Do your kids a favor and dont have them

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Desertnomad, are you more afraid of the added load someone with an ASD would struggle with or passing on the genes?

I'm more concerned about having someone have to deal with growing up autistic. But I guess now that I think about it many non autistic people still have autistic kids but it seems like your chances are probably higher to have an autistic child if you yourself are autistic.

Look at things like its a backwards reflection.
Autistic with so many "normal" people around, it may seem so, but you may be the next evolutionary step in its early stages..
Consider if it was the other way around, with most of the populations are much like you, would the so called normals of our now be able to adjust to their new world as we have to theirs? could they adapt?

Hi.
I think a greater concern is the ability of the autistic parent as a parent, rather than the possibility that the autistic parent has an autistic child. After all, in any pregnancy there is a chance that the child will have a "disability".
However, the parent with autism already has it for sure, regardless of whether their children do, or not.

Speaking only for myself, if I knew then what I know now, I would not have children.

Not that there is anything unsatisfactory about my children, they are great.
Just that I am seriously defective as a parent: irritable, impatient, focussed on my own interests, unable to read eye messages and body language, and so on. I also choose partners poorly, which is added stress to my children.
Unfortunately for everybody, I had no idea that I was on the autism spectrum until after I had children. Yes, it is possible for me to improve my social skills. But it is so much harder to do this when you have AS. I am accustomed to succeeding at the things I work hard at, but this.... well, it's different.
I care very much about my children, in fact, about everyone. However, I do not have the skills to communicate this to them, which is what relationships are all about.
Basically, being a parent with AS is hard work. Both for the kids and for the parent.

Now, there are many people who choose not to have children, for many reasons.
I would suggest that having autism is on the "cons" side, not the "pros" side of the decision table.

First of all, anyone having children is doing so for selfish reasons. No child has ever asked to be conceived. They do not want to come into existence. They cannot - because they don't exist. (And whether they will want to continue existing after being born is irrelevant at the time of the decision.) Society isn't asking you for more children, either, except in rare cases - but even then I doubt people really have children for their country's sake.

Now, "selfish" doesn't automatically mean "wrong". It's just important to be clear that you're not doing this for anyone other than yourself. Perhaps their life will be a good one overall and the joy they bring to your life outweighs whatever suffering they do go through, but it's a risk you're taking - with someone else's life.

The current scientific view (AFAIK) is that someone on the spectrum is more likely than average to have a child on the spectrum. I think few here would disagree that autism makes their life harder to some degree. Therefore an aspie having children strikes me as being more selfish than normal - you're prepared to have your child pay a higher price for whatever benefit you get out of having them. It's hard to say where the to draw the line between "questionable" and "wrong" here, but it's a moral risk I'd be highly reluctant to take myself.

Of course, the same argument applies (to some degree) to anyone who brings children into the world in less-than-ideal conditions. So in my opinion the vast majority of people should not have children. If only people made that decision rationally they might agree with me.

Speaking as a parent, I just want to point out that the definition of autism has changed, and for the majority of people with older kids and adult children who have been diagnosed with ASD, that label came after this was being considered for the child. Not before. And could not be considered prior to conceiving.

Children are people. Autism is a wide spectrum.

Is anyone who has ASD happy, I wonder? And then I look at my child who has ASD and my other child who has a learning disability. And I see life being easier for my child who has ASD. And others here have written similar things.

Autism is a spectrum. And blaming ourselves for having ASD just carries out someone else's agenda.

It totally goes against biological principles to only have perfect people breed. Diversity is what makes a species strong. It's simply not science to say that a so called "imperfect" human should not have children. RIDICULOUS!

I thought having a kid would force me to interact with society more.

I was wrong.

I would sit at my son's soccer games, alone. Never talked to another parent and nobody every approached me

I went to every school night, conference, alone. Never talked to another parent and nobody every approached me

I never realized what a social being really was until I had my son. He would talk to anyone and everyone.

ZERO fear, tons of self confidence. I honestly don't know how he turned out so well with me as his mom (he has never met his father)

I do not regret having my son though it wasn't easy for me to have a relationship with someone I could't escape from. He is everything I am not. I could not have 'made' him the way he is, he was born that way

It totally goes against biological principles to only have perfect people breed. Diversity is what makes a species strong. It's simply not science to say that a so called "imperfect" human should not have children. RIDICULOUS!

I have absolutely no clue how people become friends. Strangers meet and then have a relationship. HOW?????

I swear I have some type of halo around me that says "do not approach"

I definitely knew by the time my son was 2 1/2 that he was different from me. He was 'normal'

I had a kid on purpose. I was a single mom from the day I got pregnant. I wanted a chance to treat a kid the way I wished I had been treated. I thought I would get a kid 'like me'. That didn't happen.

At the age of 7 my son went to overnight camp for a month. No homesickness whatsoever.

At the age of 12, he took a train to New York City (into Penn station) by himself (to meet my brother). He had been to NY many times (I escorted him from the age of 3 so he could spend a weekend with my brother). And he did this with no cell phone.