"Normal." Now
there's a loaded word. Does it mean whole? Healthy? Happy? Average? Is it something to be aspired to, or something to overcome? For many parents of children with special needs, "normal" is the lost dream, the gift that was taken away, the goal that will never be reached. For other parents (or maybe the same parents, on good days), the ways in which their child differs from the norm are the very things they find the most charming, or fascinating, or inspiring, or unique about their child, and the thought of losing those qualities may tug at the heartstrings, too. Is hoping that your child might one day be "normal" a betrayal of the child you have right now? Is accepting the child you have right now a betrayal of that child's potential? Those are questions that keep parents up nights, and keeps them arguing on internet message boards and e-mail lists and comment queues, too. The Joy of Autism blog posed the question outright in a recent post titled
"If You Could Make Your Autistic Child 'Normal,' Would You?" and I think it's worth asking of all parents of children with special needs, regardless of what those needs might be. If you could make your special-needs child normal, would you? Pick one or more answers from the poll at right, or click on "other" and explain yourself in the comments.
Comments
My dd has Down Syndrome- for ME I would not change her a bit.
I would miss her as she is terribly.
But I would need to buck up and go ahead and do what I think she would want, and she strives very hard to keep up with everyone, so if I could do that for her, I would. In a heart beat… but it would be with a breaking heart on my part.
With all the current research going on regarding DS, this question may actually need to be adressed sometime down the road.
I would definitely change my son in a heartbeat. His problems are very severe, and I think they are medical problems. The midwife told me at the hospital to go into the hottest shower I could stand and stay as long as possible. I stayed about a hour, and felt faint by the time I came out. They realized quickly the fetal heart tones had gone way down — but we don’t know how long it was this way, because I was in that stupid shower. They put me on my side and gave me oxygen and called down for an emergency C-section. Too late, suddenly labor speeded way up — my body must have known baby was in danger, but most of the damage was apparently done. He was put under lights for his low body temperature and in spite of all this, was given the Hepatitis B shot with mercury a few hours later. I’m sure this is what caused his mental retardation and autism. Why wouldn’t I want that changed — I feel his natural level of functioning was taken away from him! Of course I’d get it back for him if I could!