moms with AS

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I have AS and 2 children who are now young adults. My son probably has some degree of AS but doesn't want to be assessed. My daughter is as far from AS as you can get. Both are lovely people who are finding their own place in the world. I wasn't diagnosed until a few months ago, but just did the best I could as a mother and it seems to have been good enough. Things that helped my kids I think, especially when they were young, were taking them to lots of toddler groups and activities for children so they got the opportunity to interact with other kids and also other adults. Having a nt husband who enjoyed his children and did a lot with them also helped.

All I can say to other AS mums with younger children is to remember that you don't have to be a perfect mum - just try and be good enough

I am a mother and I have AS. My only son also has AS.

I have 2 girls 11 and 4, oldest diag, as adhd . Prof. think maybe Bi-polar as well but I did not knw about AS in regards to me untill a bout a year ago. I had been diag as a number of things, severe adhd being most prevelent. I find that the AS covers me overall far better than previous diag. also seems to a kind of wrong problem with wrong fixs kind of deal. I suspect my oldest may actually be AS also . Her father won't deal with her not being perfect at all so I end up trying to handle being AS myself and trying to help her deal with the world and keep her head up. I am not sure an officiaL diag. would be the best thing for her now. I am afraid it may haunt and limit her before she has a chance to find out what she can do on her own terms but the challenge is to "keep her in the game" without killing her spirt . Kind of a when you fall down to many times thing you can get tired of getting back up deal. I feel like I do not have the strength to get up alot sometimes, do it anyway ( so far) for them. at the moment we seem to be succsessfull at damage control. we don't usually do it by the standard way but so far we have found ways around most obstacles. Afraid i may be setting her up to fail later on. I am all she has as far as dealing with the things that make her "different". I don't know.

yes i am undiagnosed though, but my son has it as well, and it gets really frustrating taking care of him, does anyone have any advice to give.

I wonder if we can support each other.


Like in your city you live in advertise on Craigslist or some other free classifieds to swap childcare so to get time alone

My husband and I want children very bad and I am trying to get pregnant as well as we have applied to be foster parents.

I do like to be alone sometimes and am going to imcorporate it into my workday. I am alone all day because I clean houses for a living. We will have the Foster child in daycare part time but I do not plan to have my own child in any daycare but amd going to swap childcare with other SAHM who live near me.

I am an aspie and my son is autistic. I actually LIKE that I'm an aspie and that I can share my son's stims and sensory issues.

I understand him in a way that no one else (not our family, not health care professionals, not aides, not therapists) can understand him.

When he would suddenly freak out in a store, I KNEW what light/noise was bothering him BECAUSE it bothered me too...I have just adjusted so that I don't have to slap my ears and cry...and now he has too.

The only problem that I saw with our combination is that I didn't get him services until he was 3, because I dismissed most of his issues as having the same "quirks" that I have.

I hate most clothing.

I hate many food items, and can only eat food if each item has it's own area...No touching, or juice sharing...because that is repulsive!

I love to watch the same movie over and over and over and over again...I can listen to the same song for days straight.

I love to watch ceiling fans, and hate flourescent lighting.

I chew compulsively.

He shares these things with me.

So, I love that we are both on the spectrum. I worry that I would have a hard time raising a NT child.

Yes, I'm a mom with Asperger's. I have 2 young children and a spouse with health problems and I do find it all very overwhelming and exhausting a lot of the time. I have major depressive disorder and anxiety as well.

My biggest issues are the noise and how erratic they are. I totally lose it when they are screaming and have to put on headphones, use earplugs, leave the room. As far as emoting, yes, I have to make faces and use tones of voice I wouldn't normally use. I have to remind myself to smile at them and sometimes to make eye contact. I have to try to make my voice more friendly.

I have a need for alone time that is really hard to satisfy. I feel guilty about how much I need and how it seems like it is never enough. I also have trouble with transitions and planning so that makes me anxious and stressed a lot.

My 5 year old appears to either have Asperger's or ADHD and she is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. She is hard for me to deal with. Even though I should be able to relate to her problems, I just can't always do it. I am too focused on my own needs. My younger child is pretty easy and I had thought he was NT but now that he's verbal he is freaking out about loud noises, touch and bright lights so I am keeping an eye on that.

I have read so many articles on line about how damaging it is to have a parent that has Asperger's. And my spouse has a terminal illness so I figure my kids aren't going to have a chance.

