Parents/ Grandparents into maths/ science/ engineering?

Page 2 of 2 [ 25 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2


Is/was a GrandParent working in Engineering/Maths fields?
Yes 88%  88%  [ 21 ]
No 13%  13%  [ 3 ]
I believe it's irrelevant. 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 24

poopylungstuffing
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Mar 2007
Age: 49
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,714
Location: Snapdragon Ridge

04 Oct 2007, 12:04 pm

I would also like to reitrate..that although I feel dumb compared to my dad's side of the family...i was not trying to imply that my mom's side of the family is dim or anything....
Compared to both sides...I seemed to get the fuzzy end of the lollipop in my entire family when it comes to executive function and social interraction and whatnot...
Somewhere in my gene pool are really great eccentric mathematics people who build things.....It all just sorta skipped me.



Khalaris
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Posts: 245
Location: Nuremberg, Germany

04 Oct 2007, 12:26 pm

My father's an electrical engineer and a total wiz with technology. From what I know of his childhood he certainly showed some AS tendencies.



Sophist
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,332
Location: Louisville, KY

04 Oct 2007, 12:27 pm

Joybob wrote:
Not to pick a bone with you but isn't that a bit Lamarckian of him? I mean, acquired skills like math and science being transmitted genetically to offspring?


You don't inherit math or the like, but you can inherit an ability or proclivity to the fields. Therefore, all you need for success in that area is to be introduced to it to make that ability apparent. And since many people tend to go into fields they're good at, it stands to reason there may be more engineers and scientists in the families of autistics if indeed those talent areas are associated with ASC.

As for the thread: My father was a computer engineer. He designed OS for military defensive weapons with Boeing.

My maternal great grandfather was an engineer and he was involved in designing stuff like canals.

Some great uncle somewhere on my mother's side I believe was a chemist.

For myself, I am going into the sciences albeit that which is considered a "softer" science, Psychology, but my interest is mainly in neurology and research, so I will be getting my degree in Experimental.


_________________
My Science blog, Science Over a Cuppa - http://insolemexumbra.wordpress.com/

My partner's autism science blog, Cortical Chauvinism - http://corticalchauvinism.wordpress.com/


woodsman25
Supporting Member
Supporting Member

User avatar

Joined: 18 May 2007
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,064
Location: NY

04 Oct 2007, 1:28 pm

My grandfather was physics teacher, but taught other science, physics was his main thing.

My father was in the merchant mariens and later worked in the feild of nuclear engineering. He was sent to 3 mile island in 1979 and currently is a supervisor for many of these newer nuclear engineers at the second oldest nuclear facility in the US.


_________________
DX'ed with HFA as a child. However this was in 1987 and I am certain had I been DX'ed a few years later I would have been DX'ed with AS instead.


Irulan
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 May 2007
Age: 41
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,496
Location: Poland

04 Oct 2007, 1:42 pm

2ukenkerl wrote:

Irulan,

Yeah, I had much the same problem as your parents, and I guess most on this board, including you. I wasn't able to really get the exposure to what I wanted. I lamented over that even when I was 6-7.

That may ESPECIALLY be bad in some poorer areas where they may not even know that such knowledge exists. It is like a movie here (the beverly hillbillies) where the "boy"(jehtro) was said to have graduated from OXFORD! It turns out it was like IN OXFORD *****ARKANSAS*****! They didn't know there was a REAL university that wouldn't even consider him to be worth their time. And THEY are based on a type of people that apparently really exist in the US!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly

They are isolated and see no point in learning new things, etc...



My mother having lived with such simple people for years, adopted their narrow minded way of perceiving the world and bad habits (lack of tolerance - even though she herself claims something else, bad hygiene and not too high intellectual ambitions). I like reading forums for parents and their way of bringing up their children is quite different, they realize that exposing them to new knowledge and so on has a great importance for their intellectual development. My mother bought me books, here I can't complain, but it's everything, I'd say. She never reads anything more than love stories and "The bold and the beautiful" belongs to her favourite series. When talking to her friends from the village she comes from, she uses that terrible dialect because as she claims herself, they'd think she looks down on them, despising them. When I was 6 we moved, settling in a town when I had an occasion to find out that people normally don't use dialect and I could say I was a lucky one having read so many books from which I learned how to speak correctly - this way nobody laughed at me.

In my country people so uneducated and stupid are mostly those very old people without education or Gypsies whose daughters usually give birth to their first child at the age of 12-15 and who in many cases are able to speak only their own language.



MishLuvsHer2Boys
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Oct 2004
Age: 51
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,491
Location: Canada

04 Oct 2007, 1:47 pm

My paternal grandfather was an engineer. My father well was pretty good with math, I suck at math, so does my mother. :)



KimJ
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 Jun 2006
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,418
Location: Arizona

04 Oct 2007, 2:02 pm

I was adopted so I don't know about my parents. I'm not inclined toward science or math at all. Just language. The paper that described my (teen) mom said she was "artistic" and had an 8th grade education. She's an Indian and lived in the hills. My dad was in the Army, stationed in West Germany so he may have had some engineering/science job/vocation.

My husband is artistic. His mom is kind of artistic, more like crafty. His dad is a waste case, it's impossible to know what his vocation could have been. His maternal grandma was a good baker and terrible cook. She corrected or proofread math books for 20 years as a job. That would be rather Aspie-ish. His grandfather was a baker before he was disabled in WWII. His paternal line of ancestors devoted themselves to drink and family abandonment.



Belle77
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 9 Feb 2007
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,078

04 Oct 2007, 2:05 pm

Belle77 wrote:
My father was a chemical engineer, and most likely an Aspie.


I should have also said that I felt like I was expected to be good at and enjoy math and science because my family did. My 2 brothers (one definitely aspie, one possibly Aspie) both work in computer technology. I was considered 'gifted' so I thought that meant that I was supposed to be good at everything. I took a lot of classes in school that I wasn't good at and hated, just because I felt that I was expected to. It really sent me on the wrong path in life, but I didn't realize that until recently and now I seem to have hit a dead-end.



Quirky_Girl72
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 25 Apr 2007
Age: 48
Gender: Female
Posts: 210
Location: In My Own World - Located in the NYC (Metro Area)

04 Oct 2007, 5:15 pm

My Father, who initially went to MIT, has a PhD in both electrical and mechanical engineering. He is truly a genius and exhibits behaviors of someone w/ AS. I sincerely believe that he is an undiagnosed aspie! He was always inventing new gadgets at home. Back in the 70's, he was building his own computers and lie detectors (don't ask). Just as I am, he is quite eccentric! He's my hero!! !


_________________
"Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you." -Carl Gustav Jung