Here is an excerpt from an interview with Greg Palmer, author of Adventures in the Mainstream, and father of a young man with Down syndrome.
*For some reason, my husband is always a little miffed at this analogy. :-)If you could give advice to new parents of kids with Down syndrome, what would you say to them?
The first thing I would say is what a very great lady said to me on the day we learned Ned had Down syndrome: “It’s not the end of the world.” Or to paraphrase what Emily Perl Kingsley once said: “You thought you were flying to Italy. You were set for Italy, you’d studied the language, knew the sights you wanted to see. And then you landed in Holland.* Not Italy. A different place. Not necessarily a bad place, just not what you were expecting.” And I would add, “So learn some Dutch, and get on with it.”I would also say this: If you let it happen—and that’s a big but crucial if—there will be joy, and laughter, and sorrow, there will be tragedies but also triumphs. As quickly as you can, get over your self-pitying belief that the gods have screwed you. Embrace people who embrace your child, and ignore the others. Especially ignore those who want to show you how compassionate they are by sharing your tragedy. You don’t have a tragedy, you have a child, and you can get as much satisfaction from that child as you’d get from any child. But there’s no question you’ll have to give more; give more of your life, of your time, of your energy, of everything you have, if you want to make that child’s life a success. In other words, you’re about to find out just what kind of person you really are.
Yes, I think so. Charles/Chuck Swindoll has a related quote that I've frequently seen posted:
ReplyDelete"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gifted ability, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home."
"The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace from that day. We cannot change our past, we cannot change the fact that people will act in certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing that we can do is play on the one string that we have and this string is, Attitude. I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you....We are in charge of our Attitudes."