Dick Sobsey on parenting and intensive needs

The Agony and the Ecstacy of Parenting a Child with Intensive Needs

by Dick Sobsey

This post is for parents of children or adults with MECP2 Duplication Syndrome but it is also for all parents of children or adults with intensive needs. It is about how having a child with intensive needs changes our lives so fundamentally… about how challenging and sometimes painful it makes our lives…. but also how it enriches our lives and makes our lives better in some ways.  To read more: http://networkedblogs.com/NMw4h

Love no matter what

An incredibly thought-provoking talk on identity, disability, love and parenting.

“what do we validate in our children and what do we cure in them?”

Too dumb to be a mum?

Many stories like this (this one from the Mirror; h/t Velvet Martin) out there.  Does anyone know the legislative basis for these interventions in the UK?  One prong in many pieces of eugenics legislation was “incapable of parenting”–the other was “prospect of transmission of mental defectiveness”.  So this makes you wonder how far we are from that eugenic past.

On Mother’s Day.. the heart warming story of a girl who had to fight for the right to bring up her own child

Strolling along the beach, her young son in her arms, Kerry McDougall prepares for the perfect Mother’s Day – one that last year she could only dream of.

For 12 months ago tiny Ben was in care and Kerry’s life was in tatters – after social workers deemed her both too stupid to look after her son AND not even bright enough to wed her fiancé Mark.

Ben was just three days old when social workers marched into the maternity ward where Kerry was breastfeeding and took him away.

It was the start of a long, heartbreaking battle to become a proper family.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/life-style/real-life/2011/04/03/they-told-me-i-was-too-dumb-to-be-a-mum-but-i-proved-them-wrong-115875-23035451/#ixzz1It5O27Rg

Parenting, testing, disability, autism

In a recent comment on an older post of Kristina Chew’s, “Eugenics, Fear, and Pain” over at Change.org, one parent says:

I found out three days ago both of my children are positive for the PTEN mutation. There is a link between PTEN and autism. I think it’s that one in every 5 people with the mutation have autism–very strong odds. I opted for genetic testing with my son. The triple screen came back very abnormal. He had 1:6 odds of Down Syndrome. I opted out of an amnio. I’m glad I did because he did not have Down’s and I’m unsure they could have told me if he had the PTEN mutation. Since only 1 in 250,000 people have this mutation I highly doubt he would have been checked for it. I didn’t know I had the mutation until 2007 even though I had every sign there is–just no name. We did not do genetic testing with our daughter. I guess the point of this is sometimes problems exist that aren’t detected. No one is guaranteed what society sees as a “perfect” child. My daughter was placed on the PDD spectrum before her second birthday. We didn’t understand the link at the time as this was around the same time as my PTEN diagnosis. She’s so beautiful and smart. The only problem is reaching her through language sometimes but intervention is changing that. Last night she was speaking to me quickly as she does and I didn’t understand her. I slowed her down and BOOM there was meaning. It’s frustrating for her in not being able to get her point across easily but she’s making great strides.

I just cannot fathom anyone not thinking my child’s life is worth it. As someone who has been through 24 operations and 3 diagnoses of cancer by age 30, my quality of life hasn’t been the greatest. My own father once said if he had known what I would go through he wouldn’t be sure he and mom would have had me. I cannot begin to explain how painful that was.