Perspective from an Old Timer

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You know ... I never would have guessed that I would become like my grandparents ... "When I was your age, we worked from sunup to sundown, pulling weeds and baling hay until our fingers bled, and we liked it!"

I never imagined that younger people would be heckling and harassing me for daring to speak of my accomplishments and offering advice on how they could succeed as well as I (maybe better).

Sour grapes? Jealousy? Hidden shame? Who knows?

All I know is that hard work, diligence, and ethical behavior have paid off well for people of my generation, that's all.

Many times today Aspies go off to college, even earning a PhD and find it difficult to transition into the workforce. I feel many Aspies do not understand the importance of working in summer jobs or part time jobs prior to graduating. It helps individuals develop a good work ethic. It is like training wheels on a bicycle. You can gain a variety of experience, both technical and social interactive experience from this type of employment. And even if you fall off the bike (get fired), you can get back on (find another job) and learn to ride. Sometimes working an intern position opens the doors to employment after earning a degree. Being in the military can also be good experience that can open doors to employment. I went to college and earned a degree. I had a few small scholarships and a few student loans, but most of the cost I bore. Not my parents. I worked my way thru school.

When I grew up there were some jobs that required college degrees and other that did not. Many of the trades (electricians, plumber, brick layers) do not require college degrees and I believe that is even true today. One might go to a trade school or learn on the job. I was the first member of my immediate family and also my extended family to ever earn a college degree.

I took drivers education when I went to high school, so did my daughters. Even today our high school still offers drivers education. It is a summer class. But I suspect that there are some areas in the U.S. where this is not the case. And I know that in many countries, driver's education is not offered.

And yes inflation makes things more expensive. But every generation has that problem. It was true for my father's generation and my generation and your generation. My youngest daughter worked for a couple years as a volunteer in a hospital during two summers when she was in her early teens. Later she worked part time in a store similar to a small Walmart. Before she turned 18, they asked her if she would like to become a manager of the store. She declined. She went to school for 8 years of college and 2 years of residency and now she works as a medical doctor. She has a half a million dollars of student loans but she is paying them off as quickly as she can.

Not only the work ethic, but those summer jobs show that the person is not some slacker, taking only the minimum courses to earn a four-year degree in "General Studies", but a person who wants to work and maybe even enjoys it! I get a lot of Gen-Xers and Millenialists who still seem to expect summers off and a party-like atmosphere in the workplace.Same here.

I agree. Does the label really help? If the label results in the younger generation getting the skill set necessary to succeed in life, then yes. But it looks more like society is backsliding. Perhaps the current approach is wrong. I am more interested in concrete results.

I do believe that "labels" can sometimes be a hindrance.

No this is not an "us vs. them" thread. It goes to the core question: "Do you feel you have the right skill set to succeed in life?" And if not, what is missing? How can you get from where you are today to where you need to be tomorrow?

When I was growing up, I had to find alternative ways of doing things.

The "accepted" ways of doing things---I just wasn't able to do. And I got lots of flak for that.

Eventually, though, I was able to get by doing things via my own methodology.

If I had to rely on the established way of doing things, I probably wouldn't have gone as far as I did (I haven't gone far----but at least I attained independence).

I'm only 31 but I can relate positively to your life story (so far).

Mostly for the better, my family has always put me as an individual person ahead of my label. When I was first diagnosed about ten years ago, there was no change in how they treated me. The focus was still on "finish your degree, get a job". It sounds boring, but I wonder if it's not every parents wish to make sure their children are financially independent before the parents get too old to care for them. After all, parents won't be around forever, so they want to know or at least trust in that their children can get through the bumpy ride that is life on their own.

Transitioning from university to workplace has been a hard one for me. I did do a lot of small jobs in my early twenties, but most of my self-confidence was eradicated by a 7 year brawl with psychosis which I've only just recently got under control. Nevertheless, I went through college, got my degree, married and worked for more than a year during said psychosis. It was immensely hard, but my personal motivation was that I didn't want illness or disability to stop me from living the life I thought I deserved.

