Julia Hollander is going to be on this morning on Thursday.

[wannaBe]

have tv on in background and they just spoke about it. also said that if you would like to tell your story you can call them, or email them.

Interesting that Julia is not present for the phone-in. I suspect if she were it would be very uncomfortable viewing.

You are right.

I just logged in to see everyone's responses to the tv where I happened to see JH appear.
Whatever you all feel about her actions (and I really think that you should read the book because JH isnt great at projecting herself on tv, radio but is very good at expressing herself in writing) surely such coverage on a neglected issue (caring etc) must be good. I dont have a SN child but I do have a severely disabled parent who also has dementia. many of the same issues apply and the more these issues are raised the better. Surely?

Having three children the youngest having special needs and only 14 months between the last two I have beeen very interested in some of the replies.
I personally felt that Julia used the 'going shopping' phrase to show just how difficult something as day to day can become a huge hurdle. I also felt that she has depression, maybe post-natal distress at the time and coupled with exhaustion and an extremely disabled child who wouldn't to quote Skyatnight "seem out of touch with reality." I agree with Poochy in that it raises awareness. Many of us know how difficult a parent/carer finds the whole system of requesting help from support agencies respite etc and that there are many many cases where parents are not strong enough to carry on.

The going shopping comment made me laugh that it invoked uproar

I know many women who have had one perfectly 'normal' pfb that feeds 2/3 hourly and sleeps in between that can't get up and dressed and out before lunchtime but JH says it and it's awful? At least she had a good excuse of none sleeping, distressed, fitting child

Phillip schofield asked a q.
But then went onto something else, so JH was not required to answer it.
Fern had just said that parents want it all it be rosy.
Phil said, but that you have to take responsibilyt for how it actually is, that is part of the responsibilyt for being a parent"
No one wishes for a diasbled child. But she should have considered that this was a possibility. I know I have.
Unfortunatley becasue Phil didn't phrase it as a direct question JH did not have to answer that question.

SHAME
Please God, I wish JH would read the 3 threads about herself.
PLEASE GOD.
That would give me great pleasure. Just so that she could get some peoples views on all of this. I am sure she meets lots of supportive people.
I am sure that Tania must have told her. Or her friends. Thye must have, surely ?
That she has caused such uproar here.
She will find out eventually, if not already

AND THAT WOULD MAKE ME VERY VERY HAPPY

I understand that JH is very aware of the existence of this debate and it's content.

I also understand that some of the controversy might well have been fueled by a certain ammount of "tweaking" of the story by the Daily Mail.

For example, I understand that she did not leave Immi at the hospital and head for the nearest tip with her belongings, I am told it did not happen like that at all.

There were also a few pertinent details about her personal life at the time which did not make it to the Mail.

I am afraid we are all going to have to nip into waterstones and pinch the book to find out the whole truth.

How do you know that Talies ?

I don't think people want to buy her book Talies.

so presumably we can accept the lible action against the daily mail to commence iminently?

I will not buy it. if it becomes available in audio format I might obtain it without having to pay for it, but I will not give money to this.

can expect the lible action i mean..

hi Oblomov,

I have spoken to Tania recently.

Hey and I wasn't saying buy it, I said pinch it!!!

LOL

I saw the programme and hope it generates some further debate on the needs of special needs parents as without proper time out for silly things like shopping etc how can they remain human and in touch to continue to care if they are just trapped in a world that consists of just a demanding child, balancing other children and relationships. I take my hat off to them all.

minorityrules on Tue 11-Mar-08 22:45:57
"So the woman has been brutally honest about her feelings, it doesn't take away what we do, nor is it directed at us, it was her feelings....
Some people can't deal with disability. Maybe through ignorance, fear, lack of education or a host of other reasons. These people never speak about it, Julia has."

Yes, and that is what I, for one, find unacceptable. She has published this in a book where one day her other daughters will find it: the fact that their father wanted to murder their sister, the fact that she was happy to stick with a man who suggested this, the fact that she had (at any time of her life!) referred to their sister as an animal. At least, Immie is safe from ever knowing this- but the other two are not.

