Maternal Instincts in an Aspie Female

Post Reply New Topic

Hi Before I took any child development classes, I did ok with kids - volunteered at church on the rare occasion with them and hung out with the 2nd cousins, but I still felt uncomfortable. After learning more about child development that helped me understand kids. Now I enjoy being a Sunday school teacher in a low teacher-student ratio classroom. I like working with other people's kids, but I still feel like I'm using intellect more than emotion when working with them, especially when I see other people seemingly more emotionally spontaneous with kids than I am.

I'm not sure how much I can add to this w/o a dx myself. I totally agree that my children are the only people I don't act with with the exception of my husband who is just a quirky as I am (albeit sometimes in very different ways) Every well executed interaction I have with others has to be envisioned and planned out whereas with my children, I can be completely unrehearsed. I had three children in 31 months. My spouse and I craved the idea of creating a close knit sibling group. I have no idea what the implication of our new observations (our oldest presents with HFA but we only have an educational dx. In our quest to help him, we have learned more about ourselves than we expected) will be- we are finding now that our needs for quiet and solitude are more than that of the average other adult and no amount of "working at it" will make that less so. On the other hand, I'm amazingly optimistic that our own experiences and acceptance of ourselves, and accurate knowledge of needs will allow our children to feel comfortable in our family setting- something I never felt growing up.

I am very very rigid. I run a tight ship and *need* for things to be aesthetically organized. And that makes being a parent to three closely spaced flow very smoothly when I am able to meet that need. However, the random cluttered-ness that comes with having toddlers has caused me a lot of anxiety and I'm taking medication for that which has been helpful. I think that rigidity helps more than I've realized. I also have a hard time with the auditory aspect of it. I *thought* that all mothers were biologically programed to hear their children and wake to their needs. Now, I am realizing that the responses I got from people upon making that statement were probably disagreement. We are using sound machines, light therapy, and I'm even trying melatonin to get through the nights without waking at every sniffle. I don't think I've slept through the night more than a dozen times in the last 4 years. I didn't sleep well to begin with so that's been manageable but is catching up with me.

I think aspects of this have been harder than I expected mainly because I didn't feel had resource where people actually understood where I was coming from. I can't spank my kids- I have proprioception difficulties and they have sensory issues as well. I can't reason with him because he's speech delayed. I can't just "let go" of the house because I am literally hardwired to need it another way or I can't process thoughts.

The great news is now that I am seeing myself more clearly, I can advocate for and parent them even better. And even better is that I am one of the most stubborn people I know. I become engrossed in things and research and reorganize until I make it work. I get more defeated by people interactions than I do people dynamics if that makes sense. I view our family dynamics as a puzzle and am constantly looking to evolve and improve it.

For me also, having children has been one of the greatest joys of my life. My instincts might be overload at times- but watching them grow- seeing their success- it is truly amazing. I am constantly amazed by the human body (I worked as an medical assistant before staying home) and seeing it grow in action has been a privilege and an honor.

Also I feel like I should say it has taken me almost an hour to compose this. I could have typed it in 10 minutes but I have to review so many times and I'm sure I've still conveyed something incorrectly. Add to that the "interruptions" that come with motherhood and it does take me for ever to accomplish anything. I constantly hear from others how patient I am. And I am with some things- Some things don't even occur to me as potentially annoying. But with other daily life struggles I often feel defeated where I think many mothers are more "on their game" than I would be.

Until I found out that I was pregnant at the age of 36, I was VERY much in favor of zero population growth. And, I could barely stand to hear a baby cry. But, once I had my twin daughters-- my feeling of "shut that kid up" turned into "somebody do something for that baby". I think it is nature. I am very protective of my daughters and sometimes inappropriately. Like the time someone tried to shhh my girls in the children's section of the library. I think I almost took the old lady in clam-diggers out. But, there are definitely times when I feel a difference... like when I feel like I am watching them like bugs on a flower. Or when I start freaking out about having to talk to other school parents and my daughters aren't in pre-school for at least one to two more years. But, I love to give them kisses-- they are so soft. And, I can really feel a stirring in me when they show me affection. Of all other things that can consume my time, I always know they are first. I am a lucky mama. Unfortunately, I have already started to see signs in my one daugther. That is actually how I started looking into getting help for myself. I can only hope I can help make her following years less painful and awkward than my own were.

Yes, exactly, on both points! When you have the baby the maternal instincts usually just show up. All of a sudden you're a mama bear with a cuddly cub to love.

