Is anybody worried that their AS kids will live in poverty?

Post Reply New Topic

So far I have one confirmed AS kid and one being diagnosed. Sometimes I feel like a failure for producing special need kids. If I knew I definitely wouldn't have had them. (Clarify - I meant if I knew I have Asperger's and would pass to my children, I wouldn't have wanted kids. Sorry about that. I was in a hurry when I wrote this post. See my update on the second page for more details.) Sometimes I'm worried that they won't be able to find jobs and keep them when they grow up. DH and I are doing OK financially, but we certainly can't guarantee that we'll always be able to help them. One of them is gifted and I'm hoping at least he'll be able to get some sort of geeky job. The other one, well so far I haven't seen any special talent in him although he's definitely not below average. The problem is almost every job requires interview, communicating with co-workers and attend meetings...etc. You just can't get them if you can't get past interview. I have a brother with a computer science degree and very decent IQ. He's never found any computer job.

I wonder if I should save as much money as I can in case they can't find decent jobs. I can't picture my beautiful babies (They're good looking, maybe that would help?) living in poverty and depression.

Without knowing your kids, we can't assess the likelihood that they will live in poverty, but how old are they? And anyway, the world's becoming a more welcoming place. And even if it weren't, you wouldn't be a failure for having "special needs" kids. You really mean it, that you wouldn't have had them? You'd honestly rather not have these children? You want them out of your life? Gone? Not alive? Their existence is overall a negative?

So you're saying that if you'd known you had the AS gene, you wouldn't have had kids?

You want your beautiful babies that you "wouldnt have had if you knew they would be special needs" to not be depressed and stuck in poverty? To not have problems with getting/keeping a job? Heres some ideas...

Grow the hell up and then realize life isnt fair. Then, grab a pair, if not yours than your husbands and learn everything about being financially responsible and how to look good(yeah, you know physically, socially, emotionally). Then FORCE it on your kids so they dont have to wonder how to do something. ITS YOUR JOB, TEACH THEM. My mom worked 60 hour weeks in the er and made sure there was food on the table, clothes on my back and a roof to sleep under. GUESS WHAT? THATS NOT ENOUGH in this day and age.

Am I saying give your children everything, hell no. Im saying teach them everything they could possibly need to know BEFORE THEY NEED TO KNOW IT. and make sure they remember it. Like if you have a son, maybe you should teach him to become comfortable with women so he can get a date. If you want them to be successful then teach them how to keep a good work ethic and integrity, how to be a team player.

Do you deserve this advice? NO, cause you wouldnt have had them. But I dont want the same s**t to happen to them that did me. Make sure they're prepared for life, more than their peers. Looks like you got some catchin up to do, get to work!

It's kind of cruel to say that when we're all watching. I hope the children aren't ever on this site to read that. Life is difficult, that doesn't mean you should wish to take it away because of a non-life-threatening disability.

I do worry about those same things. I also think about him as my precious baby.
But I don't feel like a failure (although for a time I felt like I failed him), or that my son is a failure at all.
My plan is to help him learn to the point he will be able to do anything he wants to do. My backup plan is to leave him lots of money, although that won't guarantee anything it should help I hope.
My contingency plan is to stay healthy and cogniscent and live until 100 and look after him.
So I'm making plans

You may be setting your sites a little high job wise and also in your own narrow field of expectations. There's lots of different jobs that require different skills. E.g. Farmers don't go to meetings. What about people that do jobs like building, driving, nursing? Etc etc etc.

If it helps, I am a college senior and feel I have better job prospects than many of my peers, despite the economy. I have done lots on my own the past few years, and have built a decent resume. Considering I have a big ego in the first place, I congratulate myself regularly on my accomplishments.

I give my mom way more credit for my success, though. From the moment I was diagnosed, she fought tooth and nail to get me what services she felt worked best for me, and invested time and money to help me succeed. I will never forget how she poured so much money into private driving lessons when it looked like I'd never get my license.

So never give up hope! I have Aspergers, and I'm very close to financial independence. I'll probably never go hungry.

