Shouldn't everyone get a Vote?

Why is it that people who are deemed incompetent get no vote? Why if you have alzheimer's or dementia or have a guardian you get no vote? Important decisions are made via voting that have an enormous impact on the quality of your life. Shouldn't you have a say in those important decisions?

I am not saying that the person with dementia casts the vote, but there is a person who is that person's next of kin who could vote on their behalf. I think there should be proxy voting for people deemed to be incompetent to vote.

I know this would be a ripe situation for abuse. It would have to be carefully designed so that it was only people who had nothing to gain from having a handful of proxy votes. A nursing home logically could be considered to be a proxy voter, but they have too much to gain from having those votes.

Perhaps you would have to designate who was going to be your proxy while you still were competent in the case of age-related acquired incompetency. Designate your spouse or your adult child. And perhaps in the case of children with disabilities - that if and when they acquired guardians - that would be decided as part of that procedure.

The problem this presents is what happens if your proxy dies or doesn't stay in touch - then do you lose your right to vote?

One of the reasons (only one)I will never become my son's guardian is because I will never take away his right to vote. He votes with tremendous pride. He chooses himself how he will vote with my support to understand the issues and the candidates. Twice he has been challenged about his right to vote (and he is just 24). I doubt he would have been challenged if he didn't have Down syndrome and look so obviously disabled. How many people who actually legally do not have the right to vote - vote - because no one challenges them?

Voting is a privilege. It is how we make decisions about the future of the place where we live. It is a privilege that should be denied no one.

Is forcing a test for Down syndrome a form of genocide?

If every women who gets pregnant must have a test to determine if the fetus has Down syndrome and the stigma attached to Down syndrome is so extreme that 90% of women who know they are carrying a child with Down syndrome abort - isn't making it mandatory that all women get this test a form of genocide? I think so.

Children are not cookies made of dough that we get to shape and decorate anyway we like. We are given a gift to raise. And too many people just don't understand what a tremendously good gift a child with Down syndrome is until they've gotten over the shock and actually come to experience it.

I was listening to this Harvard professor discuss happiness on NPR. And one of the things that struck me was that he has found that there is a genetic predisposition to happiness. There is a part of the brain that exhibits a change when a person is happy. I was wondering if they could find that people with Down syndrome have a predisposition to greater happiness because their brains are different as there is substance to the idea that people with Down syndrome are happier people.

I won't say my son is never unhappy, or not even at one time been clinically depressed - but overall he is an exceedingly happy person and when crisis strikes he bounces back very quickly. And from observing kids with Down syndrome these past 23 years plus - I'd say it is a pretty universal way of being. Now how lucky is that?

So given the real struggles we face as a family including a member with Down syndrome, wouldn't I really rather not have had to deal with Down syndrome if given a choice? An uneducated choice yes. But the person Teddy is - is all wrapped up in Down syndrome. You can't separate out those parts of him - take them away- and leave behind the person who is Teddy. I think he has unique gifts to give to the world that we would no longer have. He would be just a shell of the person he is today.

So why wouldn't that be OK? He'd probably be just as extraordinary, just in different ways. But I think we need what he gives. He makes sure people remember what is important. His most extraordinary gift seems to be to help people feel good about themselves. It was a gift I saw when he was just a toddler, and became most apparent other parents requested their kids be in the same class as Teddy in elementary school. I'll always remember the mom who said that her daughter felt so much better about herself because of seeing how Teddy was happy being who he was.

Accepting everything life throws at you and still continuing on with a smile (after a few minutes of anger/sorrow) is something I wish I could do better. Teddy forgives more quickly and completely than I can ever imagine doing. I simmer and rage and rarely completely forget. He just has a momentary explosion and carries on.

Teddy is unique. He is not just about Down syndrome. But there are certain characteristics - positive characteristic that are so prevalent among people with Down syndrome that they cannot be denied - or can they - thru genocide?

Life with Teddy

Teddy is the light of my life and my greatest consternation. I do so wish I understood his world as he does. I try, but I end up not being able to imagine how he is as compassionate as he is and also can't do things so many things he seems so close to doing.

OK, none of this make sense unless you know Teddy. He turns 24 next Friday and there is a part of him that is inextricably 24. He spends his time thinking about sex, politics, music, and sports - in various orders. He keeps his stuff neat and clean without discussion. He does his own laundry and never has to be reminded. He cooks dinner many nights and tells me what we need from the grocery store. He is a very responsible young man.

But he is also more like a young teenager - he sleeps for as many hours in a day as I allow. On the weekends it in not rare for him to sleep 12-14 hours. Who needs that much sleep? He goes off to camp for a week- with a weeks worth of clothes - and most of them come back clean. His desires for the future are more like what a young teenager aspires for - a red corvette, a hot girlfriend, his own house with a pool and a place for guys to hang out, and have a business where he goes to an office and does little more than answer phones. Just a tad shy of realistic.

He is also like an older child. He adores me and tells me everything that happens in his life. There are no secrets. He likes to snuggle. He likes to draw pictures. I still have a bit more influence than his peers. He still enjoys me singing the songs I have sung him since he was a baby. This part of him I never want to let go of, but imagine someday I might just have to.

And he is also like a very young child. He can't read and can't make sense of why I seem so aggravated that he doesn't see the consistency that letters in words present. He also can't do math- actually it is more he has very little sense of numbers. Ask him to bring you three things and he is just as likely to bring 2 or 5 as 3. And he cries. Not just cries. But cries in utter despondency over TV shows and movies, hurt animals in the road, accidents we pass by - and if it is more personal it takes him over for days.

Sometimes I feel like I live with a whole bunch of people. But it is just Teddy.

Some of this can be attributable to Down syndrome, but some of it cannot. Some of it is attributable to my hard work trying to support him being the best he can be, but some of it is just who Teddy is. Sometimes I look at my son and marvel at who he is - and other times I look and want to cry because I know what a struggle he has ahead to have the life he wants. My son is the best thing that ever happened to me. Through this blog I expect you will get to know him very well.