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ASDMommyASDKid
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21 May 2014, 10:43 am

cubedemon6073 wrote:
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I think I know what you are talking about and NT dads do it, too just in less Byzantine ways.

Men are usually more direct, and more obvious. They mainly just brag, where women have a mix of bragging and more passive methods. Often b/c bragging is easier to recognize on a conscious level, it is easier to dismiss and doesn't seem to hit at the self esteem as badly, although, I could be wrong as I am not male and don't get that end of it. It may just seem less awful to me b/c I am female and male competitiveness is not generally directed my way. The competition seems to worse intra-gender.


Yes, I've seen this and I've seen non-dads do this as well. The thing is though I have no desire to compete or play this game. I just simply want to live and enjoy my life, maybe by reading, creating programs, writing, etc. I want to understand more about existence and life itself. I want to just relax on the beach, feel the sand between my toes, and swim. Why can't we all just work together in a synergistic harmony?

Are we just animals or are we more than just flesh and blood. I would like us to think we are more and we have a spirit and a soul. It's like both men and women want to stick to their animalistic nature and don't care to even know what is beyond. Why? Why is this?


I think many people view most scenarios as zero-sum games. For person A to win, person B most lose.

There are some scenarios where this is objectively true. If there are finite resources, and no growth possible, then if one person consumes it all then there is none left for others. If someone takes half, only half remains.

There are scenarios where this scarcity is psychological as opposed to concrete.

For "popular" to mean anything, someone has to be labeled as "unpopular." Without ugliness, what is beauty? For there to be a "true" winner, everyone can't get a trophy. Someone has to lose for victory to mean something.

**I am not saying this is a mind-set to emulate, I am only giving my explanation of why this is. Most people find games with no winners and no losers to be dull. Some people look at life as a game. That said, I play one-player RPGs where I complete the qjuests when I get around to it, so what do I know? ;)



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21 May 2014, 11:15 am

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I think many people view most scenarios as zero-sum games. For person A to win, person B most lose.

There are some scenarios where this is objectively true. If there are finite resources, and no growth possible, then if one person consumes it all then there is none left for others. If someone takes half, only half remains.

There are scenarios where this scarcity is psychological as opposed to concrete.

For "popular" to mean anything, someone has to be labeled as "unpopular." Without ugliness, what is beauty? For there to be a "true" winner, everyone can't get a trophy. Someone has to lose for victory to mean something.

**I am not saying this is a mind-set to emulate, I am only giving my explanation of why this is. Most people find games with no winners and no losers to be dull. Some people look at life as a game. That said, I play one-player RPGs where I complete the qjuests when I get around to it, so what do I know? ;)


I love the RPG as well and I love games like SimCity. I don't look at life like most people. There was an old bumper sticker that said something along the lines of "In the end, the winner gets the prize." When we all die and become dust then what is the prize? What do we win in the end? The outcome of all people who have ever lived was the same: Death. All of these alpha males who were on top during different time periods are all dead now just like those who were on the bottom. When I look at the totality of it all, I ask what is the point? What is the point of life if one can't truthfully live? It all seems just so absurd.

Why play a pointless game in which we all will eventually lose? It is just so pointless.



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21 May 2014, 11:32 am

cubedemon6073 wrote:
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I think many people view most scenarios as zero-sum games. For person A to win, person B most lose.

There are some scenarios where this is objectively true. If there are finite resources, and no growth possible, then if one person consumes it all then there is none left for others. If someone takes half, only half remains.

There are scenarios where this scarcity is psychological as opposed to concrete.

For "popular" to mean anything, someone has to be labeled as "unpopular." Without ugliness, what is beauty? For there to be a "true" winner, everyone can't get a trophy. Someone has to lose for victory to mean something.

**I am not saying this is a mind-set to emulate, I am only giving my explanation of why this is. Most people find games with no winners and no losers to be dull. Some people look at life as a game. That said, I play one-player RPGs where I complete the qjuests when I get around to it, so what do I know? ;)


I love the RPG as well and I love games like SimCity. I don't look at life like most people. There was an old bumper sticker that said something along the lines of "In the end, the winner gets the prize." When we all die and become dust then what is the prize? What do we win in the end? The outcome of all people who have ever lived was the same: Death. All of these alpha males who were on top during different time periods are all dead now just like those who were on the bottom. When I look at the totality of it all, I ask what is the point? What is the point of life if one can't truthfully live? It all seems just so absurd.