Having been under stress then is no excuse for publishing it now- they will read that and come to the conclusion that Mummy and Daddy don't really think this is so bad, as they are quite happy to tell the world about it, even though nobody asked them.

How are they going to feel about their own childhood when they read this? Won't they wonder if Daddy would have wanted to put a pillow over their faces if they had turned out less than perfect?

If you have children, IME it is your responsibility not to be quite as brutally honest as this.

(Not trying to suggest that the other daughters' case is worse than that of Immie- just that this admiration for brutal honesty bugs me.)

Firstly, she didn't say Immie was an animal, she said she felt like she was caring for one, I read that as, she had been told her child was an empty shell and was getting nothing back from her. She doesn't say that now, she said it in the midst those traumatic first few months, most quoted was from then

I doubt they haven't gone over some of it, especially with their older daughter, she is old enough to understand how some of it was.

There is a thread on here tonight, a woman suffering a dark depression of some sort, in the depth of depair, saying how she hates her daughter, she is getting support right now, she desperately needs it. If she writes a book in 5 years, will people then chastise her??? We weren't aware of the hollanders at their time of despair but I think they would have been supported

I contemplated a termination with one of my children, they now know this and which one, they aren't damaged by it, they understand why. My mother did terminate a child at a time she was in a bad way. We all know this and why she had to. None of us are damaged. The Hollander children aren't suddenly going to pick up a book one day and discover this

I really can't see it as being so bad. They were in a desperate state, maybe misinformed, definitely not supported, s what that has written a book, all it does is show one side of how disabilty affected one family

hi new to all this i saw the programme this morning and couldn't beleive it i myself have a child called jack who has severe cerabalpalsy and other problems.me and his dad at the age of 25 love him even though we get lack of sleep nearly 6 yrs of constent up and down at night and trips to the hospital and when he has been in hospital i haven't left the hospital to even go home and get changed i pack for him and me. we get a break though or should i say jack he gets wonderful trips to hope house a respite where he can go and enjoy lots of attention and this is when me and his dad spend time with his younger brother who absoulutely loves his older brother to bits. I just couldn't believe that at the end of all this she writes a book u must be joking if i'd ever read her book.

Well, I don't see why people have to write books about their darkest thoughts- not when they have children who may be hurt by reading this. I would be very surprised if some MNs had not had extremely dark thoughts about their children at one time or another, but most of us don't intend to publish them, certainly not under our own name.

"I contemplated a termination with one of my children, they now know this and which one, they aren't damaged by it, they understand why."

Putting a pillow over a living child's face is not usually referred to as a termination!!! I for one would not be terribly damaged if I found out that my mother had had an abortion- but this child was several months old. Most of us see a moral difference between a termination and killing a child- and so incidentally does the law of this country!

The worrying thought that seems to creep into your argument at this point is that killing a severely disabled person isn't really murder, it's more on the lines of a termination.

Please don't twist my words, I was likening termination, something that isn't something people really discuss freely, to a child hearing about a traumatic in their parents lives

The point is they didn't put a pillow over her face, nor did they smash her head against the wall, they were thoughts at a very traumatic time for them and because of those thoughts they put her somewhere very safe. Many people have dark thoughts, whether they are for themselves, their children or other people. Why not speak about them when the time has passed? At least others know they aren't the only ones if they have those thoughts. They are extreme but I doubt they are as rare as we may think

I have my own disabled child and do not advocate in any way euthanasia. I do however have a no heroic measures dnr on her life

Yes Cory,

Murder is murder is murder.

Right, now we are clear about that.

Had JH killed her child, it would most likely have been manslaughter based on diminished responsibility.

Then of course, the GP and any other professional who knew she was experiencing these impulses would have been in the dock with her because at the end of the day they failed to act to keep Immie safe.

I don't think so.....