difficult parents

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My Dad has this thing where he feels that everyone is out to take advantage of him, including me. My Mom doesn't think for herself all the time and goes along with his attitude. I am well-educated but have been under-employed because of the Asperger's. So, while my college friends (I'm 35 now, finished college at 21) are all now successful lawyers, doctors, social workers, teachers, business owners, or married to successful men, I'm limited to substitute teaching. I tried to get my own classroom (went on to get a teaching license in my early 30's) but couldn't handle it.

Subbing is good for me because I am left alone. I'm great with the kids and I follow all of the teachers' instructions for the day. Problem is, subbing doesn't pay enough for me to be completely financially independent from my folks. They sort of have me on a leash and it makes me crazy! They own the condo which I live in. I know I'll never be a rich woman, and they can't seem to accept what I can and can't do vocation-wise. Any advice?

Hmmmm seems like you need to move out. I haven't been to college yet so I don't know how you feel, but I know how it is to live with annoying parents or have annoying parents always taking things out on you. Did u get you teaching license?
What do u like to do?
And I see what u mean about everyone having a bf or gf or being married. All I can say is be glad you're not an aspie man because your possibility of getting someone in this predicament would be impossible. But now a days men are probably looking for women who can help them out financially because of the economy. Idk what to say, but focus on how to get out and get a career or job u like.
Make a plan

If I may, I would share a true story ...

Many years ago I worked with a man who did fine at his job, but had neither enough money nor the ability to live away from home. And in this case, his father actually took his paycheck as "rent" ... or so we all thought, and except for a small allowance. When Floyd's parent died, he went to live with his sister and brother-in-law who did the same as his parents had done. Floyd eventually out-lived all of his family, and an attorney became an overseer who helped him retire and get established in an assisted-living setting after telling him how many *thousands* of dollars -- *all* of his past paychecks -- his father and brother-in-law had placed in an account for him. Floyd died several years later, and now some of us owe his father and that son-in-law a great apology for the things we had thought and said about them so many years ago.

You cannot change what your dad thinks, so just make your best efforts to continue being responsible and appreciative. Your subbing sounds like a perfect fit even though it does not pay as well as a more challenging position, and maybe you could help out a bit somewhere else (in the library or tutoring or hall monitor or something) on other days? In any case, just let your parents be your parents while remembering a day will come when that condo just might become yours, free and clear.

well said leejosepho

OverEducated,
You have supplied insufficient information to base any advice on. and your profile is quite sparse. If you can function as a substitute teacher, but cannot go full time, I can understand. The heaps of bureaucracy and other stuff is totally different from the actual teaching and can be a mind numbing burden.

Let me throw out a few very general things which might or might not be relevant but might spark some useful discussion. Among all the things that you mentioned that your classmates have gone into I noticed marriage was on the list. Is that an option for you that you might be interested in. After all if you are good with kids, maybe the "mommy track" has something to offer you. Life is miserable on your own, having a compatible partner makes a huge difference (I know mine does). But finding one can be a mini-career in and of itself. I get the impression that your parents are "smothering" you and keeping you dependent. At age 35 your biological clock is ticking and you need to be on your own.

Are there technician jobs that you might have looked into.

Can you be a consistent worker or does your aspergers or anything else give you bad days where you just can't function well enough to do your job. Knowing that will make a big difference to getting good advice. Even if you have good and bad days, there are options to be sought where you don't have to do a job that is on a daily basis.

Are there teaching assistant jobs you could get. Are there private school jobs you could get (they usually have far less bureaucracy, but if it is a religious private school it may have religious restrictions). Could you function as a temporary/emergency nanny? That would probably pay well even if the work was irregular.

Are there things about you and your aspergers or anything else that are seriously socially offputting? e.g. verbal tics etc. That would require a job where these things didn't matter or could be worked around.

Do you have attributes that would allow you to function as a librarian. A children's librarian needs special aptitudes and a research librarian needs very different aptitudes. It might provide a nice quite environment for some of us studious types.

As you can see, I am kind of all over the place with these suggestions. I think it would help if you could give us more to work with.

I thank you ... but I am only guessing, of course! Both of my parents were always very critical of me, yet my mother left her estate to be divided equally among her children and grandchildren, and that has made a big difference for me even though my share was not really all that much. But overall, I have to believe most parents want their children to do well and to live comfortably if they can possibly help, and only the unappreciative, disrespectful, wasteful or squandering child, if any, should ever be left to fend for himself or herself.

These responses were helpful. Thanks so much.

Thing with me is, I don't look different at all. I would & should have been a corporate success story. But since I don't always know when and how to ask for help, I can't work well with other adults. I don't always say what I should or I say too much, so I don't "fit in" in most workplaces. I'm also smart! I have a BA from a really good school. All that's happened to me "wasn't supposed to happen". I was diagnosed at age 23 after I got fired from some corporate jobs.

Not sure about being a Mom- having a child needing me 24/7 might be too much stress for me to handle.

OverEducated
Based on your last response, some things are beginning to emerge. If you feel that you have enough anonymity and can trust us, it would be helpful if you could tell us more about yourself and your job experiences.

