Emily Kingsley, a writer on from the children's program Sesame Street since 1970, gave birth to her son Jason in 1974.
Jason was born with Down Syndrome. At the time of his birth, it was commonly believed that children with Down Syndrome could never learn to walk or talk.
Emily's work in the following years has greatly helped to change this perception to & to bring converstaions about disabilities into a public forum.
As well as her work on Seasame Street (in which she worked to create an inclusive cast) & other television programs, Emily has also written numerous books & worked in film.
In 1987 Emily wrote "Welcome to Holland", which has been widely published & translated.
I have read it a few times & each time it strikes me as such a simple, powerful & deeply resonating piece that seems to so eloquently capture her experiences, as well as the experience of millions of parents with children affected by disabilities.
I firmly believe that it's a piece that should be read by every parent, if not every person. So if you have yet to read it, here it is...
"I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……
When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”
“Holland?!?” you say, “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”
But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.”
Cx