I'm a "millennial" but I've never bothered to find out what characterises them and supposedly me. To me it sounds like a marketing buzzword to sell more iPhones. I find my inspiration in my parents and grandparents, and in the NT's around me. I'm different, I know that, they know that, but it's OK. I can still do a job (with a lot of effort), pay off my debts (in time), learn new things, and try to be a good member of society.

Cheers to your 70 years, jimmy. 'twas a good read, and inspired me to improve in an area where I'm still lacking: work ethic.

My sensitivity to smoke is really severe, severe enough that I think if I was forced to live in that time frame when near everyone smoked everywhere, and I was in a smoking home, I feel confident I would of become very behind, with all sorts of delays. No way my body could of handled it.

When it comes the the more free style of parenting, allowing kids to interact and learn from the world on their own from a young age, I think it is the best way for an autistic person to learn.

And my LDs are hard to manage enough, I doubt I would of graduated.

One of the primary values our generation was taught (it was drummed into all children, AS and NT) was to "learn to stand on your own two feet". We left home as soon as we could, usually in our teens, and strived to become as independent as possible, learning by trial and error (and finding what worked) how to live independent lives.

I feel very deep pain for the generations after us in which so many were taught the polar opposite - you're autistic, you'll never amount to anything, you count for nothing much, you will always be dependent to a greater or larger degree. They have been brainwashed from an early age to believe in their incapacity so entirely that millions appear to be living with its consequence of living lives of utter hopelessness.

I'm old, I'm the matriarch of my family, and the two AS generations after mine were and are offered personal support and encouragement to be the best that they could be, as individuals within the context of their own aptitudes and their aspirations; they escaped the hopelessness narrative at home and in their extended family, and I think that is part of the reason that they are making progress in their current lives and ambitions. We valued them as individuals.

It seems that many young WP members have never known what it is to be valued for themselves, and live with an inner void of anger at life's unfairness. The Senior generation here have had a very different experience, with its own challenges (for sure) and hurts, but we have also learned a great deal about living as AS people along the way.

Besides all the self sufficient stuff an Aspie may or may not could do...

Two things stand out for me say as far back as you like to 1970s.

1. People didn't marry for love persay. How many marriges did a husband come home, and check the f*ck out from work? My dad never changed a diaper. Never did much with us kids. My father in the 1970s was not involved in kid stuff. At school or at home. He wasn't emotionally involved like parents are supposed to be now. He did stuff around the house. Worked. I can't remember my dad holding my mother's hand or giving her a kiss. My father was not an Aspie. All the dads in our neighborhood back then worked, came home and did guy stuff. Your husband didn't have to overshare in an hour conversation about *feelings*, because he worked, fixed stuff around the house, he provided for the family. That was love. The guys that didn't love their wives just left. Even if you hated your spouse, most were religious, so divorce wasnt really an option for everyone.

An Aspie who could pass, could have a family. No one bitched about a husband being emotionally unavailable. Dudes didn't overshare. (Not saying any of this is good or right)

2. Jobs didn't need you to be a team player, works good in a group, an awesome extrovert with stellar soft skills. You could work as a lone wolf in many good paying jobs. You could get some tedious office job, where you shuffled paperwork around, and people left you alone. Now, even tech jobs are dealing with groups, committees and coworkers never leave you alone.

I don't believe there are more Aspies now. I think society's expectations changed, which left Aspies really exposed. You have to have exceptional soft skills now to get a job or date. There are very few lone wolf jobs anymore. Passing is so much harder, which leads to burn out. It takes real work to find a tolerable job or a partner that doesn't drain you to the nub.

I don’t know if I have a “sour grapes” attitude, but I really wish, for my own selfish interest, that I could make some use of “perspectives” like the OP’s. However, the only messages I get are that people from previous generations seem to have had superhuman abilities in their youth, in addition to an undeniably rock-solid work ethic, of course, and that not only am I extremely contemptible in light of their achievements, but would still be very despicable even if I’d kept applying myself to my studies and earned my degree, which is basically all I know I could have done.

