Having Children

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Biologically, my body is telling me to have children (I'm 30 and have no kids) and in my heart, it feels as though it is telling me to do this. Logically in my head though, I'm wondering whether I really want to.

I'm not sure if I even like kids that much. By that I mean, when you have kids, it means that you have to pay attention to them all the time, and look after them, and do things with them etc etc. I'm not sure I'm cut out for that. Or, is it a case of, once you have the child, you'll want to do those things and it won't seem like so much of an effort? Because to me, looking in from the outside, caring for a child, looks like a lot of effort!, and, like I said before, I'm not sure I even like kids or want them around me constantly.

Sorry if this sounds mean or stupid. It's just how I'm feeling right now.

I think it's mother nature way of saying to mate mate mate to make the young. After all we are animals, human animals.


I want to have kids, I know I will be giving up my free time but I like kids. I want to have one right now, maybe two and then I'm done. I would have to watch them and eavesdrop on them like all good parents have to because kids test rules and see how much they can get away with. Only lazy parents won't do that, nor spend time with their kids or even bother feeding them, etc.
Playing with your kids isn't giving up your free time, you're having fun. You have to be too lazy to have fun with them.

I have this to the extreme. I will be thirty in a few months, and I have had this for several years now. But by extreme, I mean for me it is actually pathological, that is for me I will go into a severe depression if I feel something is preventing me from becoming pregnant. And I don't even like kids! I don't like kids, but I have an insane desire to become pregnant, to the point to where it could kill me if iIdon't give in

I sometimes have the biological urge to have children and I cannot explain why other than the forces of nature. Mentally I am unsure if I ever want them. In fact, some days, the idea of having them reviles me. But yet, physically, something is telling me that I should be breeding.

I remember feeling like that. I was pregnant very early in my life, my poor adolescent body swelled up and I have borne strech marks eternally from the far too early physical rigors of child carrying. I was also on the road while pregnant and far from nutritionally adequate for bearing children. On birth of my child (on Dec 26, by the way) she was taken from me by the State. I also have not been able to carry another child to term, since. Since I have long ago gone through menopause, I will not change my childless state. So much was never understood in my life (didn't even know about Asperger's Syndrome until I was in my late 50's) and everything was pretty much catch as catch can.

I think we would make really cool moms, though, Fiz!

I became a mother before being dx'ed.
My son is now 7.
Prior to having him I had some miscarriages.

Being a mother and having an ASD is one of the hardest things I have ever done. My multi-channel communication is lacking, as is my ability to be as "hands on" as other mothers. I struggle with basic things too, like shopping on time, filling the fridge, having things ready for him and keeping house etc.

I get pilloried by some of the other mothers of the kids at my son's school. He has shifted over to a catholic private school in a country town because he really needed more structure. (he has quite a few traits.) The other mothers are conservative and I wear a straw cowboy hat that is falling apart, i have nautical star tattoos on my forearms (big ones), and long brown hair - and so perhaps they think I am some kind of occult strangeling. Definitely not a part of their mother culture.

Many aspects of parenting are so very, very difficult for me.

BUT...I my oddness makes me fun to be with and I adore my son. ANd he loves me. WE have a whole host of strange aspie games we play. We greet each other with hisses and claw signs (and the other mothers do not do that!! ! )

His need for communication and closeness with me is very hard at times. And yet, I would not swap the experience for the world, as it has taught me how to be a better person.

At present I am trying to introduce a bit more dynamism into our home. It is a static aspie home - with not much spontaneity or much pliable and bendable thought and action. We are trying to address this for him, so that he can be better equipped with the big wide world out there. (you know, that world I have bugger all to do with, but the one he may just want the choice to enter into when he is older.)

It is really hard to try to prepare him for the world. I experience my limitations on a daily basis in this regard. There is so much that is changing and dynamic about the life, which is precisely what I cannot cope with as a woman with AS. He needs to be able to manage this, adapt to it to some degree and find peace in that level of change and dynamism if he wants it. It is in this regard, I am most confronted by the limitations and disabling aspects of my AS, because it affects my ability to adequately prepare my son for a life and world I have little capacity for. My determinatioin is that he has a choice when he is older...that he is able to adequately navigate the world in a way some of us older aspies missed out on doing because we were relegated to the proverbial scrap heap. I work hard at this...so much so, that I must focus on it for his sake for the next few years like a prevailing special interest and like a new obsession.

It is harsh what you had to go through sinsboldly, your predicament is very thought-provoking and thank you for sharing it. I have never experienced pregnancy and childbirth, something of which I am curious about, a natural curiosity I'm sure. I think I would make a good parent given the chance, but I am with someone who does not want children and has actually had a vasectomy to ensure that never happens. So I would actually have to leave him to have children and I'm not sure that's a risk I want to take. He accepts me for who I am and loves and I love him in return. I may never find this again as no-one has ever really accepted me for who I am this much before. All my past partners wanted to change me in some way or were heavily critical of who I was. If I were to leave my partner (which I don't really want to do) only to be faced with this kind of criticism and lack of acceptance again, I would be devastated. I also think it's best I have no children at all than have them to discover it was with the wrong man or a man who never loved me, this would be too hard to cope with. While I can cope with the idea of not having children, I think it's the fact I will not experience pregnancy that bothers me. I sometimes feel like I'm missing out on some natural milestone in a woman's life, and the fact that I'm not getting any younger only serves to heighten this feeling. Because I have chosen to remain with a man who cannot give me children, this is a situation that I am going to have to learn to accept.

