The best line in this article was, "Did you know you were having him?"
This was a particularly rude shorthand for "Did you get prenatally tested so you could abort if you knew he was going to have Down syndrome?" Which of course, is also rude.
The author mom says,
“No,” I wanted to snap at her. “It was the darndest thing. I couldn’t figure out why I was getting so fat!” Or maybe just, “Did you know you were having your son?”Sarcasm aside, that is actually right on the money. We never know what challenges our children will present. Medically, socially, academically? How many parents are really and truly prepared for the normal challenges of a typical childhood?
Interesting! If a child is diagnosed pre-natally with Down Syndrome, we know that there will be issues and problems, and we think we have a reasonable idea of what they are.
ReplyDeleteIf a child is determined to be healthy and "normal" pre-natally, that means that... we know there will be issues and problems, we just have no idea which ones they will be.
Basically, we make our own decisions as to what is scary and what isn't, and what fears we are willing and able to face. So the person who said "Did you know you were having him?" was, in a fashion, saying "If I knew I was carrying a child with Down Syndrome, I'd be scared, so I assume you were too".
But you are not me, and I am not you. I'd be scared silly of jumping out of an airplane... but the other day I spoke to a colleague at work, who complained about going parachute jumping and "only" getting to jump four or five times per day. (His preference is to jump dozens of times per day, when he an manage it.) Contrariwise, there are probably things I do routinely that would scare other people.
And we can accept as a given that the things that scare me might not make sense to you, and vice versa... just as my choices of which fears to face and which ones to avoid may well be different from your choices. We're all individuals, right?