Should parents teach boys on the spectrum how to date?

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How did I get here? I opened the browser on my phone to look up juicers on ao.com because I've got a discount.

Anyway.

I don't think parents can always help. My parents met I high school and got married as teenagers. They don't know squat about dating.

My mum's advice is mostly that love is a lie and that's not what life is all about, so you guess how that marriage worked out :/

Yeah, exactly.

I know sometimes you can’t help it. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, and many other kinds of professionals. But, like...take doctors, for instance. Suppose you have a hs student who is BRILLIANT and wants to be a doctor. He goes to the local hospital, makes tons of friends, does volunteer work, and spends his senior year begging hospital admins for a free ride in exchange for a residency when he’s done.

As opposed to taking out massive loans, not assessing the risks, and flunking out of 2 private med schools—and STILL have to pay back their debts.

Or making it out and buying a new car every year, plus taking out a half-mill mortgage on a mansion, marrying the trophy wife and partying it up until the bank comes knocking after you got hit with med-mal and you sorta “forgot” to pay your insurance premiums.

You can make debt work for you if you’re certain about the risk and disciplined enough. I didn’t get so lucky. Music education followed up with a master’s in composition. I take online courses every few years to keep my license current, but my current contract is only $5.5k. Who knows? Maybe in the next year or two I’ll try to negotiate my way into the upper $20k or even $30k+ and pay my loans off in two years. Part of my problem has been too many part-time obligations. But the other job is looking less and less appealing by the year. I’m also working towards breaking into music licensing. Along the way I hit upon a great idea for an iPhone app that could be potentially lucrative. I’m not a programmer, though, so I have a lot of work ahead of me if I decide to make this reality.

Anyway...I have a lot of potential and talent, or so I’m told. If I could translate that into FREEDOM, that would be GREAT.

Oh, no doubt.

Look, my wife was nowhere in my “league.” If I’d taken my own advice, we’d probably have never met. I married up.

Mom defo approved when I brought her home. Our families got along quite well.

Where we ran into trouble was she was dating one of my former frat bros when we met. He was a special kind of scumbag. One of those who everyone liked, who shrugged off his lack of intelligence as the product of unfortunate circumstances. When we had him arrested, he packed one side of the courtroom with everyone he knew who would go on and on about how he was such a wonderful guy and how nobody understands why this crazy b¡tch would call the cops on him.

He failed. But I’M the one everyone threatened and told to “stay out of it, this doesn’t concern you.”

Yeah, well...I didn’t stay out of it, and I have three children with her.

I know all too well about things not going my way, about circumstances being less than perfect.

However, I think given a choice it’s best to do things the right way. I do have a Biblically based morality built into my views on dating. I don’t go around telling people on WP “if you have sex, you’re going to hell.” The Old Testament really kinda winks at premarital sex. It’s only a big deal at certain times for certain reasons. If you’re engaged to be married, they don’t really care. If NOT, then you basically forfeit certain rights, which isn’t a big deal if you love each other, anyway. So I don’t make a big deal of it, either, except to say what I think is BEST (save it for marriage). But at the same time, I don’t normally go around giving sex advice.

So, yeah, I’ll insist my kids go on chaperoned dates or go out as a group. If you are an adult, mature enough to handle consequences of dating (both the positive and negative), you don’t need me to tell you what to do.

I think my greatest fear and source of doubt is a high school friend of mine. Her mom was über strict. Girl leaves home for college, runs wild, and in a matter of months end up married, pregnant, and divorced. Her mom conned her into giving up her son, and later when she tried to regain custody, her mom refused.

So I wonder and worry if that’s the risk I’m running. But at the same time, it’s important to understand that it’s just as bad to assume the worst, that a child WILL rebel and make poor choices. Most kids I know raised similarly turn out just fine. I know a lot of kids raised in liberal homes that NEVER ran wild. I also know a lot of kids in liberal homes that were unholy terrors. Demonic, even. Kids are just going to turn out how kids are going to turn out, and your parenting style ultimately has little to do with it. And if THAT is true, then the best you can do is teach them the best way YOU know and pray that something good sticks.

I enjoy these discussions, but it’s getting close to time for Grampa Rho to give it up for the rest of the holiday. My oldest son got a good beginner bow for Christmas, the same one they use for competitions, and I’m looking forward to seeing his results at archery competitions this year. He did ok last year, so we’ll see how he does with extra practice. I enjoyed watching him shoot hay bails at my mom’s house, so maybe I can watch some more now that we’re home. Adult supervision is always good when a deadly weapon is involved.

