Interests - do they come from our parents/early childhood?

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Touched on this in another thread, but the subject deserves a thread to itself.

But I was thinking about whether my natural mother had narrow, intense, restricted interests characteristic of AS.

I believe that not only she did have - but that my own interests were effectively inherited from her, which I find VERY striking.

Taking my interest in maps and geography, I remember being 3 and 4 and my mother (and grandmother) sitting with me many times, looking at maps. They must have been an interest of hers.

My adoptive parents strongly seem to want to make me want to think I had no stimulation, and total deprivation, in my early years. This is patently not the case. It's just that the stimulation I had was unusual for my age, but none the less rich.

There's my interest in words, language and linguistics, which seems to have come from my mother interesting me in, and giving me dictionaries to read. These included not always English dictionaries, but also French. I've a strong suspicion my mother had a particular interest in French. When I went to nursery school, it turned out French newspapers (Le Monde) were all over the place for some reason in a nursery school in an admittedly unglamorous Scottish village off the beaten track. It meant that although I couldn't understand the newspapers, I at least had an awareness of the language at that age.

Then there's public transport, which I was exposed to a lot through frequent outings on buses to nearby towns and villages with my mother and grandmother. An interest which has also endured for life.

Just wanted to discuss whether this is the case for anyone else, do your interests come from parents, especially if they are Aspie parents?

The only reason my Sainsbury's obsession didn't come from my mother, is simply because there wasn't the chance as Sainsbury's wasn't in Scotland at the time.

I don't acquire my interests from my parents.

Tim

Liked Lego's as a kid. Remember my brother said "I told you , you would like them"

My dad bought me alot of Lego bricks. He liked his erector set as a kid.

Later I liked chemistry. I heard my dad mentions chemicals over the years. Not sure
where my interest came from.

My father bought me my first firecrackers when I was 4 years old. When I was 8, my parents built out their summer house to an all-season-house. The ground is very rocky and they had to use 250 kg(!) dynamite to make room for the basement, water supplies, septic tanks etc. I have been obsessed with explosives from my childhood.

http://swi.1av10.nu

I went to Victoria, BC with my Preschool class, at the age of five and a half. We got to explore the inside of a Routemaster, and I've been obsessed with these special Buses, ever since that day.

My father's obsession was building things, houses, and later, boats. The only thing I'm interested in making is music or writing, and not much of those.
I knew a professor once who said you could tell a lot about a man's personality by the materials he liked to work with. Iron workers were hard and unyeilding but carpenters were soft and yeilding. I like to make things with words and sounds and thoughts. Imagine that.

I wouldn't say so. Half the stuff im intersted in now I didn't care about as a kid, and my parents don't like.

I got my taste in music from my parents though - we were exposed to it a lot. I still like other stuff too though.

Sephiroth has been my main obsession since I was five years old.

My mom loved poetry, used to read it to us when we were kids. The depth of my love for it is clearly abnormal. Other obsessions of mine have no obvious relationship to any cause.

I remember one job interview where I mentioned that I was interested in biology. "Why Biology?" the interviewer asked. I tried to explain that I didn't know why, I just was. For some reason this point really puzzled her. "Why are you interested in biology?" she kept asking.

Finally I gave up and told her, "I'm interested in biology for the same reason that I like pizza."

Samurais are my obsession since I was 5 years old. But I'm the one in my family obsessed with them. My parents don't have this kind of obsessions.

Anime has been my obsession since I was 7. Later on I got furries at around 10 and then I got TF at around 12 and then I got Aspergers facts when I was 13. The first three were always imagined in anime so they're all interrelated and it was greatly opposed by both my parents but I got the AS obsession from my mom who's a psychiatric nurse.

My history obsession has not come from my parents.

When I met my bio family,I had so many more common traits then my adopted family.My birth mom likes to "hunt for treasures",for me it started with rocks.We both love garage sales,dumpster diving,flee market.I have a cousin who is also like this and has turned it into a Ebay site.We both are interested in "herbs" for healing.I have one bio sister who is a "born again" and I did go through a "religious obsession" from 5-16.She also likes getting lost in craft projects but her tastes are much different then mine.

My adopted family is very NT but my mom was an avid reader.Maybe seeing her with a book in her hand all the time encouraged this in me?I really dont know.I certainly have nothing else in common with them.Actually,I am a "freak" in both of my families.It's just in my bio family,they seem to have less problem with that.

My dog obsession might have come from my parents originally--when I was quite small, they were interested in Jack Russell Terriers and even toyed with the idea breeding the JRTCA-registered female we bought; I have very fond memories of the one JRTCA trial we attended--but when my obsessions really started to bloom, they went right off dogs and did their best to discourage my obsession because it was, to quote my younger sister, 'boring and done to death.'

My interests in languages have definitely been fostered by my family, grandparents as well as parents, from the moment they appeared (although neither of my parents find languages particularly fascinating, my paternal grandfather does and loves talking with me about them). As for my love of reading, and my love for biology in general, my parents fostered that as well, although I don't think either of them has had any real interest in it. Come to think of it, my paternal grandparents have been as supportive of my non-dog interests as my parents have.