Whether you want it or not, your female body is physiologically and hormonally geared toward mothering. Many young women may be unaware of this aspect of themselves until they get pregnant or are in a situation where they are responsisble for a child long-term. It's like going through pberty. You don't wake up one morning with breasts and a sex drive. It's a long process of maturing that your body and mind undergoes and may need life events and relationships to trigger your awareness of it.

I never though I was a mothering type until I starting doing after-school classes with kindergarteners in my mid-20's. The kids loved me, because my Aspieness makes me so laid-back and fair, I don't get angry, I don't judge the kids, I don't enforce rules arbitrarily. I had no problem letting the kids just be themselves, and they loved me for that. They would run and hug me whenever I came and they would hug me goodbye. Having kids hug you releases those same hormones that a mother's body releases when she breast-feeds her baby. Before long, I started feeling more motherly towards these kid and was able to respond back more easily when they were affectionate toward me.

But I had been motherly even before that, just with animals rather than people. I mean, if I hear a crying kitten, time stops for me and I can't think of anything but findng that kitten and comforting it. I have a very hard time walkng away from an animal in need. And god help the soul who hurts one of my cats.

I don't think being an Aspie makes you more or less mothering. I think it may make it a little harder for us to be aware of that part of ourselves. I also think some of the misinformation about Asperger's--like how we're supposedly less empathetic or less emotional, both of which are resoundingly untrue--has inflluenced too many people with AS. I think they try to fit that image, maybe uncosnciously, or they misinterret something about themselves that they don't quite undertand yet because they are trying ot make it fit some erroneous portrait of an Aspergian.

I've known quite a few older woman who swore up and down that they weren't teh mothering type. They didn't have kids, but they mothered in other ways--they would cook food for others, doted over their pets like children, ere the first to help out when someone was ill, did volunteer work for the needy and so on. These women just found other ways to express their mothering side. I think the only thing that could hinder a woman's natural ability to be mothering would be if she was profoundly emotionally damaged or psychotic. But that's a whole other issue. Barring those two issues, if a woman, and especially a young woman, told me she wasn't the mothering type, my first thought would be that she just doesn't know herself very well.

Mercurial: You bring up a lot of good points to ponder. I definitely questioned whether the empathy I do have is 'real' or not when I got my dx. This past summer I nannied two kids for 6 hours/week (not much, I know), but sometimes I would unconciously shut my emotions off, but then I would say, "God has allowed you to feel and He has allowed you to learn caregiving skills. You can do this with God's help." And I did. I couldn't suddenly let my newfound ASD rule how I thought about these kids. And when they see me in church they give me hugs and stuff, so I know a bond is there

I like how you talked about how older women you knew mothered in other ways That got me thinking about famous women on the spectrum and how their maternal traits might manifest themselves: Donna Williams is a teacher / consultant and probably 'mothers' her students. Temple Grandin definitely 'mothers' animals. She wrote in one of her books that if a cow licks her face, sometimes she kisses it on the nose. I laughed when I read that!

I don't have a dx but for me, this is profoundly true. It was much harder to get in touch with that idea. And for the longest time I had a very clinical and sterile view of it- why didn't mothers get control of their kids in stores etc? I beat myself up relentlessly when my son was suggested to be on the spectrum. I felt like a hypocrite. Where some of the children that I'd formed my plans on how to correctly execute parenthood on the spectrum? Where those mothers doing the best they could and I had assumed different? I used to think I was a good judge of character or good at "seeing other's points of view" but really I'm great at seeing how I think they should feel/act etc. My son, he is that kid going wild in the store- sensory overload at the thread dispenser aisle in Joanns. And now, I'm not ashamed of on lookers as much as smiling at myself for not having predicted it. But thinking back, it makes sense because I approach every "task" that way- "Well this is how it should be done right?"- Mothering was the first thing that I realized you can't really make a "task" out of. It's an almost immediate bond that you can't deny. For me, my maternal instincts caught me more off guard than anything I'd ever experienced. I do think that there are sensory issues in all of it that I have to sort out (Is the baby crying because she needs me or simply sleeping loudly and I need to give her a minute?) But mostly the urge to mother is very strong- biologically and physically and emotionally.

I didn't leave it in the quote but about what you said about a woman not knowing herself: Perhaps that is as well as she can know of herself at that point. You can't know the you 10 years from know. But also, I've found that many women use that as a deflection for some private issue of not being able to carry children, or having tumultuous childhoods of their own.

