just having a bad day or whatever can hurt people intentionally, too. I have been on the receiving end of both of those behaviours from my AS husband. As has my son. My husband is a jerk, but his AS also make it a lot harder for him to see when he's being a jerk, to understand my hurt and to try to make things better.

I am co-parenting with an Aspie. This will be the case for the forseeable future. I think I have a valid contribution to the issues of parenting with AS.

Some people on the spectrum have worked hard to overcome those behaviours and try to compensate for them, try to understand the impact of their behaviour on others and maximise the good and minimise the harm. Indeed, as humans, that's what we should try to do in all of our relationships. For as many have stated, NTs can also be very harmful in their relationships. Some of that is because of 'co-morbidities' and some of it may be because they're jerks and some of it may be because of misunderstandings. But I truly believe that only by trying to understand our weaknesses and our impact on others that we can be nicer people.

I saw Tarantella's list of parenting qualities and I think they're good ones and I see how I sometimes fall short on them. I haven't met a single person who doesn't sometimes fall short on them. But if you can't acknowledge how you MAY fall short of them and instead defend your own way relentlessly then you're not going to be able to assess where you might be wrong.

I don't think anyone's personal stories are irrelevant. I don't disagree that different people have different challenges. Often times people will come on here and ask something like, "I suspect my husband has AS (Or my husband does have AS) and we have x issue, how do you think I can best address it?" When that happens, we try to answer with helpful advice. It generally does not turn into a thing.

Not wanting to speak for anyone else, but I generally only get my feathers ruffled when it turns into a larger generalization that I don't think is fair or necessarily representative. That is when I feel the need to chime in with counter-examples. I feel that if generalizations are made, then that is the fair and necessary thing to do.

I also do feel it necessary to bring up co-morbids because while it may not seem to matter to the spouse/child/parent whether something is due to a co-morbid or to AS, there are reasons to care. This kind of thing generally gets started when someone wants to know if a particular obnoxious behavior is typical of AS. It will tend to do so either because the question is not perceived as being asked in a respectful way, or because someone objects to the type of answers or support given.

To give an example of a co-morbid issue that is not loaded, and has nothing to do with advocacy: my husband is, I think, aspie-light, but very ADD, I am aspie with no ADD, and my son is diagnosed with AU, but I suspect may have some ADD tendencies. Knowing if something is more ADD than AS would help us because we would know to handle it differently.

And then yes, there are advocacy issues that have to do with separating out what is and what is not AS. There is a person on that site (which I understand you have no official capacity in) who will admit on some posts, when it suits her, that her ex is NPD as well as AS and then willy-nilly just lump everything obnoxious he has done into whatever anti-AS rants she has cooked up for the day. I realize that if her ex is a jerk she may not care where she dumps all her venom, but it does matter to those of us who are in the vilified category. (That is not meant to be a specific knock on NPD, I feel that way when it is run of the mill NT jerkiness lumped into AS, too.) This is the kind of nonsense I don't want dumped here, with no counter discussion. We don't purge and banhammer dissenting views here, solely for being in disagreement. With that comes the fact that people are going to disagree, sometimes vehemently.