My wife and I are currently considering having children, whats the probability that we could have an autistic child? Is there any way to test for it? I may be being paranoid but its a concern I have. Any advice would be appreciated.

I’m really worried. I know that there’s a high possibility that any child I have will have bad allergies, hyperthyroidism, even a higher chance of substance abuse (at least stretching back to great-grandparents on both sides, but especially my maternal lineage). But I worry *most* about autism.

It makes me feel really selfish, but I’m aware enough to realize that I’ve got problems socializing and empathizing with my peer group; I was a precocious child who didn’t relate well to others, couldn’t understand their fads.

Knowing these things about myself, I make myself work them through — I work on making eye contact instead of focusing on mouths, I go to large gatherings when I’d really rather go home and read a book or do a Sudoku puzzle. I know that I’m normal, but I have a hyperawareness of my own social inabilities due, I think, to Scotty.

My brother’s nonverbal, and he’ll have to live with a family member his entire life. My grandparents are in ill health; within the next decade, decade & a half, I think my sister & I will have Scotty for ourselves. How’re we going to do that? We’re still young kids, so it’s almost a distant future to us yet. My mother couldn’t take him, our younger brother & sister didn’t grow up with us. We’ll be alone in trying to help him.

It’s scary, but it’s more scary to think that, as a parent, I’d have to worry about those things. It’s scary to think that I’d have a baby who’d get the same teasing, have a little boy who couldn’t go to church because he wouldn’t be able to sit through mass, a frustrated little girl who couldn’t tell us what was bothering her.

Or even a kid who had the same trouble socializing that I did — it was horrible, absolute misery. I didn’t like what they liked, I didn’t speak how they spoke (I like the sound of words, and as a child, it was precise speaking, not slang, that appealed to me), I was rude without meaning to be, I didn’t consider their feelings, and I corrected everybody, including teachers.

On one level, I think I’m more prepared for it than someone who doesn’t have an autistic sibling; on another, I worry that — initially at least — I’ll have more resentment for the situation than someone with a ‘clean slate.’

Like I said, it makes me feel mean and selfish, but it’s a long way off.

I continue to be puzzled by the resistance of some in viewing autism as genetic.

I think it’s our community’s analogue to a well-known archetype in the gay community: the virulent homophobe who is the way he (almost always a he) is because deep down inside he’s afraid he might just be a little gay himself…

I also love my son the way he is, and I wouldn’t change him for anything. But on top of that I like myself the way I am and do not want to be made into someone else to make others happy. To quote a famous sailor “I am what I am.”

Agree on both points (and agreeing with the sailor too–we’ve a picture of Charlie and the statue of him in his creator’s home town of Chester, IL).

Haven’t seen Gattaca, yet….