Well, as a little kid I thought of the idea of being a mother pretty silly, baby dolls and such were useless toys. You didn't get miniature items and dress them up in cool clothes like a barbie, you couldn't make your own little world of fantasy play like you could with barbies or stuffed animals. It was dull play, and I hated it when my mom would set me up on a play date with girls who loved playing, "Mommy".

I hated, and still do, hate the sounds of babies and small children crying and screaming. It freaked me out when i was little to see and hear a kid of my age of two though five go into a tantrum. Now If I see this little kid screaming or this baby crying It freaks me out in a different way,being of me thinking, "Why isn't the mom consoling her child?"

I guess that's a maternal panic mode for me, because if my friend's baby girl is crying or something in the other room and my friend's not worried about it, I freak out. But I'm very protective of that little girl, for good reason, there's times when I could scream at my friend's parenting skills. (Like that one time she asked if she could smoke in my car, with the kid in the car seat right behind her, even though i said for her to put it in the middle of the back seat, I told her that the smoke is going to go right in her daughter's face, she didn't care, just said, "Your dad did it, my parents did it, so it must be ok!" I wanted to slap her so bad that day)

But yeah, not until recently have I thought about the prospect of having kids one day.
People tell me I'm very motherly and I'd be a great mom because I have a "no nonsense attitude" but I'm also patient and caring and that I have a pretty good sense of humor with kids. I don't know if 'Great" is even possible, but I know I'd do a better job than most people who I know.

A lovely and fascinating post

I wouldn't consider myself to be overly maternal. People tell me I'm good with kids, but I haven't always been. As for my own kids, I love them dearly and am fiercely protective of them. Other people's kids stress me out if they are too loud and crazy. I wonder if the concept of refrigerator mothers came out of an observation of aspergerian mothers who of course at that time weren't labeled as such. Just because you love your children doesn't mean you show it the same way as other mothers might.

I'm OK with kids, older kids that is. Although I'm generally shy around younger ones so I'm not always a barrel of fun. But that's kids I'm not close to, when I have my own in the future the whole natural bond kicks in or should do. I think a lot of people that say they would be hopeless with kids because they can't stand the crying and stuff would think differently if they had their own. I do think I have an average maternal instinct going on, I do coo and aaw over baby shoes and sad looking kittens and stuff. If I hear a baby crying none stop I think "if you don't pick that baby up and calm them down I'll do it myself!" Half because it's annoying and half because I feel bad for the baby.

I am not sure I have maternal instinct so much as 'caring instinct' and 'citizen instict'. If it came down to a situation where I had to come to the aid of a hurt or abused child I would do it from a caring or citizen rights instinct rather than a maternal one.

I could be described as having maternal instinct for my teddy bears though - even though I don't see then as children.

Sorry... I don't like the tone of your posts.

People have varying personalities. Some, and most, are mothering. Some are not. It's neither a defect nor a product of being damaged.

I don't think caring for others is a form of mothering. Everyone does it, male or female - it's part of being a social animal, even if you're a dysfunctional one (lol). So to take the tone you did is just insulting.

I have to agree with the fact the tone Mercurial put forth upsets me. Some women don't want kids, and frankly many are pretty awful mothers (they are not the mothering type, yet have kids anyway). I don't think the caregiving aspect is natural to all women, and it has nothing to do with disfunction or bad experiences in the past. In many cases, they simply don't like kids and want no part of them. A kind way to put it is "I am not the mothering type". Such a tone you put forth and biological determinism is a big reason why there is resentment among women in the childfree community. The rhetoric you are putting forth is no different than telling a gay person to be straight "if they just tried". Disgusting rhetoric. When a person says they are "not the mothering type" take them at their word and leave it at that. Kids may be your life and joy, but they are not for everybody, some women choose not to have kids because they know themselves quite well, because they are not the mothering type.

PS I don't think this has anything to do with ASD. Personally, I think kids would be awful for me because of my sensory issues and the stress, thankfully I am not the mothering type (and I am also infertile and have no interest in adopting).

Last edited by starygrrl on 26 Nov 2010, 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with mechanicalgirl39 and starygrrl.

Thank you starygrrl. I don't know why some people feel the need to condemn difference. The idea that all women are basically mothers or mother-templates is oversimplified and just plain f****d up. People are not mass produced products. Some are very maternal, some kind of like the idea, and some just flat out don't have it at all. The idea that if you don't have a mother instinct, either you are damaged in some way or you do have one but you think you don't, is just insulting. Some people just know from young adulthood that they don't want children, and there's nothing wrong with them.