I think ideally meeting and marrying as teens is the way to go. I think college is a lie. Get your basic education out of the way, lay the foundations for starting a family and independent living, then get busy. It takes amazingly little effort and resources to do it. But there’s the societal pressure to put college and career first, and I feel that has been destructive to the family unit. If you marry and have children early, you still have your whole life ahead of you to improve yourself parallel to raising a family, saving/investing for retirement, etc. College is really just an excuse to stay a child until you turn 25. I have a teaching degree and a master’s degree, which do open the doors to things I couldn’t do without a degree. I’m halfway to being a college prof if I wanted to. But staying in school for the rest of my life isn’t my idea of a good time. Working with teens is fun, though, and I do have paid opportunities for public performances. Maybe I’ll go back to school by the time I’m 50 and enjoy a second career as a university prof. Obvious things aside (debt, surviving winter with no heat, etc.), I do have a good life.

But a lot of the good things I’ve accomplished could have been done without going to school at all and I’d be comparatively wealthy without dealing with debt, plus my own kids would have graduated high school by now. I don’t have any big regrets as-is, I don’t complain about it, but I could have done better for myself and my family.

Love isn’t a lie. It’s just not EVERYTHING they teach you it is. I don’t define love as a feeeeeeeeling. It’s an action and a choice. I don’t always have feeeeeeelings for my wife. But I scratch her back at bedtime and on waking up and bring her morning coffee. I get her favorite wine when I have a few extra dollars and make pizza once a week and cook at least one other night besides. Or I try to, anyway. The feelings take care of themselves, but it’s what you DO that matters more than how you feel or what you say. As GRRM says in his books, “Words are wind.”

College is a good route for those who want to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, or scientists. There is a huge obsession with college in our society. College isn't for everybody. Vocational training and trades tend to be looked down upon, but people can make really good money if they go that route. Vocational training and trades are great for people who are more hands on rather than academically inclined.

My Mum married someone that hit her. Yeah it's definitely an action.

If you meet the wrong person when you are young and settle and have kids with them you totally mess up your life.

It's better to wait for someone compatible.

Children are not neccessarg for a happy life. I'd rather be with a good guy and not have kids.

Though I have heard people who meet the right person in their 30s saying, "I wish I'd met them sooner."

Would be ideal to find the right person young. But life isn't fair and that can't always happen. It's better to wait than settle for the wrong person.

I empathise with parents. I know people who had strict parents and then went wild when they finally got free. But then you can't just let them do what they want all the time. Kids need boundaries. It's a fine line to tread.

Bill Gates.

Steve Jobs.

Mark Zuckerberg.

Need I say more?

Or parents can set you up with a select group of friends you’re already compatible with. After that, it’s just a matter of time. Married by 19, kids by 21. Yes, you can live with us until you can get back on your feet.

lol

Or make it fun for them. Talk to your best friends and make a public show of hating each other. Make it a Romeo and Juliet thing without the nasty bit at the end. Kids never can resist that kind of bait, especially if they’re rebellion-prone.

If they elope, though, Ima have to kill ‘em. Do NOT do that to your mother, because I’ll have to hear it from her from then until I have my “little accident.”

The way I see it, college helped create the extended adolescense problem that we have in America. For most college students, college is an extension of high school. Many college students party a lot and get involved with fraternities and sororities. They get degrees that are worthless and end up moving back in with their parents after graduation. I think that high schools should offer more vocational training classes so that students can graduate high school with certificates that can get them into the workforce right away. Once you are done with high school, you should be working and starting to pay your own bills. There was a time when people were expected to join the work force once they graduated high school and move out on their own by the time they were 20.

I’m about 30 and honestly I almost to point where I’ll settle for any woman who likes me.

It’ll probably be a crappy relationship as I’ll get barely anything I desire out of it but it’s better to have something then never have anything:(

AngelRho, if you were my father, you wouldn't have to worry about my marriage decisions bonding you with a family you don't like because Id throw your money in your face and never talk to you again.

My money? WHAT money? lol. I’m broke!

Anyway...

Suit yourself, son.

Ok good luck holding funding restriction over your kids' heads when you're broke, son.





This is about the only accurate thing you've said in the short novel of rants you've contributed to this thread. And considering that your parenting style essentially consists of manipulating your kids -- ie. Trying to control your kids' social life so they marry someone you want -- I can assure you that you should be more worried about your kids' future sanity than their prospective love interests. If I were you I'd finish up your credentials so you can afford the immense amount of therapy your children are going to need when they get older. Now, have fun letting your son learn how to use deadly weapons.

Cheers!

Last edited by spaceone on 27 Dec 2017, 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How are your kids doing, btw?

They're cozily snuggled up in my ballsack and they're gonna stay there until I can easily afford to raise them in a lifestyle with adequately available, diverse opportunities so they can forge their own paths.

edit: damn bump button on small phone screens