And ditto on not being able to relate to the other moms. I haven't found one yet that is into Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, STNG etc. And not to mention one that actually reads science fiction. They are into which mall has the best Santa, jewelry and vacation trips and pointing out that my daughter's shoes are on backwards. HEY! That's how she likes to wear them, it feels good to her.

It's a relief to see some posts from other parents who feel similarly.

-V

For all those who has AS and have kids, why did you decide to have kids? Especially those who are saying that they have more than one kid and that it's really difficult. Wasn't it difficult when you just had one?

Our son wasn't diagnosed with ASD until our daughter had just been born. I didn't realize I was also AS until hindsight kicked in. Overall, our children are here because they were meant to be at this specific point in time. My younger child is advanced for her age and she is helping her older brother "catch up" in his skill set. Also, recognizing my AS traits was a huge boon to my confidence. I wasn't lazy or plain screwed up, after all. It all works out in the end.

Our son wasn't diagnosed with ASD until our daughter had just been born. I didn't realize I was also AS until hindsight kicked in. Overall, our children are here because they were meant to be at this specific point in time. My younger child is advanced for her age and she is helping her older brother "catch up" in his skill set. Also, recognizing my AS traits was a huge boon to my confidence. I wasn't lazy or plain screwed up, after all. It all works out in the end.

Having an autie kid was rough for the first few years---mainly because we didn't know what we (my husband and I) were doing and we were both trying different things out to make the situation better.

Now that we are more educated about autism and early intervention---we see no real reason not to have another child.

We love our son and could not be more proud of him.

By the way, we decided to have children because we love them.

There was never a question as to whether or not we would have them---just a question on how many we would have.

I would not recommend it for everyone, but my "ideal" future ALWAYS included having at least one child...and now that I've had one...I want one more.

I guess that I'm just greedy that way.

I, too, am an AS Mom. My oldest is 13, he also has AS, diagnosed when he was 6. My youngest is almost 9. He is pretty much NT. but has some ADD like traits and has had fine motor difficulties his whole life.

I have good days and bad days. Now that both kids are in school all day, I get quite a bit of alone time, but even so I still sometimes have a hard time coping when they come home. Some days are one issue after another and it can quickly become too much!

I never planned on having any kids. They were surprises. When my oldest was young he spent a great deal of time with my parents which helped me tremendously.

I'm undxed, but the online test classed me as very likely aspie. I have two kids, 10 and 12 that I home school. The 12yo might be aspie, but mildly. My aspie issues are primarily sensory and social, both of which readily managed in my own home. Fights between the kids are the absolute worst part of it. Yesterday they were fighting and I went into the room with the computer and closed and locked the door. I jsut have to pray they don't really hurt each other, how would that look. Privacy, well, the kids are in bed by 9 and then it's my private time. Even dh understands not to bother me then. Some days are really draining, but being at-home allows me to take a day to recover when necessary. I'm really grateful we can live this way.

Other moms ... well, we just don't mesh. I'm with Virginia who loves sci-fi. All the other moms are into jewelry and home decor, bleck. The only female friends I ever had were odd in their own ways.

I guess this is kind of off topic, but it was interesting to me to read the posts because seemed to back my decision not to have children. I actually made the decision when I was very young (eight years old) and it was set in stone. I've never hesitated or varied from it. It really stemmed from two things: 1) my experience with my own mother and 2) my absolute lack of interest in or desire for children. My own mother wasn't AS, she was a Sociopath and actually diagnosed as one although I didn't know that until I was in my forties. She had an oops pregnancy when she was a teenager and back then parents could tell you that you would either get married or they would lock you up in a sanitarium (her father told her that and he'd already had her brother locked up for having a speech impediment that caused him to get into fights). So, she got married and had that kid and the next and the next and so on. Just lovely of my grandfather since he didn't have to live with her to foist her off onto helpless children who she tried to drown when she had three of them (my older brothers). That led to her diagnosis and treatment (which by the way did not help but did make her much smarter about how not to get caught when she did things to us). Society is just so helpful, if you know what I mean. Suffice it to say, by the time I was six I had figured out there was something seriously wrong with her and it was not anything we "did" that made her this way. She just was. After that, I stayed away from her and wouldn't play her games. By eight, I had decided I didn't like children myself because they were so noisy and chaotic and after living with my mother, I was not going to subject another child to a mother that didn't want it and couldn't handle it.

