Do aspies make good parents if they get the chance to be one

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Do aspies make good parents if they get the chance to be one?

From the parents i've seen around here.
Yes they do.

They can. This is an individual thing, like it is with NT parents.

As an Aspie father of two children, I have to say that this is a difficult question to answer.

In some ways, I think Aspies would tend to be more engaged with their children. For example, when I take my kids to the playground, most of the NT parents will drop their kids off and stand off to the side chatting on a cellphone, texting, or talking to another adult. I am more likely to be following them around and doing what they do - whether it's swinging, playing on the slide or whatever. In other words, we do things together rather than me simply providing transportation.

I am able to provide for them very well materially, so that's not a problem.

On the other hand, I really don't want them to turn out like me. I want them to "fit in", have friends, like sports, dancing, etc.

I had an awful experience recently when I picked up my son from school and one of his peers commented "That's your dad?!" I'm not really sure what she meant by this but it clearly meant that I wasn't how I was "supposed" to be and probably not in a good way.

My children live almost full time with their NT mother and her NT boyfriend. I only "officially" get to see them every other weekend, but thankfully it works out to be more often in actual practice. I feel more like their eccentric uncle than their father, and as much as I hate to admit it, it's probably better that way.

So far they are turning out wonderfully, and that's really all that matters...

We are human too. I have seen many many many many many many many many people who are quite comfortable to demonstrate, in public, the best ways to ruin a child. I have seen people treat dogs that have gone to the toilet on the carpet better.

It all comes down to understanding that if your surroundings are not secure you shouldn't be looking to have children. That applies to anyone I think. People with AS I guess would find this harder. It is a hard reality that many people cannot face.

The one thing I have noticed with the aspie parents that I've seen is, they tend to wait until they're older to reproduce. I think that's a very good thing because the likelihood of having a kid on the spectrum is very high at that point and to know what helped oneself will be helpful with helping their kids adjust. In fact, all the children I have seen who either had AS with at least one older parent with AS or who was NT with at least one older AS parent was better adjusted than a child reared by younger parents.
I personally was reared by two NT parents who didn't quite understand me. Though I have no formal diagnosis, they do recognize AS symptoms in me, but call it ADD. My husband and most of my friends who have AS were all raised by older parents, and at least one of those parents in each family likely had AS. I am the only one in my group of friends who doesn't understand comedy in most verbal forms, and am the only one whose cerebral cortex has not developed to the extent of my peers.

I started having kids at 19.

But generally people are waiting until they are older to have kids. They want to finish college, be settled in a career and have greater financial security. That's very smart.

My daughters and grandchildren would tell you they love me and appreciate certain contributions I have made in their lives, but my overall Aspieness has caused them much pain and heartache. My preoccupation with "special interests" has in the past robbed them of much attention they should have received, and now a result of that (including outright abandonment) alienates us all. However, my own performance certainly does not prove all Aspies can only be bad parents.

Obviously, it depends. Ever since I read a non-spectrum person saying how horribly he was raised and stating that no aspie should ever be a parent, I have been feeling angsty about the whole issue. All five children became adults. I think I was the perfect parent for my child with Asperger's. The other two boys survived and I think may be a little more flexible about people types because of me. Unfortunately I tended to have meltdowns whenever my severely autistic daughter had meltdowns. (we bought her a home and got her a situation she is happy in now and we get along just fine now.) And then there was the feely child with fetal alcohol effect that I adopted that I never got along with. It was better than foster care which is where she would have ended up and never gotten out of because of her race in the state of TX at that time. She certainly thinks she could have had a better mother than me. Her constant drama queen emotions disgusted me. And I never appreciated the problems she gave me. Perhaps a person with better empathy would have done better. I never could develop any empathy for all her self-caused problems. I still can't. We are civil to each other, and she trusts me in some ways because she knows I will do what I say. She will never trust me with her interior life, and I don't want to know it. There are questions you don't ask when you don't want to know the answer.
So, was I a good parent? Two of my kids will say yes. One (another adoption) thinks I am hilarious because of how odd I am. The non-verbal, violent child will never tell me. And the one, I just don't know. I tried. Honest, I tried. What would a report card on me say?

I'd like to think so...otherwise my mini-me army is going to be pretty sloppy.

I read an article that out there on the internet that painted aspie parents as distant, unfeeling cold-hearted jerks who neglect their children. It even used a lot of those words. That article stabbed me in the heart because I am so not that way with my kids. But I was raised that way and I wonder if having that childhood has created the knowledge and focus for me to defy any natural tendency that AS might have within me to be distant to my kids.

My mother wasn't an aspie but she's not NT. I think she was an undiagnosed, untreated bipolar. She just had so many symptomatic behaviors of that disorder. If that wasn't it, it was something like it. She even started hoarding. Her treatment of me created a tremendous "NO" list for how I parent my children. Her treatment of my dad created a tremendous "NO" list for how I behave as a wife to my husband, as well.

I don't think I'm an exception just because I had a crummy childhood, though. There are more aspie parents whose kids are their world. They treasure every moment, can't help crying when they come across old school projects from when their kids were much younger, and might even show symptoms of thanatophobia.

I probably bring in a B on motherhood with an A+ for effort. My husband picks up the slack on a lot of stuff because I forget. He'll finish the laundry, finish cooking dinner, finish vacuuming the carpet, finish the shopping. My kids think I spend too much time on the internet... nevermind that I also work on the internet selling prints and then my resale shop on eBay. But if they need my attention, they have it. Dishes can be done later, laundry can be done later, everything can be put on hold* if one of my babies wants to read a book or sing a song.

* Of course, these things aren't really put on hold. My husband has noticed that when I put something on hold, I forget it's on hold and never return to it. So he just picks up where I leave something and gets it done. I assume that this is because he is a good spouse and a good parent, who understands his wife and that the kids are a top priority. He's neuro-typical.

Good parents come with all kinds of diagnoses on their medical records. I have AS, ADD, Depression, Social Anxiety Disorder, Anxiety, PTSD, Insomnia, IBM, and PMDD. Out of my 4 kids, only my 5 year-old will say I'm not a nice mom and that's because I do really mean things like make him take a bath, eat his food, do his homework, and pick up after himself. Don't you feel sorry for him?

Well, today I had a situation which makes me wonder if I'm a good parent or not.

Apparently, tomorrow is a school holiday for my children. This is "my" weekend to spend with my children so my ex asked if I wanted to pick up the children tonight. Normally, I would, but I have an OKC date tonight that we set up like two weeks ago and I didn't want to cancel, so I opted to pick them up first thing in the morning instead.

My ex "accused" me of having a date tonight, and neglecting my children because of it. Of course, she lives with her boyfriend she met a few months back, but I'm not even allowed to date.

Should I have cancelled my date?

I don't think so.
It's not like you're not seeing them all.

That's my rationale too, there's not a lot of difference between tonight and tomorrow morning because they would be sleeping most of the time anyway. If I had known about the holiday sooner I would have scheduled the date for a different night to begin with.

Why do I feel so guilty about this?

because you love your kids.
just give them an awesome weekend
that way everyone is happy!

I think it's an Aspie thing (if I may be so bold). We tend to live our lives in our brains, in complete unsugarcoated honesty. Thus, when confronted by manipulative people (or even people who aren't manipulative but who live according to their own (maybe skewed) perceptions), we take their interpretation as being as "equally honest" as our own.