I don't know, I think for a lot of people - it's been relatively easy for us I think, in some ways - but I think for some people having a child with a disability is probably very devastating, and I think - but you just don't know until it happens to you how it's going to grab you.
But the vast majority of people I know have felt that having a child with a disability, specifically a child with Down syndrome, is not a disaster. It's not a disaster.
And in some ways it enriches your life. And it does, because I think it makes you less worried about things that don't matter, like what level reading scheme your child's on, and it makes you appreciate the things in life that really do matter more.
And I think actually that makes you a lot more contented, because you're not constantly chasing things that, as soon as you get, them feel empty, like, you know, new cars, or better this or better that, because you, it really does concentrate your mind on what, what is important.
And that sounds really twee, doesn't it? But it's true. And I think everybody, whether their experience is good or bad, would say that it really concentrates your mind on what is the really, what are the really important things are in life.
And also it's, I like the fact that everybody knows us, that she is and we as a family are sort of almost like little mini-celebrities, because we're the only - she's the only person with Down syndrome in the town, and people know her. And we go about, and it's like, “Hello, hello.”
And because she's very social and outgoing she is, she's the, the cliché child with Down syndrome, very open, very friendly, very happy and smiley, with a very stubborn streak. She's - I don't like the cliché, but I'm afraid she fits it, unfortunately. She's very, she, she touches people - and in a way I like that, and I think in a way, really, if that's what she can do in her life, is to touch people and make people think about assumptions that they may or may not have.
And I know this from a lot of my friends who've said, oh, that they'd felt devastated when I'd had her, devastated. But that now, I had a friend who said to me, “I can't believe she's so happy in herself and she's developing” - not, she's not developing normally, but developing at her own pace. And she said, “I can't believe that you could ever think about not having a child like that, when I see what she's like now.”
But it's easy to say that when you see what she's like now, and of course I don't know what the future holds. We don't know what the future holds. And you don't, you just don't know, do you? |
