Should you have kids if you have ADHD or Autism?

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now firstly i dont mean to offend anyone but i have both autism and adhd and i think i shouldnt have kids, well not through my own seed anyway. I know it might seem a bit extreme not to have kide if you just had adhd but when i think of all the difficulties i've had i wouldnt want my child to go through them. so i have made a poll do you think you should have kids through your own eggs or sperm if you have adhd or autism, bearing in mind that there are many egg and sperm donors available today i.e

nordiccryobank

Again dont mean to offend anyone

some of the problems adhd people face:

50% of prison inmates have ADHD.

People with ADHD often become drug abusers.

People with ADHD are more likely to be alcoholics.

Females with ADHD are more likely to get pregnant in there teens.

your opinions are greatly appreciated

sorry i've had to take the web links out as i'm not allowed to post them

Yes, as long as you're a good person & can take care of them very well.

Yes, if you want to, than you should. It's 2010, not the 30s and the 40s, anymore. I believe that God gives is all free will, and that whoever wants to have children, can.

Yes. How can we learn to be a more tolerant society and how to accept those we already have if we do such things. That would take us in the wrong direction. It's like saying, "If you could tell from a scan that your child will be gay, would you terminate their birth?" Not everyone would do it, so what about those left over?

There is no reason that someone on the spectrum or with ADHD shouldn't have kids, although I personally am undecided about being a parent myself.

I'm pretty sure my father had Asperger's. I think he shouldn't have had 5 kids because the stress was too much for him and we all suffered for it, but since I'm # 4 out of 5 that would preclude me. I have one child and he is AS and he has brought great joy and yes, aggravation to my life. That's true of any child NT or AS. I think it depends on the individual whether you think you could handle parenthood or be a good parent and that is true of anybody, not just AS.

It really depends on whether you want to raise a child with AS or ADHD.

You should be aware, though, that if the grandmothers in your genetic line had AS, there is a good chance your children will have real, full blown autism.

If you're not up for that, don't have biological children.

Its up to the person honestly. The only thing I am not really approving of is when someone decided to have a large amount of offspring. 1-2 children is more than enough, the human population is already large enough.

As long as they fully understand the responsibility needed to be a parent.

I am probably going to piss everyone off... but hey, I am used to being an outcast.

I voted "no" on this because I know that I, personally, could never have children. I don't have enough of a sense of self or of others to succeed in parenthood. Maybe some of us can do it, but I honestly don't think I can have Asperger's and raise a child. I am completely, unintentionally selfish. I live in my head. How can I raise a child well?

Neither of my parents are autistic, but my mother has severe anxiety and my dad is narcissistic. So, my dad was absent and my mom was over-protective, which messed me up enough without their having to be autistic on top of it. I blamed my bad upbringing alone on my difficulties until I got my Asperger's diagnosis and believe me, it certainly added insult to injury.

I read on WP about many of us who hate to leave the house; who panic, shut down, or meltdown when overstimulated; who feel like machines; and those who say they are very emotionally immature; and then we will say in the same breath that we can raise children? Children deserve better than that.

As it is, I think too many NTs have children for selfish reasons without considering everything involved. By deciding to be a parent, we are 100% responsible for another's life. I won't do that unless I am the best I can be. I am 46 and I am just starting to get on a sensible road. If I had become a parent, I would have ruined someone's life in a way that was far worse than the job my own parents did.

I would not want a child to go through what I had to deal with in school in on various jobs. But if I could go through some kind of gene therapy that could insure normalcy then I would go have kids. If someone here who was autistic or with Aspergers wanted a child then I would support it, but its not for me.

I've read many times in here that people don't want kids because they don't want them to go through the same things that they went through themselves. But we have to bear in mind that your kid's life isn't going to be an exact copy of yours, even if they turn out to have AS or ADHD themselves. And we have to bear in mind that there are more opportunities for support and more knowledge about the conditions than in our childhoods.

I voted: don't know. But I mean, if people want to and are able to take care of a child, why not?

I don't long for kids myself. But also wonder if I could take care of some. Or if it will be to overwhelming.
Though it kind of gives me a strange feeling suddenly to have found myself belonging to a group about which it is discussed whether we ought to have children or not. I mean, for most people the matter is if they want to, or have the opportunity to, or sometimes are able to... but ought to? That's not many people you say that about.
And even though I don't long for kids myself, the whole idea about should / should not makes me feel strange and a bit sad.
Also because we could as well ask the question if we ourselves ought to be alive, to have been born?!

yes as a parent you can teach your child and help them, you may use a different method in still have a child with special needs. what i'm trying to say yes i will be having kids. one day not now
oh darn i'm off topic.

I agree with those who have said the question is badly formed. Obviously it's up to individuals to decide whether or not they want to have children. I assume though that the OP meant to ask "should the likelihood of having an ADHD or autistic child dissuade people from having children?" If that were the question, I would say no. Since it's worded in the opposite way, I said YES.

Autism and ADHD are genetic, but the difficulties associated with them are not. Those come from society. People on or close to the spectrum have been producing offspring for at least thousands of years. These traits exist because they have adaptive value. If they didn't, then we wouldn't have so many autistic people in the population. So now that our deficits are becoming recognized by medicine, should we intentionally breed ourselves out of the human species? Hell no.