Why play a pointless game in which we all will eventually lose? It is just so pointless.


I don't think most people look at it from that perspective. They are taking a close-up view where everything looks big and important. Aspies do that too, we just tend to mentally magnify our errors. ;)



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21 May 2014, 11:45 am

YippySkippy wrote:
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Being physically smaller than men, women have also learned (I'm talking from an evolutionary standpoint here) to use subtlety and manipulation to get what they want.


The average height of women around here seems to be about 5'9" and there are plenty of six-footers, and they're not willowy, mostly. Girls' and women's basketball, softball, and roller derby are oversubscribed everywhere you go around here. In a fight, I'd put my money on the women faculty in my dept about half the time.

Evo-psych is generally nonsense promulgated by men's-rights groups to justify male dominance.

Also, if you watch small children, the negotiating/one-up styles of boys and girls appears to be hardwired. You can see it when they're three years old, regardless of how they're raised, and it's tenacious. That's why it's such bollocks when you get these biz articles about how women don't know how to negotiate. We certainly do; we just generally do it in a very different way than men do. But when men are in charge, they're utterly blind to how women negotiate, therefore it doesn't exist. When they aren't in charge, they're aware something's going on but don't know how to play that game, therefore bazookas, hand grenades, torpedoes, universe wrong and unfair. They're totally fine with insisting that women learn to negotiate like men, but will eat their own testicles before admitting they might need to learn to negotiate like women.



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21 May 2014, 11:48 am

ASDMommyASDKid wrote:
cubedemon6073 wrote:
Quote:
I think many people view most scenarios as zero-sum games. For person A to win, person B most lose.

There are some scenarios where this is objectively true. If there are finite resources, and no growth possible, then if one person consumes it all then there is none left for others. If someone takes half, only half remains.

There are scenarios where this scarcity is psychological as opposed to concrete.

For "popular" to mean anything, someone has to be labeled as "unpopular." Without ugliness, what is beauty? For there to be a "true" winner, everyone can't get a trophy. Someone has to lose for victory to mean something.

**I am not saying this is a mind-set to emulate, I am only giving my explanation of why this is. Most people find games with no winners and no losers to be dull. Some people look at life as a game. That said, I play one-player RPGs where I complete the qjuests when I get around to it, so what do I know? ;)


I love the RPG as well and I love games like SimCity. I don't look at life like most people. There was an old bumper sticker that said something along the lines of "In the end, the winner gets the prize." When we all die and become dust then what is the prize? What do we win in the end? The outcome of all people who have ever lived was the same: Death. All of these alpha males who were on top during different time periods are all dead now just like those who were on the bottom. When I look at the totality of it all, I ask what is the point? What is the point of life if one can't truthfully live? It all seems just so absurd.

Why play a pointless game in which we all will eventually lose? It is just so pointless.


I don't think most people look at it from that perspective. They are taking a close-up view where everything looks big and important. Aspies do that too, we just tend to mentally magnify our errors. ;)


No, they don't. What does this make me then? What do you believe is my thinking style?



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21 May 2014, 11:59 am

cubedemon6073 wrote:
ASDMommyASDKid wrote:
cubedemon6073 wrote:
Quote:
I think many people view most scenarios as zero-sum games. For person A to win, person B most lose.

There are some scenarios where this is objectively true. If there are finite resources, and no growth possible, then if one person consumes it all then there is none left for others. If someone takes half, only half remains.

There are scenarios where this scarcity is psychological as opposed to concrete.

For "popular" to mean anything, someone has to be labeled as "unpopular." Without ugliness, what is beauty? For there to be a "true" winner, everyone can't get a trophy. Someone has to lose for victory to mean something.

**I am not saying this is a mind-set to emulate, I am only giving my explanation of why this is. Most people find games with no winners and no losers to be dull. Some people look at life as a game. That said, I play one-player RPGs where I complete the qjuests when I get around to it, so what do I know? ;)


I love the RPG as well and I love games like SimCity. I don't look at life like most people. There was an old bumper sticker that said something along the lines of "In the end, the winner gets the prize." When we all die and become dust then what is the prize? What do we win in the end? The outcome of all people who have ever lived was the same: Death. All of these alpha males who were on top during different time periods are all dead now just like those who were on the bottom. When I look at the totality of it all, I ask what is the point? What is the point of life if one can't truthfully live? It all seems just so absurd.

