... to feel sad about my family.

[kinloss]

This is about my parents and siblings.

It is fashionable now to think that all sorts of differences may be related to people being 'on the spectrum'.

But this would certainly explain some of the behaviour of both my parents and my younger brother.

Because my father was so socially withdrawn, when he was alive my mother would always appear to be the one who made conversation. However, since my father's death it has become more apparent that her conversation is only about herself and her interests (which mainly consists of saying what she will and won't eat.)

She is incurious and only ever asks me about my husband's business and my daughter's well-being. Never about my own work and interests She has never been interested in feminism - so this may partly be a way of making it clear to me that my only proper roles are as wife and mother.

Meanwhile my younger brother visited yesterday. He talked at me for three hours about his job and again the only questions he asked me where about my husband's business and my daughter.

I try to be a good person. I am aware that my mother is elderly and that my brother is lonely and is having work difficulties. But I do rather dread those times of year which are meant to be 'about family.'

OP, that does sound a bit like my mum (except I don't think I even got the "What did you do at school?" element - it would be more like "Have you handed your form for X in yet?"). One of the ironies is that - while she didn't go to university- she has never let up about going to grammar school, and finding a way of dropping the Latin she learned there into conversations - ffs she left over 50 yrs ago - but has basically undertaken no significant learning since a vocational diploma at 21 (e.g. never learned to use a computer, a foreign language to talk to living people, a physical hobby, or whatever).

Assuming your mum went to uni in the 40s, she must have been very bright (given the limited opportunities for going in those days, esp for females), privileged, or both. But intellectually bright people aren't necessarily blessed with great powers of self-awareness ("This is what a healthy parent-child relationship looks like - am I doing my best for that even if it doesn't come naturally?"), or warmth, or even giving much of a toss.

I do wonder also if there's an element of 'dog in a manger' about your mum's attitude. A combo of social mores of the time, perhaps combined with her own latent feelings about her role, would have seen her relatively invisible as a person in her own right once she got married- let alone had children. She may well resent your air of being equally important to your husband & daughter. And if your younger brother spent a lot of time with your parents, he may well have absorbed the value that a married woman ranks below her male relatives/husband/offspring in worthiness of airtime

and I felt that some of my mother's behaviour arose from the fact she was moulding herself round his habits and routines and wishes - and couldn't pay any attention to anyone else.

And maybe that is now ingrained in her personality. She has been conditioned to behave like that (and her upbringing may also have contributed),

60s no. You misinterpreted my post. I meant that talking about welfare or feelings wasn't something many kids enjoyed with their parents if they grew up in the 40s and 50s.

Certainly not working class kids anyway. Of couse there are exceptions but by and large, talking about your needs/hopes/fears/ambitions wasn't something that was part of the parent and child relationship.

Oh dear, OP. I sure WISH that my sensory processing problems causing a near-constant sense of unreality were JUST a passing fad...

Autistic tendencies shouldn't just be diagnosed by behaviour, because it's an all-encompassing NEUROLOGICAL disorder. The social behaviours are just the easiest to observe from the outside, but they alone a very inaccurate tool for diagnosis. ASD also has a myriad of physical symptoms like temperature control, extremely sensitive skin and sleep comfort problems.

And I sincerely doubt that many HFAs ever use their disabling neurological traits as an excuse for anything "cause it's fashionable". Most would just love a little understanding.

I don't think they are autistic.

I have a similar issue with my mum. She's 67 I'm 35. I went to uni and I have lived away ever since then, and my 3 siblings stayed in my home town.

Whenever I come home we have NOTHING to talk about (home every other month ). She never asks me anything about myself, what I've been doing, or my work or my friends etc.

I make inane chitchat (she doesn't do much to be fair, but she could if she wanted) I ask about our extended family, her friends, their family! ! etc ) .

So i make chit chat just so we arent sat in silence the whole time.

So no advice from me I'm afraid, other than you're not the only one :-(

I think lots of people are very self absorbed and maybe haven't been exposed to the give and take of a mutually satisfying conversation much in their lives. It's just their normal, and as people vote with their feet and avoid them, it becomes like a vicious circle. If it's a close family member though, there's not much you can do apart from just accept that this relationship is sadly a bit of a one way street. I don't think you could diagnose anything from these traits though.