Getting Real

 Advocacy, Down Syndrome  Add comments
Jan 172012
 

Oh the drama! It appears as if the Down syndrome internet community has been stirred up like a pot of angry bees! People are disagreeing with one another and unfriending friends left and right! Let’s toss in some moles, trolls and “anonymous” blog commenters to round things out!

Get over it. Be friends or don’t be friends, but own it! Life is too short to take so seriously, be offended so easily and angered over so little!

Let me preface this with just one thing. I maintain two Facebook profiles. One is my personal friends/family/cohorts page and one is strictly for The T21 Traveling Afghan Project. The two don’t mix! I’ve learned to treat the former as a business-type page, sans emotion and/or opinion. Anyone is welcome to join the project regardless of how I feel about them, their blog, their book or the company they keep. Period.

That being said, I don’t care for the two biggest publisized blogs written, independent of one another, by a mom and a dad in the Down syndrome community. I have my reasons for disliking their blogs, which I’m sure nobody cares to hear.

That doesn’t mean I don’t care for them as people. I don’t know them. It doesn’t mean I don’t respect their experience with Down syndrome. I’m not raising their child.

It means we can come together as a united front when it means advocating for our children and their futures, but we don’t have to LIKE one another all the time!  We have to respect one another and be honest, but we don’t have to enjoy every. parent. raising. a. child. with. Downs.

There are a lot of us. Hundreds would disagree with me on my feelings regarding the two previous blogs. Yay! Good for you! Personally, they’re not my cup of tea.

Oh, and the Target ads? The one with the beautiful little boy sporting an extra chromosome? I think it’s awesome that one of “our” kids is in the spotlight, but enough already! Target printed the ad without a huge fanfare or “look what we did” campaign. So why can’t we do the same? Why can’t we just let him be “Ryan, the adorable little boy in the ad” without turning him into the poster child for advocacy and acceptance?

Which is it? Do we want our kids to be treated like everyone else or do we want them singled out specifically based on their extra DNA? Do we want to fight for equality or superiority?

It’s time to make up our minds.

No man should advocate a course in private that he’s ashamed to admit in public.
-George McGovern

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 Posted by CJ at
  • http://www.allfortheloveofyou.com/ Steph

    I’m not familiar with the Downs community and its controversies, but I’m not surprised.  I understand from my partner that things get pretty heated on the gifted child listserv she reads.  Some people just like to stir the pot and when our kids are the topic, it can get emotional quickly.

    • http://www.dontlicktheferrets.com CJ

      Kids are THE fastest way to bring anything to the boiling point!

  • Anonymous

    I don’t understand why there is such a push for “sameness” in various minority communities.  There are a lot of gay people I don’t agree with or like, should I put that aside just because we all fall under the LGBT umbrella?  I support them when they push for marriage equality, or equality anywhere, but that may be the end of it – and THAT’S OK!. 

    I totally agree on the Target/Nordstrom ad thing.  Your last paragraph made me think of the episode of Glee where Sue brings Becky (a student with Down Syndrome) onto the cheer squad and Mr. Schuester tells her she’s being too hard on her after a training session, that she’s not like the other kids and Sue needs to treat her with more kid gloves.  Sue snaps back that it seems to her all Becky wants is to be treated EXACTLY like the other kids and maybe he’s the one with the problem.

    Sure, do I think we need more visibility for kids with all disabilities in commercials, advertisements, etc.  But I also feel like it should be a non-issue.  Just do it and don’t make a big deal about it.  It shouldn’t be a big deal.  I also see it as a no-win for the advertisers.  Don’t do it and you’re excluding a valuable part of the population; or do it and be accused of “using” kids with special needs to make a profit. And a lot of people who will applaud a company for doing something like this will then blast them for including something that they don’t agree with.  What would happen to those same voices if Target or Nordstrom included a family with two moms or two dads in their advertising?  Inclusion means everyone, right?

    Sometimes I’m incredibly frustrated by the one-sided storytelling that happens because everyone only listens to the squeakiest wheel, and because the squeakiest wheels are out there and become popular they become sacred cows.  Which means God forbid you disagree with them, you’re the one with the problem. Even if 100 silent people agree with you, they’ve all become too scared of pissing everyone off to say anything.  How does this further advocating for our families?

  • http://www.oursimplelives.com/ Mark

    Now I gotta go and Google this Ryan kid.
    I don’t think I have any opinions on Down Syndrome at all.  But I would agree with you that you can show examples of all kinds of kids without making a big deal of it.
    Take care.  m.

   
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