Why play a pointless game in which we all will eventually lose? It is just so pointless.


I don't think most people look at it from that perspective. They are taking a close-up view where everything looks big and important. Aspies do that too, we just tend to mentally magnify our errors. ;)


No, they don't. What does this make me then? What do you believe is my thinking style?


I think you are, at heart, an old school, philosopher. You are introspective and you compare micro-type behavior (either your own or the behavior of others) with macro-type collective social decisions all within a historical context, using philosophy. So, to my mind, you synthesize psychology, sociology and history in an old school way, like philosophers of old who did not care about staying within the borders of a given discipline the way people do today.



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21 May 2014, 12:06 pm

cubedemon6073 wrote:
League_Girl wrote:
Are we discussing mommy wars now? I have seen parents judge each other harshly. I think there are two groups of parents.

Group A. This group feel bad about themselves as parents so they make themselves feel better by judging another parent for a worse situation they are in. These parents tend to act like they are perfect and can do no wrong and act all holier than thou and they decide what mistakes are okay to do and what mistakes are not okay and those are the mistakes they have never made themselves so therefore it's not okay for those other parents to make those mistakes. These parents can also be parents that don't even want to think it could happen to them and they could end up in that situation as well so they continue to judge harshly.

Group B. These parents will be sympathetic and relate to other parents and share their own personal experience to help the parent feel better about themselves.


But sometimes parents piss me off with their holier than thou attitudes. I always love it when I hear how karma hits them so now they are not as judgmental about other parents about something. It takes balls to admit how judgmental you used to be and then it happened to you so now you're not anymore. My mom told me some people are too embarrassed when they find out how wrong they were. I think those would be the type of parents to not even admit how they were once judgmental about something.


Why do these mommies do all of this nonsense? Why can't they work together and put their thoughts and beliefs together into a synergistic harmony? I'm using figurative language here. Look at the components of a non-digital clock? It has different parts like gears that work together to achieve an outcome which is telling time. When you see it as a whole system, it's like every part wants to do its' own thing in this absolute way and the whole clock starts malfunctioning.

Why do we as a society value competition so much as a virtue? How is competition always a virtue?


My question is why do we call this mommy wars instead of parent wars? Men are just as judgmental too. Does the term come from the stereotype of women staying home ad taking care of the kids and raising them while the men go out and make all the money and provide for their wife and kids? All I know is men can do just as much parenting as the woman does even if they both work or if he only works and his wife doesn't. Men can also pitch in with the kids and help with the parenting, not have their wives do all the work and they sit at home and do nothing after coming home from work. Also men can post on the parenting boards as well but I do admit the majority of them are women so that could be why the term mommy wars exist.

To answer your question why they do this, I pretty much answered it in my post, they do this to make themselves feel better about their parenting and themselves. They feel better if they see another a parent in a worse situation than them and put them down for it and be all critical and harsh just so they feel better about themselves. Why do they do this? I don't know.


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21 May 2014, 12:21 pm

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My question is why do we call this mommy wars instead of parent wars?


It's what you called it so I just used your title.


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Men are just as judgmental too.


Oh yes, you're right, they most certainly are.

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Does the term come from the stereotype of women staying home ad taking care of the kids and raising them while the men go out and make all the money and provide for their wife and kids?


I don't know. I just used the term provided by you.

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All I know is men can do just as much parenting as the woman does even if they both work or if he only works and his wife doesn't. Men can also pitch in with the kids and help with the parenting, not have their wives do all the work and they sit at home and do nothing after coming home from work.


Well, I don't know why this imbalance exists. Maybe one possible solution is to discuss before marriage who will be responsible for what. What do you think?

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Also men can post on the parenting boards as well but I do admit the majority of them are women so that could be why the term mommy wars exist.


That would make sense.

Quote:
To answer your question why they do this, I pretty much answered it in my post, they do this to make themselves feel better about their parenting and themselves. They feel better if they see another a parent in a worse situation than them and put them down for it and be all critical and harsh just so they feel better about themselves. Why do they do this? I don't know.


I guess it is psychology then.



