having children

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Someone posted a thread entitled, "Do your kids a favor: Don't have them!" I wanted to follow up on it, but I can't find it anymore.

Anyway, I was firmly against having children because of how negative my view on life is. I see the negative all the time (the injustice, the exploitation, the pain). I view life as one big old set up for failure. So I have a very difficult time viewing parenthood as giving someone the gift of life. At the very best, I can say life is neutral (neither good or bad).

I have been experiencing a lot of rage lately because of positive things that are going on in my life. I have a job related to my degree, a job that I love so far. I have moved out on my own for the first time. I live in the city where I want to live. I have support from my family and friends (no longer isolated). I have the opportunity for an active sex life because there are plenty of eligible women around here and I have privacy living alone. Everything is going the way I wanted it to go. All I can think is, "Why did it take so long? Why did I have to go through all that pain?"

This morning I realized that I am having these feelings as a result of the abuse and neglect. It also occurred to me that I have such a negative view of life because I was abused and neglected. I lived through pure emotional hell for most of my life. I am shell shocked from it.

Then I realized that I don't want to have children because I automatically assume that if I had a child, my child would experience the exact same feelings I experience. That is a false assumption however. If I love my children and treat them well, they won't have to feel the feelings that I am cursed with. Life will cause them pain but they will realize that they can come to me for help, love, and support. What do you guys think? I know this isn't an Asperger's issue, more of an adult child of dysfunctional family issue, but I am sure someone can relate.

Congratulations on developing this insight. That is never easy around such pain.

I think you are right, but there is an AS dimension to it: the tendency to think that a personal experience is universal and believe that until really thinking through evidence and logic to the contrary. Also thinking that things don't change. I think these patterns of thought all fall under the general "rigidity" category and can be very hard to recognize because they are part of the framework through which one perceives everything else.

em_tsuj - I see that rage in many people -- men mostly, I must admit -- at all stages of life. I see it in 50-year-olds who've finally received honors they thought were due them in their 30s and watched it taint any pleasure they might've had, turn it rancid.

I have always found it puzzling, maybe because at bottom there is an expectation that pleasure and good things are simply due us? Or because other people seemed to be having a good time, and there was a sense of having been cheated?

I lived through a great deal of abuse -- I mean to the point where, when I was in my 20s, an old teacher stopped me on the street to apologize for not having been able to do anything about it, and college friends' parents asked why my parents had abandoned me. I've been used and exploited repeatedly simply because I never expected much (and have only recently learned that I don't have unlimited reserves of energy, and actually have to extract whatever's due me for doing things for other people). And neglect-- well, this is what happens when you haven't a strong family looking after you, the rest of the world won't usually step in to do it. My life's too busy now, but very nice. I don't think it had ever occurred to me to be enraged when nice things came along. Have you thought about where the rage comes from, and are you maybe fixated on a sense of having been robbed? It'd be a shame to be unable to enjoy all the nice stuff because of it.

People get robbed all the time...this is maybe the most valuable thing my grandpa taught me. You lose, you get robbed, people get one over on you. He was a successful guy, made a lot of money. But he got robbed all the time. At the end of his life, too. What he taught me - I don't remember how - was to refuse absolutely to throw good after bad, just get up, drop the thief like a hot rock, make the adjustment in the books, shrug and go on.

It's definitely possible to have a happy child even if you had a miserable childhood yourself -- i have proof sitting upstairs right now -- but don't do it while anger and rage are big parts of your life.

I'm in basically the opposite boat. I was fortunate enough to be adopted into a wonderful family that, owing to their character but also somewhat just by chance, dealt with me and raised me in a way that resulted in me turning out just-barely-OK (the short version is that I am more or less independent, have a masters degree, a job I love with a middle-class salary, and a legitimate but manageable drinking problem).

I don't want to have kids in large part because I don't feel that I could possibly give them that degree of tolerance and guidance. Maybe that wouldn't be required for a kid to end up happy and successful. But, throughout my life and beginning with my adoption, my life has been shaped by basically a series of straight up lucky breaks, and I contemplate every day that if a single one of those went against me I would most likely be at best miserable and at worst dead.

No chance I'd be comfortable tossing a child into that template.

I think it's pretty normal to feel untrusting about good things after too much that's bad. I know I get scared of what will happen next because what I've been through and can't trust much that's good. Being angry about getting hurt, feeling angry other people seemingly walk through life without understanding, is going to happen some. And feeling angry can be protective against something really dangerous: trust and love. Because if you grow up without, any taste can be terrifying.

Trauma isn't something one has to revisit on ones children. My children aren't always happy, and certainly they have their struggles. Neither entirely fits in with other kids. But they both are loved and feel loved in a deep through and through way I did not get from my mother. Somehow I gave to them what I never received. Because it matters to me to do so. And because they matter. Because I see them as people, not objects. Neither a history of trauma nor ASD nor even the combination means you can't be a good parent. Tarantella is right on this. Absolutely possible to have a happy child.

You already have a leg up on the good parent thing by being aware of yourself and the nature of your problems. I knew there was something wrong with me but I didn't know what, so I couldn't explain to my first ex why I didn't want children. He convinced me to try and I failed horribly.

I wish you the best and I am glad you overcame your past as much as you have.