December 27, 2009 4:58 PM
Parents: why many say yes to Down syndrome
Excerpted from First Things October 22: Conscience, Courage, and Children With Down Syndrome by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput:
Parents of children with special needs, special education teachers and therapists, and pediatricians who have treated children with disabilities often have a hugely life-affirming perspective. Unlike prenatal caregivers, these professionals have direct knowledge of persons with special needs. They know their potential. They've seen their accomplishments. They can testify to the benefits of parental love and faith. Expectant parents deserve to know that a child with Down syndrome can love, laugh, learn, work, feel hope and excitement, make friends, and create joy for others. These things are beautiful precisely because they transcend what we expect. They witness to the truth that every child with special needs has a value that matters eternally.Raising a child with Down syndrome can be hard. None of my friends who have a daughter or son with a serious disability is melodramatic, or self-conscious, or even especially pious about it. They speak about their special child with an unsentimental realism. It's a realism flowing out of love--real love, the kind that courses its way through fear and suffering to a decision, finally, to surround the child with their heart and trust in the goodness of God. And that decision to trust, of course, demands not just real love, but also real courage.
The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is never between some imaginary perfection or imperfection. The real choice is between love and unlove, between courage and cowardice, between trust and fear. And that's the choice we face as a society in deciding which human lives we will treat as valuable, and which we will not.
HT: Christine Wilson
Photo of Ria and Matthew from Our Little Extras: A Mother's Day Down syndrome celebration - a collection of 109 mother/child photos. If you have a child with Down syndrome, please send me your picture to add - and pass this on to anyone you know who qualifies :)
Posted in Down syndrome, Inspiration, Pro-Life Issues | Permalink
Comments
Love your blog, and your perspective! We have a special ed kid (now late teens) w multiple issues(high functioning autism/bipolar the most obvious)who we dearly love. I got pregnant with him after losing a much wanted baby in mid pregnancy (died in utero). We never had amnio because of the risk of miscarriage, and I was blessed to have an ObGyn (devout Jew) and pediatrician who supported us in our not wanting to risk the health of a baby in utero to test for conditions that we wouldn't have aborted, even had the kid had them.
Life has been very hard, and I do not always have the best attitude about his disabilities, but I would do it all over again. We have been blessed by a loving church and community and a good school for him. It has been very hard at times on his siblings as some of the behaviors have been scary and dangerous. But we love him. He has been raised to know and love God, to try and help others, and to love his country.
I will say that tho he has been hugely helped by a therapeutic day program and social skills training, plus many other therapies, there are some very poignant times as he approaches adulthood. People are kinder to a "cute" little kid with disabilities, but often alarmed or prejudiced towards a large and somewhat odd young man. In the girls' high school, the PC kids tended to treat the severely disabled kids as pets, but would bully or ostracize kids like my son who could sometimes pass for "normal" but could be easily provoked, and had strange social reactions. It is hard, but God has been good to him and to us, and I have often repeated to friends who say "How can you BEAR it?" that in my view there are many things worse than having one's darling child have disabilities. What if they were dishonest? Or rejected the faith? Or cruel? Or shallow and callous? A person's character and spirit are not defined by either IQ or social skills.
Christmas blessings to you and your family.
Posted by: retriever | December 27, 2009 6:07 PM