Start talking to your lawyer now about irrevocable trust funds. You want a trust fund so solid that a golddigger cannot come and marry your child and then divorce them and take away their trust money.

And expect your children to take longer to "launch" than normal. Don't be surprised if they're still at home, trying to find a job, at age 25 or 30. Don't try to push them out of the nest too soon and make sure they knew they can ALWAYS come home if they have to because if you let them think that's not an option, you will find out through the grapevine that they are homeless and hadn't told you because they thought you didn't want them to come back home if things got rough.

Studies show that Asperger's adults have an 80% unemployment rate. Now that the economy has tanked and people under 25 have a 50% unemployment rate, the Asperger's unemployment rate may be even higher than the rate found in the studies.

Get your children some social skills training as soon as possible. When your children are older, look for a specialist who does career counseling for people with asperger's. Get your children assessed and into training right away so that they will learn how to interview and how to keep a job. As Temple Grandin puts it, they need to learn to sell their skills, not sell themselves. So they need non-standard training in getting and keeping jobs because they are non-standard people.

Being intelligent is not enough. My IQ is four standard deviations above the mean and I've never been able to hold a job longer than two weeks.
Being good-looking is not enough. I was a very beautiful . . . and very homeless . . . twenty-something. My good looks just made me a more desirable target for exploiters and sexual predators.

Get your children some intervention as soon as possible. And an irrevocable trust fund. Yeah, I know you can't afford both. But they are going to need everything you've got. And then some. And that's only to have a *chance*, not a guarantee.

I'm trying to put myself in your shoes, as I'm sure we've all felt moments of despair. EVERYONE wants the best for their kids and everyone has visions that their children will grow up without the problems we had or other family members had. And even though most of us KNOW that nothing we 'did' gave our children autism, we still feel the guilt because do we really know?

I sometimes look at parents with a very young first child and I see how perfect their world is. They're married, have a baby, the nice stroller, the cute outfit and posh diaper bag. Both mom and dad dote on that baby as if nothing greater has ever come to this world.

It's touching, and sweet, and sad, because... at some point for EVERY parent, it's not going to be so rosy. The child could have learning problems, or might get hurt, or might be a bully or be bullied. EVERY child has 'something' that is not quite perfect - it's just a matter of time before it hits them.

I have two sons. My oldest is a very bright, all gifted talented classes, but has VERY strong ADHD. I worry about his success far, FAR more than I worry about my son who is on the autism spectrum. I figure Henry will find some science or computer field that will suit him perfectly and he'll do just fine. My older son who has no social problems, I worry about him failing out of college someday because of terrible organization skills and his lazy attitude. (I hope I'm wrong and we are WORKING on those problems) but fact is, ALLLLL kids have something that could be made better.

If you look closely, MANY of the 'geeks' you referred to are on the autism spectrum. People just didn't have a name for it yet. Yet, the interviewed and got hired, right?

Just as now there are ads for "it gets better" for growing up gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender, the same message could be sent to parents of children on the autism specrum - it DOES get better.

If we didn't have an OP who already has 125 posts on this site, and thus hopefully knows how people can get triggered around here, I would be afraid you've all just scared off another parent who could have benefited from a change in perspective. That doesn't get demanded into people, it gets persuaded. I hope you all can remember that next time someone says something you don't care for.

To the OP:

Definitely, never let your kids know that you might not have had them had you known what you were passing on. But, after that, you do get down to the work of doing the best by them you can, praying or crossing your fingers, and moving on.

We all worry our children won't end up with the lives we hope for them, but life never came with a guarantee of any sort, so you push that off into a corner and do your best to change the odds. It has never been about anything other than odds, and odds can be tweaked, albeit not turned on their heads. Even living in poverty a person can have a valuable life with the right perspective, so make sure that perspective comes in the tool kit. Love, self-confidence, an understanding of what the most important things in life are, and knowing how to be content are all things that we, as parents, have the ability - to some extent, at least - to impart. To do that, you have to be focused on the here and now with your kids. Which means, shoving that worry aside. It isn't relevant to today.

