Should you have kids if you have ADHD or Autism?

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If you want kids, and will look after them well, who cares about stupid labels?

IMO, there should be MORE Aspies in the world anyway, the possibility of your child being on the spectrum should NOT dissuade you.

The question isn't whether or not you have autism or ADHD; it's whether or not you are ready to be a parent. If you are ready, it doesn't matter what your diagnosis is; if you're not, you could be the most neurotypical person in the world and still shouldn't.

Regarding the possibility of having ADHD or autistic children, I think that it's about on the level of having black children in a white neighborhood--i.e., they will face some prejudice and some difficulty, but it is not enough to justify not having children, nor enough to assume they will not be happy. I would probably think differently if the disorder in question were something that drastically shortened a person's life, like Tay-Sachs or cystic fibrosis; in those case, I think adoption would be a better bet.

Oops. I voted 'no' on accident, but I meant 'yes'.

I see no reason why Aspergers or ADHD should be viewed so badly as to possibly restrict anyone from wanting a child.

My head says no, but my heart says yes. I'd love kids. They might kill me with worry and stress, but there it is. I wouldn't want my children to suffer as much as I have. Adoption is always an option.

The process of adoption, I hear, is hard and long.

and very expensive.

I personaly detest children and my worst fear is becoming pregnent. I'm asexual but fear some as*hole will come along and rape me. I want a hystorectomy and I am going to have a big fit if the doctor says I can't.

I don't think ADHD or ASDs are reasons not to have children. Not wanting them or feeling that one's own case is so severe that one is afraid of passing on similar traits are more reasonable reasons, IMO. I think that schizophrenia and bi-polar are better reasons to refrain from procreating (not that people with those things never should, but it would give me greater pause if it were me), but that it should be up to the individual not something forced on them. Perhaps someday we'll have better treatments for those problems and it won't matter so much.

I personally would make a BAD parent. An awful parent. I think that somebody realizes this, which is why I'm still single and childless at 35. I would NEVER tell somebody not to have kids, that's a personal choice, playing Mengele is not my forte. But they should consider whether they can raise kids.

So many NT women have kids for stupid reasons, like they love a guy and want to trap him so they deliberately "forget" their Pill that night (oops!), or they think a kid will rescue them from their awful lives (remember that Onion article, "Autistic Boy Ruins Marriage He Was Born To Save"?) and the woman ends up with several kids and no man, relying on welfare to feed them, raising them in a ghetto. The kids are raised by peers and become criminals and the girls get pregnant at 15 or something because they're messed up in the head too. I've heard of 29 year old grandmothers.

I do think that bipolars and schizophrenics should not really have kids, because those disorders ARE genetic and they ARE debilitating and greatly impair life functioning. AS people's problems are mainly caused by prejudice, not the disorder itself. We CAN work, most of us, but employers slam doors in our faces because of bigotry. But a bipolar person is at the mercy of the illness. Look at Britney Spears. But AS in itself does not preclude a guy or girl from working, living independently (unless your executive functioning is SO BAD that you go for the door and fall out the window, that sort of thing, or can't remember to pay bills), and some of us can even drive. A few here are even in relationships. Clearly the "disability" here is not inherent in the illness.

It's an option, I'm not saying it's easy.

You DO realize that if you have a hysterectomy in your mid 20s that you will IMMEDIATELY go through extremely severe menopause and then have to take hormone replacement for the rest of your life? Ask Michhsta what it's like to go through menopause at a young age. It's no fun. Just get your tubes tied. Go to Planned Parenthood and tell them you have autism, they'll be happy to tie you off. I wanted to get a snip, but I greatly overestimated my attractiveness to the opposite sex. Celibacy works. But I'm male, so I don't have to worry about rape.

Should you have kids if you don't have autism? After all, there's a chance your kid could be autistic.

Callista said it better than I could have said it. It's not about your diagnosis, it's about whether you're ready to be a parent.

Personally, I am probably too restricted by my autistic traits to ever have children, adopted or not. In my case, my autism IS the reason why I should not parent, but that's not true of everyone with (or without) autism. It an be for any one of a million reasons.

If Asperger's passes through genetically, I don't think so, because it's not fair on the child.

It does. But to see how little sense that argument makes, see this post again:

I don't think I would be a bad parent to an Aspie. Unfortunately, I do need more time than most mothers have, but I don't trust any of the institutions I could use to babysit. Now, if the kid had autism, I would be a bad parent... but I bet I'd do a better job of it than an NT ever could.

No, the real danger would lie in my having an NT child. I could never be what an NT child needs. I could never understand my own baby, and I would be ludicrously easy to take advantage of. That's a risk I can't take.

So I'll have kids under one of two conditions:
That I can know for certain they'll be Aspies
OR
That I have a support system of nurturing, available NTs who like kids.