I've been communicating with a woman and now her boyfriend on my sex support site about her various medical conditions and my concern for their child. As her boyfriend gets more detailed about her various mental illnesses (she is an anorexic cutter with borderline personality disorder who is now in hospital with myocarditis) - I find myself saying things I feel need to be said to protect the child, but feel very unaccepting of the mom and who she is.
Can a woman with a mental illness be a good mom? Of course she can.
Is this still true if she refuses to get counseling or medication to help her, and facing serious medical complications, and is having suicidal thoughts? I'm not sure, but I think not.
If you support a person's right to refuse to be mediated or to get counseling when they have a mental illness (as I do) - then why is it different when she has a child? Does a seven month old child trump what a mom thinks is best for herself?
Is it the responsibility of a woman who is a mother to subject herself to medication and counseling if she becomes a mom? If she thought it was best for her before she became a mom why is it different after she becomes a mom?
Is it ok to take risks when you don't have another person to be responsible for? but what if what the medications do to you is an unacceptable risk and you think they will make you a bad mother?
Is it OK for a mom to feel suicidal? Is it OK to be a cutter or a have a diagnosis of some sort and refuse treatment, but once you feel suicidal that means you have to accept help?
If you have a history of feeling suicidal, should you not be allowed to have children? Does everyone have the right to conceive, to parent? Is it unfair to prevent a person who hasn't done anything wrong except to happen to have a mental illness from having a child? Isn't that like punishing someone for what you think they will do rather that what they have done?
But then there is the child.
Do we as a community of adults have the responsibility to take educated guesses about how fit a person is to parent? If that is the case then what other people should we make educated guesses about? - women who are poorly educated? women who are racist? women who are unmarried? women with labels of mental retardation?
How do we know who makes a fit parent? I am sure there are women who fit every "typical" label that exists and can still not be good at parenting. Or can anyone be a 'good enough' parent if we all surround our children in our communities with support? Is it too much to expect any mom to do it all?
So is the answer for this mom I am trying to help is to say - it is your choice not to get treatment, it is your choice to live with your mental illness without medication, but if that is your choice you have to accept help/ intervention from the community that is concerned with the welfare of your child? I wish I knew.
Showing posts with label Parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parenting. Show all posts
Monday, July 23, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
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?
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?
Friday, July 13, 2007
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.
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.
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