to think that if a couple are both very disabled that they are very selfish to have children

[selfishIMHO]

who end up being their carers?
I understand that some people become ill/disabled or have accidents. But if I had a dibilitating disease and my husband had something chronic too I would npt have children that I could not give a good life to. A life that would mean from a young age they do most if not all of the housework and help me get dressed, wash etc. It's just wrong. Those poor children with the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Having children is not a right.

Yes it is selfish for anyone to have a child who does not have a reasonable expectation of being able to provide that child with a reasonable standard of care - that does not preclude most people with most disabilities for having a child but there comes a point where expecting ??society?? to step in is irresponsible and selfish and cruel to the child. Shit happens and stuff goes wrong - and there should be a safety net for that. And as for schooling/health and all that that?s what our taxes pay for. But when you step far out from the norm - i.e. 24/7 individual care stuff gets expensive and it has to be paid for in the real world - Not sure about cloud cookoo land economics, as I prefer to be a realist rather than a holier than thouist

And to be honest to think there is no bottom to the pot - with the economy is the way it is, is naiveté if I?m being kind or stupidity if I?m not.

where did I say that severely disabled people were having children in order to get free care?If you actually read my posts you will see that I didn't say anything of the sort.

What I said was that if you have a disability severe enough that you require care, and you decide to have a child, you do so in the knowledge that you cannot care for that child. Having a child you know you cannot care for is wrong IMO. That has nothing to do with disability, if you know you cannot care for your own child for whatever reason, you should not have children.

well ifseeing a young carers thing caused post, they dont just take kids caring for patrents..... ds2 is on waiting list as he does help care for 2 sn siblings. headvocattes for them at school, etc. little things but the asd does affect him.

had parents with ld at a chasrity i worked for; 2 hours input a week was all it took to get them gong and they had independence after 2 years; wonderful! Dreams fulfilled etc.

It took my manager ages to get SS to agree to leave that child in the family (not planned afaik) so the idea thast you can have a child and just get x y and z provided doesn't seem to tally, ss prefer adoption ime.

Disabled people shoule be able to expect society to help them achieve as full a life as possible, if that means with a bit of extra help then so be it. That's far better use of public funds IMO than some of the silly things ur council (same fudning pot, its all dealt with at local level) seems to be keen on. But having worked in SN care, parenting support and having 2 sn kids myself, I have to say I've not yet seen it happen more than this one time. Severely disabled people are usually unable to make a fullde cision about sex etc so parenting would indicate rape- I know that's not always the case, there are some high functioning people whose disabilities are physical only but very severe, but proportionately not many I think.

"Disabled people shoule be able to expect society to help them achieve as full a life as possible, if that means with a bit of extra help then so be it."
exactly. If prepared to accept help from the state and think around problems then I don't see why (unless they actually pose a risk to their children) severely disabled people should think they are less ... this word's going to get me pounced on but can't think of a better way to put it...entitled to a full life (including having and rearing children) than anyone else.
I'm fully aware that being a parent is a privilege not a right but it is also a fundamental part of being human and being alive so IMO mountains should move to make it happen.
Agree with FAQ about the financial thing as well but didn't want to bring it up as I thought I'd be slaughtered - although I agree, people on benefits are entitled to be parents.

I agree too, Stealth.

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILD!!!!!!!!

oh and the bit about '' a bit of extra help'' is a smokescreen too - most of us are talking about people with major dissabilites that already need alot of care not a bit of extra help - they would probably need cover 24/7 with a baby/toddler that is not a little extra help

God I have problems getting the same pratice nurse for my ds checks once a month - the turn over in carers in alot of thease situations would be unbeleviable

I agree with Stealth, whilst it is no one's right to have a child, no one else has the right to decide who should and shouldn't have children. We can all think of cases where children have been poorly treated by parents.
In response to Blessing's shouting, it is up to sociey as a whole to support those whe need assistance with parenting, for whatever reason.
OP was offensive, not provocative.

Hmm. Have read all the way through the thread and no one else has mentioned this yet: what about adults with learning difficulties who want children or, indeed, have them? I vaguely remember reading about two people with Downs who wanted to marry and were (I think) allowed to do so.

I agree with WannaBe on this, it's not a right to have a child.

I would like to ask the same quqestion as FAQ about the mechanics of sex with seriously disabled people.

But why shouldn't they reeive appropriate support to have and physically care for children?
I am thinking more about physical disabilities here, the issues around mental illness are more complicated I think

There is also a huge issue here, around how the child deals with it as they get older. Due to my parents disabilities, I was not able to bring friends home, or easily go to friends houses. My parents welcomed it, but I was embarressed of the care they both needed.
I now fear, as an adult, a phone call saying that I need to go home and care for one of my parents, due to the other being hospitalised. One of my greatesr fears is the death of one of them, and me having to take on full caring responsibilities.

You may think I'm selfish, and thats your choice. I am 23, and cared for them virtually full time until I was 13, and then just my dad until i was 18, as he became the full time carer for my mum. I am an only child, and all the caring responsibility fell to me. I understand people care for elderly parents, but both my parents are under sixty, I would like to finish University etc before feeling I need to go back and look after them.

There is the emotional needs of the young person as well as the physical, in the same way as if they parents were alcoholics or drug dependant.

SGB I did vaguely mention it with a couple my old owrkplace supported who were helped to become effective parents over a few years.

Please, who are these people? I just don't know any. The vast majority of people with severe LD I know that are female are on depo provera after menses begins.

The peoplelikely to fight for their rights to have a family are likely IMO to either be capable of learning parenting skills or have a very proactive family suport system.