So, I became fanatical about birth control and although I never had a scare, I most certainly would have aborted any pregnancy thinking it was the lesser of two evils. There is absolutely no chance I would not have done that. When my husband said we were getting married, the only thing I said was that I would never have a child and if he even brought it up, I would divorce him. It took me over 12 years to get a gyno to sterilize me and I finally had to tell the one I'd had for eight years (and who knew this was my feeling the entire eight years) that if he didn't agree, I'd go in the bathroom, stick a hanger up there and force him to take it out. That did make him agree (why do you have to be unreasonable to get people to do a reasonable request?). Anyway, I finally had all possibility of the problem removed when I was 32. I felt nothing but vast amounts of relief.


But, all that aside, seeing these posts makes me feel that I was right to make that decision. I grew up surrounded by kids and babies and I was the type that would lock myself in a room to get away from their noise and movement. It just makes me realize that it doesn't change, which I never thought it would. Basically, for me, I would have been like the rest, forcing myself to adapt because that's the intellectual and rational thing to do, but I would have been exhausted and miserable because of it. I know I couldn't have worked and done that because that is way too much people interaction. I have enough just to get through a day of work and I know how exhausted I was whenever I was made a manager because I had to deal with people all day long. I will do it, but it exhausts me and I hate my life when I do.


So, anyway, that's off topic, but reading all this makes me wonder if it isn't commonplace for Aspie women to go through these similar feelings, anxieties and thoughts. Even for those of us who didn't have children, it is interesting to read about the experiences of those who did.

By the way, I was not diagnosed when I went through all of that. I never thought I was NT by any stretch or like my mother, I just knew I was different and didn't know why.

Last edited by ZanneMarie on 15 Feb 2007, 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Zanne, I'm sorry it's such a painful issue for you. I have never for one moment regretted having my kids, but there are moments I'd like to pull my hair out LOL. Those are episodes, though, not the ongoing routine. Sorry if I made the problems sound like all there is -- it's not really that way. There is nothing like cuddling with my daughter, the only person besides dh who I enjoy touching at all. My son is "too old" for that mushy mom-stuff now, sigh ...

Anyway, I don't think I could be a successful mom without my dh. He is our rock. He looks after our family's livelihood, so I can stay home and do things in my own "safe" ways. He is also there to take over when I go into overload. Without him, well, I can't imagine it without him. Somebody nominate that man for sainthood LOL.

And it took me a long time to get to the place that I felt able to have kids -- I was married at 22, but until I was 30, adamantly did NOT want kids. Like you, I had no dx, just those weirdnesses. Around 30, I began to feel more competent at living in the world -- and with the support in place with dh, we decided to try. So not only am I an aspie mom, I'm also an old mom. I'm glad I have my kids, but I do have to plan ahead more than the ordinary NT mom probably does. They know their mom needs lots of alone time, and suchlike. As they get older, I'll probably get more detailed with them on the whys and wherefores of mom's peculiarities. I think it will be okay. So it's no bed of roses, but whoever promised that anyway?

Please don't feel bad. You changed your mind and accomodated your life accordingly. I think I'm way off the deep end of how much people interaction I can take. My job, when I don't manage (which I always end up leaving when I'm made a manager), is extremely isolated and people free, but I still get exhausted by it and as my boss says, I go home and plug in to recharge. Add to that the fact that I simply had no desire for kids and that was the right choice for me. My biggest thing was always that I wouldn't have them if I didn't want them. For the people on here that did end up wanting them, as I said, they did the intellectual thing and accomodated that. That's the right thing to do. You made a decision, you planned, you stay committed. I didn't want them and didn't want to accomodate them. It was the right thing for me to do what I did. What I was really trying to say before I meandered off is that I was right that there is no magical switch that makes you tolerate the noise and chaos more. If you choose to do it you have to work extremely hard at it (harder than NTs do), so all of these people who tried to convince me it would magically change were just saying stuff to say it (a common NT thing I've found). And I am glad to have that stated here. I also applaud all of you who made a decision and work so hard to see it through. THAT is what counts. Commitment.

So, please just read my post as that was my story and my choice. It was right for me and maybe that's all, but that's ok. My life is very happy now and has been since I married (also at 22 ) by the way). We are both happy this way and that's ok.

And by the way, my husband is also a gem who takes care of so much. I don't know how we ever got so lucky, but I'm certainly glad we did.