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21 May 2014, 12:37 pm

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I think you are, at heart, an old school, philosopher. You are introspective and you compare micro-type behavior (either your own or the behavior of others) with macro-type collective social decisions all within a historical context, using philosophy. So, to my mind, you synthesize psychology, sociology and history in an old school way, like philosophers of old who did not care about staying within the borders of a given discipline the way people do today.


One has to put all of this together in order to get a clearer picture. I consider myself a cosmopolitan, a citizen of existence.



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21 May 2014, 12:50 pm

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The average height of women around here seems to be about 5'9" and there are plenty of six-footers, and they're not willowy, mostly. Girls' and women's basketball, softball, and roller derby are oversubscribed everywhere you go around here. In a fight, I'd put my money on the women faculty in my dept about half the time.


Evo-psych is generally nonsense promulgated by men's-rights groups to justify male dominance.

Why do you believe Evo-psych is nonsense? What is the underlying flaw do you think it has?

I did look up men's-rights groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_rights_movement

I don't know how accurate this article is considering this is Wikipedia. I don't know the truth of it.

Wikipedia Article wrote:
The three men's rights groups opposed women's entry into the labor market and what they saw as the corrosive influence of the women's movement on social and legal institutions.


Why would they perceive the women's movement on social and legal institutions as corrosive? What was corrosive about this movement when it was done during the early 20th century and earlier?


Quote:
Also, if you watch small children, the negotiating/one-up styles of boys and girls appears to be hardwired. You can see it when they're three years old, regardless of how they're raised, and it's tenacious. That's why it's such bollocks when you get these biz articles about how women don't know how to negotiate. We certainly do; we just generally do it in a very different way than men do. But when men are in charge, they're utterly blind to how women negotiate, therefore it doesn't exist. When they aren't in charge, they're aware something's going on but don't know how to play that game, therefore bazookas, hand grenades, torpedoes, universe wrong and unfair. They're totally fine with insisting that women learn to negotiate like men, but will eat their own testicles before admitting they might need to learn to negotiate like women.


It begs the question and makes me wonder what negotiation truthfully is? What is negotiation and could there be different styles and what are they? Are they correlated to a person's personality type? Why would one gender not be able to perceive the other gender's negotiation style? Is using logic and rationality to try to persuade someone to adopt an idea a form of negotiation?



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21 May 2014, 12:51 pm

League_Girl wrote:

My question is why do we call this mommy wars instead of parent wars? Men are just as judgmental too. Does the term come from the stereotype of women staying home ad taking care of the kids and raising them while the men go out and make all the money and provide for their wife and kids? All I know is men can do just as much parenting as the woman does even if they both work or if he only works and his wife doesn't. Men can also pitch in with the kids and help with the parenting, not have their wives do all the work and they sit at home and do nothing after coming home from work. Also men can post on the parenting boards as well but I do admit the majority of them are women so that could be why the term mommy wars exist.


I think it is called that b/c women talk about parenting more and they consume more parent-directed media (possibly b/c it is marketed specifically to women, creating a kind of vicious cycle. ) Also I think the word "Mommy" is used to show triviality, which is in itself, kind of sexist b/c the language consciously associates trivial, banality with women. To accomplish the same tone without the sexism, you would have to coin "Mommy and Daddy Wars,' which might be too long to catch on.



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21 May 2014, 1:06 pm

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Also I think the word "Mommy" is used to show triviality, which is in itself, kind of sexist b/c the language consciously associates trivial, banality with women.


Seconded.



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21 May 2014, 2:12 pm

Should we get some of this split into a separate topic?


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21 May 2014, 2:46 pm

Thanks for the input.

I really do want to believe that "sane" and "healthy" matter more than "accurate" and "correct."

Inside myself, I'm pretty sure that there aren't actually a whole lot of truly "accurate" and "correct" theories about parenting. Other than, "It's not a good idea to beat your kids bloody" and "Don't let anyone molest your kid" and "They need to eat a variety of healthy foods" and basic things like that.

Otherwise the conventional wisdom wouldn't change every half a generation.

It is, however, certainly true that the world is full of people-- including people who matter, like grandparents and the other parent-- who will tell you that you are irreparably messing them up by doing whatever you're doing that's not 100% textbook approved (that's what we're running into-- I'm sitting here wondering these things because my husband and I had a multiple-day screaming argument over what kind of person I am, and how I parent, and a whole bunch of other stuff, that he now swears wasn't over that stuff at all).