I would imagine the realdebate is with people with roe physical needs- such as Alison Lapper who needed help to pick up her baby. These women and men are perfectly capable of being active and wonderful parents with intervention that is ultimately on a par with access to shops etc.

Access to a life, really.

Someone said what about the child?

Well I dont necessarily think being a young carer has to be a nihtmare if the situation is well monitored. I really dont think there are many of these famillies- most young carers seem to either have siblings with SN or parents with later onset needs (including things such as alcoholism). Where the kids do exist in that situation the carers provision should be there as aetiology of the problem- pre existing or late onset SN- still requires suport at that level so the provision must be there fr the kids who just fall into the group later on.

Jeffa I dont think you're selfish, honest certainly.

Wouldn't it be better though if rather than preventing people like your parents from becoming parents, adequate support was in place for you? And alternatives for caring also; my friend had to help care for her Mum(early onset alzheimers) and after that her Dad developed the same disease (well not early onset- massive age difference). She had no choice but to care (her only family member remaining had schizophrenia) , and thats terrible. There should be support in place for people to get care without their children giving up their lives: after all if your parents were NT (sorry I dont know their conditions) but elderly you could face the same dilemma.

I wonder if you would have felt the same embrassment ahd you had access to a carers group like the one ds2 is on the list for (SN siblings) where support and fun is accompanied by lots of counselling and self esteem work?

I had a young carers group to attend from when I was about 13. I went afterschool once a week for about a year, but there is the fear that when you are there, something could happen. You might not have to deal with it at the time, but in the long run you will. (ie, my mum fell and broke her wrist at the beginning of my holidays when i was 11. Although we then had someone come in and clean once a week, it was still me who took her to the toilet, cooked etc.)

I'd like to imagine that there is more varied support available now, especially onces that involve counselling. I think it depends on the individual, and there is constantly the idea in the back of your mind that, although you might be having fun, you still need to go back to the family at the end of the day and carry on being a carer.

I think when it is siblings it is different, as so often the parents take on the majority of the caring role, but I don't know. It is probably different for each family, as each young person will deal with things in a different way, and each set of parents will recieve different care packages.

The thing is, if you start saying that certain categories of people shouldn't be 'allowed' to have children, then you do fall into the zone of deciding that the State has the right to take children away, not because of parental cruelty but because the parents are in some way incapacitated, and how exactly do you sort that one out? Because people do have accidents or illnesses they didn't expect, that leave them with mobility issues, loss of sight, incontinence, difficulties in communicating, etc. I think this has sometimes been touched on in discussions of foster care etc - that not all DC taken into care are there because their parents have been beating or raping or pimping them out, sometimes it's because a lone parent has got to spend a fortnight in hospital - who should decide at what point a parent or parents with no family support should have their DC taken off them due to physical or mental health problems.

I have disabilities and I'm a damn good mum

but then again, my best friend has similar disabilities plus other worse ones and is TTC and I do worry...

And at what point would it have been better if they just hadn't been born in the first place?

Why assume that children of disabled parents will be expected to care for them?

There are horribly selfish disabled parents who are full of self pity and expect to be waited on. They feel that their needs are paramount and should always be met first.

But I could rewrite the above paragraph and just omit the 'disabled' bit.

I do not believe that any child should be a carer. Of course children can undertake some caring tasks - that is part of learning to be a compassionate adult. But never should they be a carer. It is the adult's responsiblity to ensure that their own needs are being met by another adult if they cannot manage self care.

This is possible and it does happen. It is bloody hard and a slog. The problem is that any hard won care package can be reduced or removed at any time. A shake up in social services, a budget cut, a re- jig of criteria. All these can leave a family in chaos.

I agree that no one has a 'right' to have a child but that applies to everyone not just the poor or those with disabilities.

I have taken calls from women who speak about their right to a child. Their need to have a child. They are not in a realationship, require 24 hour support, would need assistance to concieve. They confuse their rights to NOT be prevented from having a child with an absolute right to have a child. These women are like the vast majority of childless women. They have no idea of the reality of being a parent. The thing is, they are a very small minority and the chances of then becoming pregnant are tiny. But that doesnt mean they cannot dream and yearn.

The vast majority of the parents I spoke to were in far more 'mundane' positions. They needed small adjustments to be made to enable them to parent. For example a mother wanted to take her kids to school but the council would not fix the stair lift outside of her house - the result? Her elder child had to take the younger kids to school. A father's mobility may have become more limited. His housing situation meant that he could not bath his kids because the bathroom was upstairs. The council were dragging their feet getting the adaptations made to enable him to bath his kids downstairs. And so on and on.

There is no way that child on CR should have been looking after his family. It was dreadful and most disabled parents would have cringed watching it.

But the selfish gene can be carried by anyone.

I did FIo but broadly I would contend that his aprents were behaving unacceptabley maybe abusively; poor ald had the weight of the world and I just felt that his aparents could do something to mitigate that. Again though- I do wonder if he was at a carers group where he got counselling? I do hope so, I can see how it would benefit him immensely.

sorry I must be really dim but I still don't get this scenario

we are talking not about parents who become disabled but parents who are already on a level of disability where they know they cannot care for a child before that child is conceived

so they have a child in order that the child may care for them instead

how do you actually manage this? do you get a 3 week old baby to make you cups of tea and do the weekly shop? if you can't care adequately for a 10yo, how on earth can you keep a baby alive?

if any of these children actually survive to the age where they can become carers this would seem to suggest one of two things:

either the parents were not yet so disabled when the baby was conceived (and therefore were possibly not in a position to foresee that this would happen)

or the parents would also be capable of caring for an older child who needs less help

there is of course a third possiblity: that these disabled parents received adequate help until the child became old enough to cope on its own, but that help was then suddenly withdrawn. strangely enough, I find this one the hardest to believe