I’ve decided, after decades of teaching and raising kids, that everyone is somewhere on every spectrum.
So we all need to compensate (and maybe medicate).
I believe we’re talking about the same thing: consciously learning and applying rules in order to imitate something most people do more or less instinctively. Think about the difference between learning your native language as a child and learning a foreign one as an adult. The child absorbs language naturally through exposure; the adult takes lessons, has to memorise specific grammar rules and struggle to get pronunciations correct - and even after years of effort, still does not sound like a native and makes far more mistakes than the kid.
I’ve been reading a bit about the relationship of androgyny and autism. Not so much gender identity as qualities that partake of either gender. Apparently large studies have found that this is physically more prevalent in autistic people, that is, measurements such as waist to hip ratio, head size, ankle size, and some kind of criteria that measure how masculine or feminine one’s facial features are. Autistic males are supposedly less likely to be drawn to the most masculine activities (aggressive sports, destroying things, competitive drinking, etc.) and females, to classic feminine activities (nurturing, grooming one’s appearance, greasing the social wheels).
I can’t speak to the masculine side but it is certainly true of me that I have never been able to muster any sustained interest in my appearance, or generalized fussing over babies and children, but I have to wonder if the reason for the noticed reduction of feminine social activity is because most of it is about being socially interested and adept, which of course is not a quality most autistic people have.
This wouldn’t be true of men though, they are held to a much lower social-giftedness standard in our culture.
Worth noting that boys on the spectrum tend to have issues with coordination and motor skills that make physical activities like sports less than fun to start with. Both as a practical matter and socially when you’re the worst player on the team.
I’m not sure how much I buy that because every woman I’ve known with autism, and I know more than most of you probably do given I work in disability advocacy, loves animals. Especially cats, but also dogs. You can’t love animals without being nurturing.
Interesting observation (says someone with two dogs twelve chickens a horse and three goats; I’ve really trimmed down).
I think I meant the way women are trained to look after others, see others’ needs and fill them. I remember eating dinner out, more than 45 years ago now, with a man and two other women and him saying, do you all realize this is the third time one of you has passed me something I wanted before I asked for it? In retrospect, the reason he both noticed it and mentioned it was because he was gay – I’ve never known a straight man to be very conscious of women waiting on him like faithful slaves – but that little incident kind of epitomizes for me the way women attend, in social settings.
I’m also pondering memories of my own mother, in hindsight very obviously on the spectrum. Apparently emotionless, affectionless, hated to be touched, dutiful, almost robotic, as though she had researched how humans behaved and was doing her best to act that way although it felt entirely unnatural to her. Rings lots of bells now. Helps me pity her.
That is a valid point. In fact, when my son was diagnosed, my husband then put a great amount of effort into learning about how autism is expressed in girls and women, because he began to realize he had probably missed it in certain women who he no longer was working with but now understood as having autistic traits.
Before my son was diagnosed, we had an acquaintance, very nice guy, I would have described as moderately socially awkward. Recently he came over for dinner for the first time in years, and within seconds of him walking through the door I was thinking, “Oh, he’s autistic.” He later discussed having watched the show Love on the Spectrum and relating to a lot of it and how he was working with a therapist to explore an autism diagnosis. I just didn’t see it until I knew what to look for.
This reminds me of women who criticize feminism because they don’t want to be viewed as weak. But just as women have the additional challenge of making their way in a man’s world, autistic people are challenged to make their way in a world of allistic people. It’s entirely possible that those people making “excuses” require more support than your son. You never really know how much people are struggling behind closed doors.
Yeah, I cringe about food messes - maybe my own sensory issues showing up - and my kid doesn’t make any, because he won’t touch anything wet, or sticky, or fresh food - just dry, brown, crunchy things. I feel lucky I’ve never had to deal with a messy kid but also like, maybe he could be just a little more messy?
At bottom, I feel like my son is a combination of me and his Dad, cranked up to 11.