I’ve already talked in many threads about why I failed to do that and how everything went downhill from there, and I’m sure anyone who bothered to read it probably thinks I’m just making excuses, but I genuinely don’t know what to do, nor did when I first tried to talk to my parents so we could agree on a path towards my independence that hopefully wouldn’t completely exclude any activity besides studying or doing what they told me to. I’m not happy in this situation and the “grapes” of independence and earning a rich and fruitful life don’t look sour at all to me, but they do look hopelessly beyond my reach. At any rate, my youth is already gone, so all I can do is make the best possible use of my wretched middle and old age.

One of the things that bother me most when this topic of comparing the lives of different generations comes up is that at least the older generation, and people from the younger one who had to work particularly hard to get ahead in life, seem to agree that the fewer and poorer opportunities you have, the better, period, because a truly worthy person will find a way to succeed no matter what. There’s no doubt I have a lot of learned helplessness, but that’s not the whole story. When people tell how they became self-sufficient at eighteen or earlier and worked hard while studying to pay for their own education, there’s usually at least some knowledge involved to get started, and often some basic material resources, that I don’t think I ever had, or at least I was never aware that I might have them at my disposal, despite the privilege of having my parents provide for my survival needs and my studies.

I feel guilty and know I am in one way or another. It’s obvious people who had to work hard for the opportunity to study deserve it much more than me, and so far I’ve squandered it. Joining the military would probably have been a good idea from a moral standpoint, but it’s too late now, and it didn’t even cross my mind when I was young, because I knew my parents were against it, in addition to being against working before getting my degree. I know what I’d like to achieve in life, but don’t feel worthy of it or able to pursue it without making more use of unearned privileges, so I always find myself questioning my own plans before I can get them properly started. And I’m scared s**tless of what will happen when those unearned privileges eventually run out.

Yes, in some ways, perhap s the earlier years were better hose " lighter-skinned/could pass for white ", if I may use that metaphor .however, if you're weren't"t...or didn't have certain advantages ...Well.
Let"s talk about me. In my signature, I refer to a new couple of things, that hppene before I was twenty-one, that really f****d up my life in my humble opiWestcheehings s that HAPPENED, not the abscence of something, that did not happen. I grew up in Westche ster County, New York, in the NYC suburbs. My father had a journalism job in " the city ", to which he took the commuter train. His hours weren't absute 8-5 Mon-Fei, journalism jobs can gave funny shifts.
My mother didn't paid-work when I was a child. As I have mentioned, my now-deceased younger brother was " classically autistic ", I guess what people say around here. Basically, he was like an eternal three-fiur-year old.
More...

...My parents both came from Texas, my father from the San Antonio area, my mother a rural county about 125 miles east of Dallas, Upshur County. After they married, my mother gave up paying work, my father got a job offer, that I think he"d been looking for anyway, that took them up North. My mother's family were nondrinking Southern Baptists, but my mother's home county was dry anyway (Of course, they were born during the Twenties when there was Prohibition anyway ).
They had alcohol problems . I"ve thought it was that " Days Of Wine And Roses " scenario a lot of people of that generation went through. An after-effect of Prohibition ? Well, anyway.
So, my mother's family were all down South, my father was an only child and had nearly no contact with his father's family, that grandparent (after whom I am named) had had a split with his New England-Northeast family and my father claimed to not know the story behind it. He died while my mother was PG with me, but my father said that had no effect on the choice of his name for mine.

...Because of my brother's condition, I had a hard time for a long time calling myself " autistic ". I thought " Well, I'm not like he is, how can I call myself that ", censor...or was, since he's dead now and I am benefiting from his death .
My brother was always being taken to therapists and such, I'd be dragged along, I'd get a treat while waiting, read, sort of falling into a pattern of being the good boy waiting in the corner/back seat not making any trouble. Then something happened to make me do more of that.

If I had been "labeled" as autistic as a kid, maybe I would've avoided being "labeled" as lazy and stupid.