I know a woman who had to walk into court with her severely handicapped (not AS) son on his 18th birthday to have him placed under permanent guardianship. She cried a lot of tears that day. But she does not regret that her son has been able to live this life. He is, actually, happy. But, no, he'll never grow up into independence; on that day, she had to acknowledge that reality with a finality that was difficult. And then she moved on, and he moved on, the family is living life best they can with the cards they were dealt. If that is what will happen with some of our kids, then that is what will happen. We can worry and fret and regret until we're blue in the face, but that won't change it. Every child should start out with all the hope of the world reflected back at him. As live moves on, many of those hopes will die in the harsh light of reality, but it doesn't mean the hopes were wrong to exist. You help the child deal with each loss, and find new hopes to replace them. More realistic ones. And affirm in each of those moments that life has value regardless of how it turns out.

I also tell my nine year old that she may have to look after him when she gets older. She's a loving kid, even thought their relationship isn't much at the moment.

If you force whatever complex social behavior on a child it has a good chance to fail, on an aspie child you have a maximum chance to fail.

Your concern is justified as a mother, nevertheless, betting on their future professional life and wealth is really a far too long shot (do you remember what your parents would like you to be?) Often children start to go against their parents will at 14-16 years old.

So what can you do? First I would simplify the motive.

What does having a good job, loving what you do and earning money imply? In my opinion, a good paying job, is the one that the economy needs the most (lawyers wage and working conditions are worsening because there is too many of them now)
Can you guess now what a good job will be in a decade or two? No, you can't, and don't worry: no one can.

So the response to me is: teach them to deal with value for them to find easily by themselves what would be the best at the right time.

Value is at the core of human thinking, the anticipation/action/reward mechanism is what is leading our lives and shaping our brains. So my opinion is to teach them to think about and recognize the value of things. It is pretty easy, value is everywhere.

- If you see a movie with them: ask them the morale of the film (summarize in one sentence)
- Let them play games a lot (board games are better that videogames), learn to win and loose
- Ask them what they like, discuss about it, make them think about it
...

Value of things and experiences has to be experimented and realized by them. A good value system help to keep things relative.

- Do not try to force any interest at all costs
- Do not judge too quickly the worth of what they love to do (computers 20 years ago)
...

Be subtle loving and confident, keep a healthy discipline and at the same time do not be obsessed or hammer them with values and rewards, it would be counter-productive (they might want to become Buddhist monks) You just have to keep it in mind.

I am going to give the OP the benefit of the doubt about when she says that she wouldn't have had the kids had she known they would be special needs. I am assuming that she means that she wouldn't have had them because of the struggles and the suffering that they might face.

Honestly, I worry very much about my son. He is only 5, and I had him late in life to begin with (40) He is also an only child, so I really worry that when we are gone, he will truly be on his own.

But, since faith is a big part of my life, this is something that I believe God is allowing me to go through because he knows what a huge worrier I have always been. This experience with my son is helping me to grow as a person and to truly take life ONE DAY AT A TIME.....It doesn't mean that I don't still have concerns, but I made a decision that I was not going to spend 20 yrs worrying about how my son's life was going to turn out like! There are no guarantees, and we are not promised tomorrow!

So what I have decided is that as long as we are alive, if our son needs to be dependent on us, then so be it. But in the meantime, I am going to do my very best to teach him everything I can. I am not so worried about what type of job he gets as much as I am about teaching him how to take care of himself. I really do not want him to have to live in a group home. I don't know, maybe they are not as bad as I envision in my head, but I would just rather him not!

My husband and I are very frugal people, so I am hoping that we will be able to have a modest home paid for by the time we pass away that we can leave to our son. Hopefully, someone will be around that will be able to look after him when we are gone. This is in God's hands. I just keep praying to God that I know my son was created in the image and likeness of God, and that he has a plan and a purpose for my son's life. I don't know what that is going to be, only God does.

I cannot imagine my life without having my son. He is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us. Sometimes it is really hard, but I would never say that I wouldn't have had him. He is a blessing in ours and other people's lives!!