children of a lesser god...

i read an article in an old issue of femina, called 'children of a lesser god'... it was basically about special children and how some parents struggled to come to terms with the fact that their child was not going to be 'normal'...

what would YOU do, if your child turned out to have an abnormality... maybe a physical disability, a deformity... or a mental problem... or simply something like learning disability... would you abandon the child??

i know, you will INSTINCTIVELY say NEVER, I WOULD NEVER abandon my child for ANYTHING!!

but please give it a thought... 

well..even i would never abandon. they r special to me.

Well my brother is mentally challenged... and my sis had some neurological problems before she passed away... so speaking from experience NO WAY would I ever abandon my child. They are special... they have absolutely no evil in them and can teach you things about life that no one else can.
I know that many parents even today have hard time accepting the truth but the best thing to do is to do EVERYTHING YOU CAN FOR THEM. To nuture the ablitities they DO have.
I can go on and on about this....

I am just thankful that my bro and sis were born into the right family... no one could give them more love.

I do however understand if someone wants to abort a child that may not be "normal" because at times the quality of life for the child would not be great.. some live with constant physical pain. Also I am aware that not everyone is "capable" of takin care (mentally, physically and financially) of a special child.

This post talks about thing I always wanted to discuss. And what better place than DM. I have seen that physically and mentally challenged or disabeld are not getting the respect and facilities as they should. One thing I admire about US is the mentally challenged kids or adult are not mocked at or are even given jobs based on their healthy condition. We have 4 sister companies where we have interdepartmental mail sent everyday. Lady that routes mail to all our companies is mentally challenged. If you see her you won't figure out, but once you start talking to her you can know. Our work place has some jobs reserved for such people and I feel so glad that these people are given opportunity to interact with others and also work and earn and live their own life. I have not seen many such cases in India. There used to be story in our Gujarat text book in school "Mangu" talking about mentally challenged girl and how her relatives (forget about outsiders) treated her accept her mother.Other was the women in Pinjar who was mentally challenged and then rape and they had issued about child custody. I know that was worst.

I am not sure if it's just my observation but i think India needs to grow up and start respecting people who are physically and mentally not that stable..and try to help them rather than laugh and point fingers. I am not sure if it's only me who think this way.

Edited by sowmyaa - 21 December 2006 at 6:52am

Infact we should help these people. We will never abandoned them. We should take some measures so that they bcome independent of themselves

How about if your child were born as a enunch? Someone showed up at your door with a army of enunch's would you?

Obviously someone is giving them up, thats why we see a steady #'s for a while.

That thread that we had in the past had me thinking about this for a while

Edited by sareg - 21 December 2006 at 7:17am

children are a gift from GOD ! (doesn't that say it all?)

ok i will be honest.....will i abandon them...no, i ll love them to death...but with todays technology , it is possible to detect many problems or disabilities in the womb...and if i had choice i would abort such a baby...not because i find him any less but i would like to spare him the pain of being subject to social prejudice and the burden of his obvious disability for a lifetime.
      it might sound cruel but the truth is few people ever understand the pain of the handicapped or the frustation of the caregiver and his/her sibling.
      i have a friend whose daughter has some major faults in his internal organs...she looked normal on the outside. the girl went through 17 painful surgeries in her infancy....the impact of that trauma on her and her family is unimaginable.her very well to do parents were actually asking for monetary help from friends by the end of 10th surgery(they had maxed out on all other sources and that too with a very generous insurance plan) , that was the state of finances.i have never seen my friend smile in last 5 years...she is constantly worried about something going wrong and the girl passing away.even after all these surgeries the doctors are not able to make any guesses as to how long she will live. she is constantly inside unable to eat many things and more than once i have seen her peer outside the window looking wistfully at playing kids. her elder brother(older by one year) has matured beyond his age and has the understanding of a fullblown adult. even if this girl survives, will she ever end up with normal life, will she able to marry, ....things like that are constant issues at my friends house.imagine living with a kid like that for 20...30...50 years and imagine the pain of the kid and you will end up with nightmares.and here we are talking of a disability that is not obvious...add a disfigurement, mental imbalance and the situation becomes even more grave and discouraging . my friend often tells that she wishes she had gone for abortion when the doctor suggested, she would have spared other members of her family this pain