Having children isn't for everyone (this is true for me since I prefer the company of adults and value my free time, ability to travel, as well as to follow my special interests without guilt or interruption).

You might want to consider regularly babysitting other people's children, volunteering for daycare or as a mentor at Big Sister/Big Brother, etc. to test the waters and see how you really feel about raising kids one way or the other.

Fiz,

Have you considered being a surrogate for the sake of being able to experiance pregnancy and child birth?

It doesn't sound stupid. I have 2 kiddos and am diagnosed. One has AS, the other, so far is neurotypical. It can be rough... very rough.

Some mornings I do things that need to be done automatically, and some mornings I just dread the day to come.

It's hard to be very hands on... I have a lot of craftsy type stuff around that I can hand the kids, but that is about as far as I go with it a lot of the time. I get involved but only to some extent-I still have MY things, and MY space, lol, even when at the table making things with them.

Maternal instinct does help out a ton, I must say, lol. Without that, I'd probably not pay a whole lot of attention to things. Instead, I'm worried they will hurt themselves, always run to see what happened when one screams, etc., so the bonding and all that does kind of just happen.

But there are those other moments when I cannot take them climbing on me and being around me all day long.

I'm really looking forward to the younger one starting school, too, lol. That will be nice to have some time to myself.

I don't really find them being the hardest part of it though-they are just... there. We do things and all, and have fun, and they fight with each other, and play and all... it's just what you'd expect of kids.

The part I have the most trouble dealing with isn't them directly... it's their friend's parents when I have a problem I need to bring attention to. It's figuring out how to discipline their friends when they are at my house. It's being able to set ground rules for everyone else involved with them essentially, that makes it so rough. Having to talk to principals/counselors, etc.

Having and raising them is the easy/fun/stressful part... dealing with everyone else when problems arise... now THAT is the hard part.

I know this predicament very well Millie. It's frustrating... very frustrating.

The one I can never quite get around is when he does something and I tell him that he should not because it is inappropriate... he always asks "why" and I can never explain it to him, lol. I know for myself that "just because" isn't a good enough reason to not do anything, and it's certainly not a reason I give much thought to at all. But I find myself looking even stranger (maybe bringing negative attention to him at times without intending to) when I go to neighbors that are friendly and ask them why people aren't supposed to do these things.

Luckily, the neighbor kids know him fairly well, and I would not ask around kids I haven't seen before, as I know that would make him an easy target. But I also get a lot of mixed responses in doing so, and notice less contact with them at times after doing so.

The world is so confusing for me... that I think me trying to explain it makes it even that much more confusing for him. So I now send him to my boyfriend to ask questions, or ask him the "whys" and try to leave it all at just him with explanations. He understands why we ask... well, maybe doesn't understand it in the way we ask, but understands that we need to because we are missing things in every day communication. So he treats it as a legitimate question and tries very very hard to come up with good reasons for us. We really appreciate that.

Well all I know is the first 20 years are a hassle.
But I'm not a parent. In fact I'm a kid. But just out of logic...
And then the kid will be easily influenced, and having to take care of them as an infant, which I hear and see is a pain in the a$$. And then hving to teach them, discipline them.

IMO I probably wouldn't be able to handle it, but that's me.

Other people I know can't wait to have kids. And their reason was either because they love kids or because they believe it's a part of life to... make new life?
I mean "Live long and prosper." right? lol

But I guess in my opinion the upside is yeah, that it's part of life, like living life again or showing to yourself how much you know about life I guess.

first, i've never had any biological maternal urges. in my case, i think this is nature's way of preventing people who shouldn't have kids from doing so, because i know if i ended up with a girl instead of a boy i would psychologically abuse and neglect the hell out of her.
second, due to my AS, i doubt i'll ever have a job with sufficient amount of income to raise the child. i can barely support my mother, who is a child herself.
third, you need a man to be attracted to you enough to screw you over. this becomes less and less apparent as my life progresses.
fourth, i've been pregnant three times and never allowed to have any of them, so i'm now fairly aware of my genetic/socioeconomic inferiority.

Yes, funnily enough I have as there was someone who wanted me to do for them, but my boyfriend has told me that if I were to do this, he would leave me. He says he would hate to see me pregnant with a child that is not his, yet he does not want them, so hence my predicament.

I had this thought a while back, which was that having a biological instinct to have kids is not the same as genuinely wanting kids.

I have this thing in me somewhere in my brain. Just to a small degree. I catch myself looking at attractive guys and thinking, 'Ooo, glisteny brown hair. That means he's healthy. He's got good DNA, his kids would be healthy.'

But aside from that atavistic little voice in my head, I don't want kids. I'm not a nurturing type except with animals. I find being around small children really stressful. The last time I saw my sister with my 2 year old nephew I ended up leaving the room to stick cotton wool in my ears, because I felt like I was starting to get hypertension from being around him.

I'm sorry they pillory you. That's lousy behaviour, something they should have grown out of at the age of around 11 or 12. You have my sympathy.



Ohhh, you sound awesome!

I know how it is when you look different, I don't have tattoos, but I have 2 facial piercings and thick black hair that reaches down to my mid spine...and not everyone likes it. I had someone wind down their car window and shout abuse at me in the street today.

Last edited by mechanicalgirl39 on 01 Jan 2010, 12:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

o_o! Why are you not allowed??