As I was driving along the other morning to drop Sammy
off at the farm where she’s supported for a couple of days a week to care for
the animals, serve in the barn shop and other such farm like duties we were
delayed. This delay was due to slow
moving agricultural vehicles, quite the norm around here especially at this
time of year as the autumn harvest is gathered in. As we were crawling along behind these
vehicles I got to thinking about how important they were even though I felt
held up by them because of how slowly they were going. I had to remember that they also had
somewhere they had to be and an important job to do and just because they looked
different from the cars and other vehicles and moved so much more slowly it
didn’t mean that they shouldn’t be on the road.
Now I never thought that I’d be likening my daughter in
any way to a maize harvester (I think that’s what it was) but here I go: I know that Sammy is never going to be classed
as a high achiever within a main stream culture due to her learning disability,
although she has achieved an amazing amount throughout her life, she has
abseiled down a rock face, had a paid job and traveled independently to name
just a few things. It does sadly however seem that it is all too easy within
our society for her and others to be dismissed and deemed as less worthwhile
because they don’t meet an expected norm.
This finds me asking myself and wondering as to where we would be and
what sort of society we would become without the richness and diversity that
people with Down’s syndrome contribute to their communities and society in
general.
To harvest maize these days it requires a maize harvester
to get the job done, it’s not a job that could be done by something faster
moving. Within agriculture different
machines that move at different speeds and in different ways are required to
farm efficiently as within society different people are needed using their different
skills, abilities and talents to enrich and grow that society. Sammy is never going to have a high flying
job but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t gain satisfaction from what she does
or contribute to her community and to general society. I’ve never known anyone take as much pride in
a neatly swept garden or a cleanly swept yard or mucked out barn as Sammy
does. She also likes to see
supermarkets/shops looking neat, picking up and rehanging anything that has
fallen of a rail or empty boxes that are on the floor. To many these tasks may seem menial but
societies really wouldn’t work very effectively if everybody could or was only
willing to do the same things, a diversity of abilities and skills are
needed. Someone who is good at and
satisfied with sweeping and clearing up after others is of equal value to
someone in a high powered job, they both do things that are necessary for a
society to function, they’re just different.
Like the maize harvester and a seeding machine they are very different
pieces of machinery doing different jobs but complementing each other, neither
one of them is less important than the other. This does not however mean that
people should be denied the opportunity to aspire to their full potential and
it should not be assumed that because someone has Down’s syndrome they are not capable
of achieving what they set their hearts to.
There are actors, models, musicians, conference speakers and athletes,
to name just a few areas of life that people with Down’s syndrome are achieving
great things, assumptions should never be made about a person with the
condition as they are as unique and individual as anyone else. Sammy loves to sweep/muck out, to work on the
farm and to spend time by and in the sea, she also used to love riding and was
an excellent horsewoman (lumber arthritis can make riding painful for her now). These activities are however likely to be
someone else’s worst nightmare as they may love to act to dance to make music
or love fashion. It really is time to
celebrate the diversity and the individuality of people with Down’s syndrome
and not be guided in our opinions by an outdated stereotype of inability.
During Sammy’s lifetime I have seen a lot of positive
changes in attitude taking place.
Parents of children with Down’s syndrome now have more choice about
where their child will receive their education.
Sammy had no choice except to attend a school that was classified as for
the educationally sub-normal. This in
itself was an advancement as it was only in 1970, four years before Sammy was
born, that all children in the UK were given the right to an education. Prior to 1970 children with Down’s syndrome
had been considered as ineducable and came under the umbrella of health
services rather than education.
Terminology has also changed for the better. If a label must be given
Down’s syndrome is a definite improvement on the term used when Sammy was born
and learning disability is a better term than mentally handicapped, with special
needs/additional needs being much, much better than educationally
sub-normal. I can remember my son
saying, while he was still fairly young “Mum, how can anybody say that Sammy
isn’t normal, because if she was any different it wouldn’t be normal for
her.” Children often seem to see things
so much more clearly than us adults and can be so much better at accepting
people for who they are and not making judgement because they may be a bit
different.
Attitudes are changing towards people with Down’s
syndrome especially as more children and young people are given the opportunity
to be seen in the public arena as models and actors etc. and others continue to
demonstrate that there are more similarities than differences between them and
those without the condition. I have to
admit that as much as I have fears for the future of people with Down’s
syndrome I also have high hopes that the myth of the old stereotype will
continue to be broken as people with Down’s syndrome have the freedom to have
relationships, get married, are gainfully employed and people within society continue
to realise that those with Down’s syndrome have an equally valuable role to
play within it.
