"Typical" Child
Last night, I was looking on Craigslist, for a handicapped shower chair, actually, and came across a very disturbing ad. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
It was a couple, with two disabled children, looking to adopt a “typical” child, so they can experience them calling them mommy and daddy. So I suspect their two have fairly severe disabilities, possibly impairing their relating to their parents.
Still. Well, here’s the ad:
My husband and I have two very disabled children, and want very much to adopt a typical child. We love our girls, but want a chance to also parent a child who can call us mommy and daddy, who can go to the beach, who will grow up and get married, etc. We have much in home nursing help with our disabled girls, and do have the love and time for a baby, child, and member of the family. Every agency we explore, says that no birth mother would want to choose us, because we have handicapped children, and it makes us “undesirable”. That is crushing, because we REFUSE to abandon our girls to an institution just to pursue the hope of experiencing parenthood as we had hoped it would be. Please consider a private adoption, if you are expecting and confused. We are a Christian home, loving with each other, and our girls.
It left me cold. This is a Christian family so they say. Yet, they’re obviously not fulfilled having children with a disability, and yearn for a “normal” child. I don’t know what agencies would tell a couple that anyone would find them “undesirable” for having children with different abilities, but, if that is indeed true? Shame on them.
A little backstory. My mother had me nearly five decades ago. Back then, doctors urged her…a mere 19 years old and single, to give me up to institutionalization. How could she possibly care for a child with a disability? Well, she did, and a bang up job I might add. Oh sure, she made mistakes. Hell, what parents don’t? I can tell you that after five grades of going to a special school, where I was not learning squat, and hungered for knowledge, she pushed and pushed hard to have me “mainstreamed” into regular school. By sixth grade, I was going to classes with “typical” children, and eating up what I was being taught.
Having a disability is simply a challenge in life. We all have those. Whether it’s physical, mental, or whatever, life throws us challenges. I believe we are to rise up to those, and become stronger because of them. Can you imagine a life with no obstacles to overcome? I can’t! I’ve learned SO much from having obstacles in my path. And believe me, I’ve had a lot.
What is that communicating to these two girls, that their parents yearn for a “typical” child? That they aren’t good enough? Normal enough? Don’t fulfill their dreams? It seems to me, that perhaps they aren’t focusing on what they CAN do. What they might be gaining by having children with special needs. Clearly this communicates that their children are not good enough for them. Oh yes, they’re loved, but still, they are lacking. Can you imagine if they read this later in life?
Folks, there is no normal. No “typical”. Is it really all that important that a child be able to verbalize that you are mommy and daddy ? Isn’t that obvious?
Well, I just don’t know what else to say. I’m grateful for a mother who had the spirit and guts to raise a child with a disability as if I was any other child. No coddling, making sure I was as independent as could be. I’m so grateful to her for that. Because that would be the true disability, raising a child to think that because they’re not “typical”, they are less than. That they are not capable individuals, who indeed can achieve and be all they can be.
