Mail on Sunday Magazine

[lottiejenkins]

I found this article today..........I thought it was very moving,,,, what a decision that lady made... dont think i could do it though!
www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/you/article.html?in_article_id=522925&in_page_id=1908

Taliesintraction you really are a shit stirrer.

My ds is a diamond and not sn. Even I lose my patience and have threated to send him in a box to China.
Come on now

There's a big difference between being taken to the end of your patience by a child and abandoning them in a hospital.

Yes, I've been at the end of my patience many times - I've had severe PND three times now, once after a missed miscarriage. I'm currently pregnant and have had to cut back on my medication for the first trimester and it's no easy time.

That's why I aske for HELP to cope. Not give up, tuck tail and run at the first sign of trouble because you know what, I chose to bring those children into this world.

It is not their fault that I am ill or that one was born with SN.

It is my obligation to do my utmost to love and protect them, otherwise, I really have FA business having children at all.

I find this woman and her husband revolting and chilling to the core.

Yes, it was India Knight who commented about her in her column in the Sunday Times.

India is also the mother of an SN child AND has other children as well.

Jh got rid of her child at the first possible opportunity. After 5 months. Her experience of caring for a sn child is very limited. My ds had colic and it was awful, the crying, for months, but I mean......
its just not comparable.

well said expat

Oh what utter rot.

Self righteous my backside. I have repeatedly said on here that at some stage my son will pass into residential care (not to a foster carer who might be revolted by him I add).

Where has anyone condemned someone for not coping? I condemn Julia for writing about her child like and animal. Still. I condemn her for writing that she finds it difficult to see value in her daughter's life. I pity her for not being able to see past her own daughter's disability.

That's my opinion and I don't suddenly become not entitled to it because I haven't cracked up under the strain of a profoundly disabled child.

She has not beeen criticised for not coping.
Show us where that happened. Quote it please.
I think you are wrong.

I really object to her writing about disability in such overriding negative ways and then claiming that she represents the likes of me. She doesn't and she never will. Not until she learns to find value in those who are profoundly disabled.

Perhaps she has already? Well then perhaps she should write about that. If she only presents the negative side then that is all I have to judge her on.

tbh, i think all the sn parents have got a right to be self-righteous (i am not one myself)

I am quite disturbed that there are foster carers who are happy to admit to being revolted. Aren't the foster carers the ones that are supposed to be there for the julia's of this world that can't cope? No wonder most parents with sn can't imagine themselves leaving their babies in hospital if that's what their precious children will be subjected to.

Well said yurt.

Bravo, yurt!

The comments that have disturbed people the most have been direct quotes from Julia herself, in extracts from the book, or from complete interviews on WH, or her blog itself. I think some of the journalism, DT in particular, has been distasteful, but it's hard to dispute Julia's own words. Her descriptions of Immie as "an animal... a rag doll..."

"She now has another sister, Beatrice, who is the lively, challenging companion we hoped Immie would be".

"How long would it take for her to show that she loved me as I loved her?"

"I have accepted that Immie is as she is; I take her to music therapy sessions; I visit her when she stays at the local children's hospice. Now that she smiles, I can smile too, but I cannot celebrate her in the way I celebrate my other children. Always beneath the surface of my love is the black hole of that scan.

It is these words, and many more, that have caused this - nobody, in roughly 600 posts has condemned her for not coping. It is the clear indication that she is, in your words jonkat, "revolted" by her child. I think that has appalled all of us, whether parents of sn children or not, and that she has written a book which appears to consider that attitude acceptable, even brave, is abhorrent.

Yurt1

Please don't take this the wrong way but there is resi care and there is resi child warehousing.

There are foster carers and foster cashers.

Look long and hard before you write off one over the other.

Oh Turquoise what a fabulous post. That's it exactly. And I can't read the line 'but I cannot celebrate her in the way I celebrate my other children' without feeling an icy cold shiver run down my neck.

You make a valid point Wannabe. My DS is very challenging, very disabled and very hard work. He can be rewarding and affectionate but is also unprediable, exhausting and has driven DH and I to the brink of despair. His experienced and wondferful day care respite lady states that he is the most challenging child she has ever cared for and won't have him unless her DH is present as he is a two-person "job."

It is because of this that I have an (until now) unspoken fear of him being looked after (for more than a few hours or days not that we get that much respite!) by anyone outside the family/close friends. Nobody else would have the bond of love that DH and I have. So how can they be expected to treat him properly when he can, quite frankly, be such hard work and so obnoxious? Who else could be expected to cope with violence and the smearing that we've learnt to live with with?

Also, disabled children in care are SO much more at risk of abuse (particualrly sexual) than other children because they find it so much more dificult/impossible to tell. When I came across stats about this in my course work I was horrified (and terrified) for DS's future because, like Yurt, I see a future where at some stage, residential care/college will feature. And I feel as if I will be sending him somewhere where he may suffer mistreatment. Better that DH and I get run ragged and suffer than risk than ever happening to him.

Oh FGS Talies I'm not stupid. Stop being so bloody patronising.

Rest assured when and if ds1 leaves the family home (we're aiming for 19 at the earliest btw) it will only be for excellent provision, and I'll give his destination a little more thought than JH managed.

Has Jonkat gone ?
Maybe she regrets her choice of words.
I certainly hope so.

I think you will find that Jonkat was quoting a parent of a child with SN (not JH either) when he used the word "revulsion".

And when/if he leaves the family home it'll be because it's too much for one person so I'm not sure how foster care could really help our situation.

Well said Turq.

And Talies, don't you think we know that? But provision and financial circumstances mean that people often cannot pick and choose their own choice of residential care.

Good on you Yurt,

and no i was not being patronising,

believe it or not I was trying to help.

This is what jonkat said:

"As for the breast pump thing, which of us has not (at some dark hour of the night) felt revolted by what we have produced ? Be honest now...........OK I know I foster ours and did not give birth to them so it is very different for me."

And actually whether or not she meant it as a quote I find the expectation that she has that we're all revolted by our children utterly chilling.