I know I was mighty embarrassed of my father (and bloody ashamed of my similarity to him) when I was a young Aspie. Now that I'm older, though-- Well, not so much. Now that I'm older, I see all the things he did RIGHT. At least, right for me.

I too have had therapists tell me that the open relationship Saint Alan and I enjoyed was probably a MAJOR protective factor in how I turned out. It makes sense to me. But-- that's me. I'm a person with Asperger's. So I have to take into account that my point of view may be so warped it's worthless.

I have one other piece of data to toss out there. My maternal grandparents did the "Try not to act like an Aspie" routine. Like, to the degree that that Disney movie, "Frozen," could be their life story. "Conceal, don't feel, don't let it show."

NEITHER of their daughters turned out to be real happy or healthy or sane. Not the younger one (my mother), who was definitely NT. And not the older one, my aunt, who I realized on her last visit (she comes to visit about once every three to five years) is almost certainly an Aspie (no, all those years of listening to Grandma tell me how difficult she was to raise and how unsettling it was that she wouldn't make eye contact really DID NOT tip me off).

They did turn out more "normal," which I assume is why it never occurred to me until we were standing in a parking lot smoking cigarettes and talking about feelings while very studiously NOT MAKING EYE CONTACT that she might be an Aspie. But they DID NOT turn out happier, or healthier, or for that matter more functional.

And, for all she might have no trouble joining a country club and holding a job, I hope my adult kids come home more often than my aunt's adult kids do. Like, A LOT more often.

This should probably be A COUPLE of separate topics.

Mommy Wars are a topic in their own right.

And this isn't the appropriate thread for Aspie parents to agonize over whether they're screwing their kids up just by breathing (no matter how much it might bring up the issue).

This is THE ONLY SAFE PLACE that NTs have on this forum to talk about the resultant issues they have from having Aspie parents, and I'm stepping all over it again.

Although that DOES beg the question-- has their been anyone, ever, who didn't get some kind of issues from being raised by the particular parents they were raised by????


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21 May 2014, 4:26 pm

BuyerBeware wrote:

Although that DOES beg the question-- has their been anyone, ever, who didn't get some kind of issues from being raised by the particular parents they were raised by????


Lol, nope, never.

BUT, in honest deference to those who truly have had it bad by their parents, there are varying degrees of messing up and damage.


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25 May 2014, 10:43 am

Hi All,
I came on this blog last Oct/Nov and abandoned it in frustration. I was curious to see what had developed in the thread since then, and seeing the discussion is relatively fresh I thought I'd stick my nose in again!

Buyer Beware - I'm glad you comment! I can see you are frustrated at times, but from my perspective you work hard to be aware of what you say, and you do try to observe and understand others. Take credit for that :)

I've spent the last few months letting what I've learnt sink in. I also had an unexpected interaction with one of my Mum's brothers ( 11 kids -7 girls, 4 boys). My mums family live in another state so I rarely see them, but my uncle was over visiting after his wife's death. I found out one of his grandsons has Aspergers, and my aunt who was a trained Psychologist had told my uncle she believed he had Aspergers too. Our 3 hour conversation with him had me thinking, as I'd been more inclined to see my fathers traits as ASD, more so than my mothers (I'd assumed alexithymia,) It's all so complicated! My aunt and uncle were married for 40 years. They made it work, and raised 4 kids - it is possible. My parents raised 4 kids, I'm the one who has the biggest issues with them. And maybe the biggest factors in that are that I'm a girl who needed an emotionally available mother, and didn't get one.

Quote:
I really do want to believe that "sane" and "healthy" matter more than "accurate" and "correct."


It's about understanding. Being clear. Misunderstandings that turn into "right" and "wrong" are what drives frustration, anger and shame. I think once kids get to an age where they can communicate they are then able to fill in some of the blanks that aren't obvious if you ask - I've got NT friends who are often clueless until they are informed by their kids!

The question about "Mummy wars" I'd say is strongly tied to what is the biggest contributing factor to that persons identity - if the job of motherhood requires the most time, is the most obvious role & is the easiest for people to judge it is a vulnerability to defend or strength to compete in.

Anyway, hope you are all doing well :) I've found ways to fill in the gaps & make peace with my past. Making friends with my parents is another issue, but one that has possibilities I think!