Aspies: Would you/do you have children?

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well I won't care anymore when I'm dead so that doesn't count. also- I don't know if you know this, but your kids will do what they want when they are adults and if they will have better things to do than taking care of the old you, they *will* do them.

You have a dark side in your personality , I like that....

^^mostly dark

No. I don't have it together enough to be a father in good conscience.

I'd love to have kids of my own. If they have an ASD, or any other disability, I feel that I'd be able to deal with it. I think that I'd make a good mum.

I have five children. Three from my first "train wreck" marriage and two from my current "perfect" marriage. I have been diagnosed with Asperger's last year and we consider my husband Aspie as well. I have two Aspie children one from my first marriage and my 6 year old son was just diagnosed. I have a 3 and half year old daughter who was diagnosed with Autism about a year and half ago. When she was first diagnosed she was considered low to moderate functioning...after lots and lots of therapy she is now considered high functioning. Its amazing how much she has changed in just a year.
Anyway, back to the post at hand. I dont think there is anything akin to a perfect parent. I think I am a good Mother to my kids. This may sound strange but I dont really like kids on a whole....I only enjoy my own children. I think I view other children in the same light as I do adults....I havent had the time to study them so thier manerisms and communication confuse, startle and otherwise make me uncomfortable. I will also say that I tend to understand my autistic children far better than my oldest who has Bi polar disorder and my second oldest who is basically neurotypical. I do love all my children....I sort of view them as extentions of myself. I have no trouble being affectionate with my little ones and bonded quickly with my babies. My 18 year old NT daughter says that I am no longer affectionate with her so I have tried to make more of an effort to do so. I can say that there are times when my sensory problems can get in the way of dealing calmly with my kids but I have learned to distance myself from them in these moments and allow someone else to take over. Also, now that we know that I have AS my NT daughter and I have been really working on our communication...she understands that she has to be very verbal with me and not expect me to know how she is feeling or understand why she is upset with me by her actions or body language.
I think If I were going to give someone advise about having children I would say to wait until after you are 25 or so to have children. Make sure that you understand all your own issues and how to deal with them and to make sure that you have someone in your life who can support and help you when you need it.

thats just plain old cynicism if you ask me. if everyone always had such ideas nothing in the way of community ect would ever have happened and humans would not have evolved much, i guess we would be even worse off then apes ect as even they have a community and cooperation.

i am not saying they WILL care, but i am saying there is a great possibility that they will infact care about you, but this alone is not a good reason for having a child...

Yes

Deaf people can raise children. Blind people can. People unable to walk do it. And to be sure, anywhere you look, some very stupid people are raising children. In fact, if you look at all the disabilities, recognized or not, that real parents have or had, many Aspies come out far ahead as potential parents. And I'm not just being snarky.

I have plenty of trouble with my 3 kids, all of them bursting with energy and with very keen minds, but my ability to cope has expanded with steady application of effort, and I believe that I give to them a view of the world and an understanding that most NTs are woefully lacking. And as they show AS traits, and ADHD, I don't find myself terribly shocked... disappointed, but certainly I have some experience to bring to it.

Last word I have on it is this... there are a lot of abused children in the world who go on to rise above their upbringing. I don't put us on that level, of course. It is a common statement among experienced parents that no matter what you do, you're going to be afraid it's the wrong thing. But if you keep repeating what you know to be true and important for the kid to learn, they'll always have it to go back to someday when they have their heads straight. NTs go by this. So can we. And I would advise NTs and Aspies alike to make sure they have support, family, friends, hospital services, whatever, and accept their help or seek it out, when it comes to having kids. It doesn't matter how together you are before you have kids. Everyone needs help sometimes. Less people have that these days and the increase in child abuse cases is often attributed to the lack of a parental support system. So AS is really less of a factor than many others.

The exception is of course if you really do have reason to doubt your ability to care for a living being. If you can't care for yourself, or even a plant or pet, obviously this throws some doubt on it. Actually, I can't manage a houseplant but I can feed kids pretty well.

I agree with you here, *that* would be pretty cynical. what I wrote is not cynical at all, it's a plain old fact that every adult human being decides for themselves and you being a parent gives you no guarantee of their company whatsoever.

