Welcome to Holland

[TheWhiteCat]

I don't know if people have heard this poem before but I thought it was lovely and I really relate to it so thought I'd share.

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 flight attendant 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.

This is a controversial one, OP. Some people like it, but it infuriates in equal measure.

It's got a well-meaning sentiment behind and and it does capture that there is grief in part of your life going out of your control - but longer-term I find this poem actually a lot more appropriate for situations like the wallowing stage of romantic break-up than SEN parenting.
That was for me more like being specially selected at a lengthy and tedious series of meetings to be one of the Earthlings to greet the alien delegation and then on doing so, found they all looked exactly like me...

Oh I'm sorry I didn't realise it was controversial but I can see why.

I guess I relate to it at the moment as I'm at the beginning of the SEN journey so to speak so it does feel a bit like that and I think it put into words what I'm feeling but I can appreciate how in the long term it becomes less relevant.

I HATE this poem. Raising my child has been the best most rewarding experience of my life and in a strange kind of way it feels natural and like this is how it was meant to be. I’m not in Holland. I’m in Rome and my little guy is right there beside me.

OP, I first heard this poem 6.5 years ago when I first became aware my son was Asd and it actually helped me too. I think some people are scared to openly say that this isn’t the journey they were
hoping for and I completely get that. It’s not the journey I was expecting at all and would I wish things were easier for my son? I absolutely would. But it doesn’t mean I love him any less. I adore him to his very core and I’ve been fighting for him for years. We’re in Holland and it’s seriously hard work at times and overwhelming it but we’ve settled, made lots of fellow Hollanders and it’s now our home 🥰

My take is that I am also in Italy with my darling child, but it turns out that because of the level of open prejudice and hostility displayed to us, and that all of the marvellous things to enjoy are inaccessible to us, it turns out that Italy as a destination is pretty horrible, full of pestilience etc... (this is metaphorical Italy from the poem).

It's awful long to read for the lesson of 'don't worry be happy'.

Twenty years ago this poem was written in large letters on the wall of our child development centre. I would sit and look at it in the waiting room as I nursed my child with complex needs. I hated it then and 20 years later I hate it now.

I hate it too tbh.

I never ever stop worrying about what will happen to my DS when I'm no longer here. And I'm constantly worrying about the impact on my child if I can't get him a place at a local SEND school. Resources and support are massively scarce and I spend a huge amount of my life fighting and advocating for my child. No amount appreciating the nice things about 'Holland' will change any of that.

I understand the message but it ignores a big part of the reality of parenting a SEND child.

Maybe I'd like it if I actually got support and didn't have to fight for the pathetic amount of help my son gets.

Reading that feels like someone patting me on the back saying "good job, well done" whilst I'm trying to carry a grand piano up the stairs to the top floor of a tower block singlehandedly. 😂

So I'm not a fan, but equally if it helps other people then great. We are all unique in what we get comfort from.

I have always hated this poem. I felt it had nothing to do with the sheer awfulness of our lives. Maybe it your child has a good quality of life and can engage with the workd around them you can view things through this rather romantic lense. It certainly does not match my experience.

There is a more realistic version called "Welcome to Beirut"...

www.bbbautism.com/beginners_beirut.htm

It’s a story that highlights coping mechanisms, and the inevitability of rubbing other people up the wrong way when expressing one’s own mechanism for coping.

The name of the “poem” itself is PERFECT for demonstrating its capacity for triggering controversy: “Welcome to Holland”
Only someone who didn’t truly value and respect a country named the Netherlands would call it Holland.
Personally I love the Netherlands and have chosen to visit there more often than Italy (where I also really enjoy, am even taking my kid there during Easter).

I’ve also had delightful flights between Amsterdam and Tokyo where I had the privilege of sitting next to Japanese tourists telling me about the marvellous time they had and that visiting the Netherlands was a dream fulfilled (when you come from a mountainous country the flat terrain of the Netherlands is like a fantasy). I’m actually remembering the literal poems one lady had written about her trip and read to me (one described how her eyes flitted like tadpoles when she saw all the diamonds in an Amsterdam workshop).

Living somewhere is not the same as visiting, and given the choice between going to live in Italy and going to live in the Netherlands… there was a time when I might not have known it, but, heck, yeah! I’m way more suited to life in the Netherlands. Some things you can only know with hindsight. And the best things in life are often completely independent of anything you would actively choose.

I really liked the poem until this bit,

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.

I personally found that bit to be quite dramatic. I’m not in any pain because of the loss of that dream. I’ve embraced it from the get go and move on with life. I can see how others may enjoy the full poem but I found that last bit a little patronising!

Someone gave me this poem who I think it must helped but I really don't like either, it actually made me feel more isolated and that my child isn't part of the same society. But as others have said it seems a really individual one some like it and it helps them and some don't. X

I detest this poem. Some of my friends adore it though. There is a follow up one that I am much more aligned with but I'll never be able to find it now.