Stomper or Grower?

I have been called numerous names in the past few weeks by my overly-confident child. None that I can print. He has no sense of how truly awful those words are or how it cuts to the quick for a parent or sibling. He doesn't have empathy. Unless we spell it out for him, he is oblivious. Really, might never get it, how do your parent that? However, in the interim, I am trying to be positive and capitalize on the good...which for me is so super-hard! My friend was over and made the observation she thinks I am (and definitely my husband is) a Grower. Not a Stomper. A Grower encourages kids in their passions and quirks. I argued against my status as a Grower, because inately I think the role of a Mom is to be a bit of a Stomper. You know the roll...clean up your room, put your laundry away, feed the pet, is you homework done? Yet the roll of the Dad is way more free-falling...."Sure you want to blow up those old trees in the back...I think I have just the power tool to do that!" Totally not Stomping. My friend still persisted that I really was a grower. What she doesn't know is how hard it is to grow this child. I am naturally a grower, a teacher. I do crafts, I sew with him, I take him to libraries and places to feed his interests; but he only sees me as a "Interupter" and a "Distractor". The really super-hard aspect of raising an Asperger's kid is that the are truly only focused on themselves. They have limited empathy and limited tolerance for the mundane chores of life.