No to having biological kids because-

Overcrowding
the amount of children who have no parents/bad parents
inheirited depression
inheirited possible AS/Autism.

as for adopting/fostering I my if I meet a suitable partner who I feel would be competent in raising them should I be unavailable physically/emotionally/mentally who I feel would cater to the childs/childrens physically/mental/emotional needs.

However alone I feel I would be too selfish a parent to raise a marginally productive human being.

I have three grown children, a son-in-law, and 2 grandkids. I liked being around them when mine were little. One of my children is drinking to the point of it causing probs with holding a job and keeping friends, but that doesn't seem to be limited to children of aspies.

I was not able to model a good marriage, and they seemed to have some trouble learning how to relate to the opposite sex in dating situations, though as friends they did fine.

They know I'm on the spectrum and don't mind.

I have 4 children. Only one is biological, the rest have been adopted through foster care. The baby's birth-mom is pregnant again, so we're gearing up for another foster-adopt placement. Should happen some time in the next 5 weeks.

I practically raised my three younger siblings, having absentee parents and then living with a single mom who was more like a teenager than I was. I've been parenting since I was 10 years old basically. I learned a lot parenting my siblings(2 who have AS like me). I learned a lot what NOT to do from my own parents. LOL!

I think I'm a great mom most of the time. I have my moments where the chaos, the noise, the sensory input gets to me, but I've learned to tune most of it out when I need to. My kids are all "special needs." Oldest bio DD is HFA, 6 y/o has mild retardation, 5 y/o has ADHD and possible fetal alcohol effect, and who knows what's in store for the baby.

My biggest problem with parenting actually is my AS hubby. LOL! He is lazy and obsessive with his video games. I often feel like I'm one-parenting our children. He knows how I feel, but lacks the empathy to care much or really try to do anything about it. I deal with it. He is who he is and I can't change him. When he needs to, he can step in and take care of things, like when I had back surgery and spent a month in bed, but otherwise, it's like pulling teeth to get him to help out much.

I love being a mom and I adore all my kids. They certainly never leave me bored and give us lots of entertainment. LOL! They're really good kids and we're lucky to have them.

yes problaly when I am 31 gives me alot of time to find the right parenter and settle down with her I am 17 years old now I would like to have one with my future wife in bout 14 years.

I wouldn't want kids.
I feel I might be capable of raising them especially if adopted from toddlers or older, babies I probably could never cope with, someday(at least with food,education,etc but I might not be very good at the loving part) I'd rather not give up my independence and spend all that money on me(and my parents )

I have four children none of which have Aspergers. Unfortunately I have had very little contact with them since they were adolescents primarily because of my condition. I always though I was a good father when the kids were young and I have been told by my ex-wives (3) that I was indeed a loving and caring parent up until the children were around seven or eight years old and then I became distant and treated them more like little adults.

I personally think that even those of us on the spectrum have ancient instinctive parenting emotions and skills that can work in raising a family in the early years of life but based upon my own personal experiences I feel that we’ll need help and understanding as the kids start growing up. It may only be for a transitional period until they reach a certain level of maturity and can understand on their own where our individual strengths and weakness are situated.

There are those out there who subscribe to the idea that people like me shouldn’t be allowed to have children. This thought is not as uncommon as you might imagine and in some cases we people with so-called ‘deficiencies’ are lumped in with other elements that society is a little afraid off like rapists, child molesters and the criminally insane. Even on several of the discussion boards I visit other people with AS have posted that they themselves have doubts about having children since they don’t want to pass the condition to their offspring.

I don’t look on the ‘condition’ as being a curse or a deficiency and in some respects I would actually enjoy it if my children had been born with a different perspective of the universe and had the opportunity to see things as some of do. There is no such thing as a single ‘reality’ and even supposedly ‘normal’ people all see the environment differently but so similarly that they don’t realize those differences.

To my way of thinking bringing another life into the cosmos is one reason we’re all here to begin with and to bring another being, even one with severe autism, into the world is perhaps the most significant and incredible thing anybody can do.