One of two things that I see in your posts are either your self-confidence has taken a terrible beating in the past or you have some serious deficits in dealing with peers and superiors. (Probably some of both.) The corporate world in which you might have otherwise been a success is highly dependent on being a "people person" which is why it is such an unlikely career for aspies. As an engineer I did pretty well for 13 years as a design/technology/inventor type of job, but it was pretty obvious to everyone that I was never going to make it as a manager and fortunately the company had two tracks for engineers, technical and management. I went back to college and got my PhD and became a professor of mechanical engineering. That was a great career move because I had a large degree of independence, the students loved having a caring, capable and quirky professor. The down side was all the universities are switching to getting funding by having the professors bring in lucrative research contracts and that requires the same skill set as the corporate world. Perhaps in my experience you can see the contrast. I could thrive provided I had independence in how I worked as long as I delivered the desired result, but when I had to work as a peer and especially a leader of peers, I just did not have the necessary people skills. Working with the college students worked so very well because the relationship is clearly defined, I had what they wanted (knowledge), and I had a very simply defined motivator for them (grades). I suspect that you function well as a substitute teacher because of the same sort of pattern.

It is possible that if you could find the right therapist or counselor and explore your people skills, that you might be able to get some techniques that would improve your people skills for working with peers and superiors. You might not find the magic trick that would let you excel at it, but you might find a way to do a lot better. However your counselor would have to understand that that was a specific objective for you.

As far as:

Please be aware that children are generally highly adaptive. And with an appropriately understanding husband, you might find that you function very well. A good way to test this might be providing temporary foster care.

I think that another thing that you might explore is how honestly and accurately do you know yourself. I mentioned your level of self confidence. If you have fears about what you can do and don't deal with them rationally and get a true picture of what you can and cannot do well, and what you can accomplish with extra effort, you will have difficulty making progress. If your parents are trying too hard to shield you they may be holding you back by feeding your self doubts. They may not even see that they are doing that. It might be possible to discuss this with them. They are obviously a potentially great resource for you right now but you might need them to take a different approach.

So far you have not told us much about what you studied in College or what your interests are or what your strengths are or what areas you struggle with. It is quite possible that your education is a bit mismatched to your skill set. In which case if you followed your interests in college it might only take some small corrections in order to
shift your career to where you can thrive. Career counselors and faculty advisors that you may have had probably missed the mark because of not properly understanding or considering your aspergers

Your profile indicates that you have not been using to this board for very long nor have you posted much. There is much to explore here and lots of experience that you can draw on. For understanding my aspie traits this board and http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/ have been highly valuable for me. I have come to understand some things about myself that never made sense before and also ways to deal with problems that I had not thought of before. So I think you are in the right place.

I just finished reading your other 3 posts on this site and was very happy to see that you had posted on the "best jobs for people with aspergers" thread. I would encourage you to read that entire thread if you have not already.

I saw in your post on the "best jobs for people with aspergers" thread that you said:
Which makes it sound like you might thrive in a situation where you did research for lawyers who specialize in insurance cases, provided that they would ask you to see what you could find relevant to the issues of a case, and then turn you loose to dig into the matter, (just theorizing a bit).

I apologize for being a bit verbose here, it is something that seems to be a trait (aspie trait?) of mine, and for some reason your situation has hit a resonance with me. Perhaps because of the odessy that my career took from high school teacher, (disaster ), engineer (a lot better ), college professor ( fantastic except for the research grant thing).

I did notice that you seem to have good domestic inclinations, from your post in the "Getting a life" thread, so I would not give up on the possibilities of marriage, but it would take finding the right guy (if I were single and 30 years younger, I would at least want to meet you ) You sound like you have a lot of potential if you can just find your niche.

Outlander

From one education major to another...

I'm currently student teaching and will be working full time somewhere (no idea where though) this fall. While I can handle a full time job and definitely am looking forward to it, I am also looking at making some extra income as a tutor (since I want an upgraded apartment with a garage and don't really want to work in retail during the summer).

As a tutor you can set your own hours. During the school year, set your times in the evenings or on Saturdays. In the summer, there is more flexibility. Next, pick a location. The local public library is usually a good option. You should also get some resources to have on hand such as a calculator for student use, some paper, a few math materials (toy clocks, cubes, etc), pencils, and some old textbooks so you can have exercises ready to go (these can be bought on eBay for next to nothing and sometimes show up at library book sales or at Half Price Books).

The hardest part is attracting students. Advertise at your church/temple/mosque/place of worship, in your newspaper, on public bulletin boards at grocery stores, etc. If you know anyone with kids (neighbors, friends, etc) ask them; they may even know of kids who could use tutoring.

I'm not sure how it would supplement a substitute teacher income, but it should do something. Since you have an education degree you could charge in the $20-$30 per hour range. (I paid $25 for a biology tutor a decade ago as a ballpark figure; he was a local science teacher). If you tutor a few kids every day you'll probably double what you get as a sub (again, not sure of the current rates in your area, but I have a friend who subs when he doesn't attend grad school and I know approximately what he makes).

Depending on your degree, and the state in which you live, have you thought about teaching at the Community College level (assuming a MA/MS at least), a technical school, or online? I have a friend who has a degree in accounting who teaches online accounting courses, now and then, online via our local community college. She doesn't get a lot of money per course, but she teaches from her home and it gives her more income flexibility.

Teaching full time, even in a K-12 public school, should give you enough money to get out on your own - especially if you are bilingual at all. Those folks are in tremendous demand. It's the standard of living you'll have to weigh - how much is your independence worth? If you've been living well on mom & dad's purse, it may be hard to scrape by on your own in a less pleasant place without a full fridge or luxuries. Something to consider.

Good luck!

PS I have a BA with an emphasis in Education (among others) and was at one time destined to teach middle-school science. Ended up, after several degrees, working as an executive secretary. The money is pretty much equivalent after all these years, but the stress level is much, much lower in the office job. If I had it to do over, I'd have gone into Ed Tech (educational technology), where I would design and create online education courses.