For anbody interested, more thoughts by Julia Hollander

[emkana]

www.motherstory.co.uk/2008/03/

yeah, right, it's the mothers who are to blame, yet again. Grrrr.

"Why don?t they use their parental rights (which are very solid in law) to force the system into helping them?You know what the solicitor said? He said - people are too nice. Social workers turn up in their homes and say - well, you know, nobody is getting any help; times are hard; the Local Authority is on its knees?That sort of emotional blackmail. And so the parents shrug and accept their lot. "

"And because of the complicated and profound emotions involved in parenting, most parents are letting them get away with it."

Cheeky mare.

God she's insufferable isn't she? Me me me me me me me.

I have NEVER shrugged my shoulders and accepted my lot. How dare she. I should introduce her to the mother in my city with a child every bit as disabled as Immie (botched birth too) who has set up a parent group and is ALWAYS in the press complaining about services and providing support for other parents.

And her stuff about benefits.... Why? She had a flexible job. Or was it the flash holiday writing trips she was worried about missing. Or would she have been on benefits because Beardy had done a runner.

Oh she makes me so cross.

Haven't written my paragraph yet for our suggested book. But I think it will be about what life's like when your child doesn't progress as hoped, coming to terms with that and rebuilding your life around that (without having to resort to foster care!)

she so spectacularly misses the point doesn't she on so many scores?

I think its because she thinks she knows just what it's like to have a child with a disability. In fact she knows what it's like in the way a teacher in a special school does. The difference is they usually realise there's a big difference.

god that woman is full of shit.
why doesn't she just just admit the fact that immie wasn't good enough for her.
as for saying parents shrug and accept their lot...BULLSHIT
in the 13 years I have been in the sn world. I have yet to meet ANY parent who does that. and In my part of the sn worl you are looking at 24/7 care FOREVER not 5 f months.
I am fed up with pussyfooting arround this hideous woman.
she needs to shut the fuck up.

(sorry but as you can see she has tried my patience)
and to any of her "mates" who want to come on and defend her
They can shut the fuck up as well.

OMG what a self indulgent cow,
Fueling her ego & no doubt her bank balance by trying to justify why she dumped her dd.

No one ever claims its easy caring for a disabled child but giving them away just isn' an option.

I wonder if she would get the same level of support if she were less wealthy, educated & articulate or would she then be seen as a terrible parent who didn't care enough -its amazing how a few £ in the bank & fancy words can influence peoples opinions.

I find her just too weird to comment on. She seems to have no idea how others would perceive her dismissive and insensitive comments about disabled children. And although she is supposed to Oxbridge educated, she uses so much vague terminology that it's hard to determine her point.

"Why don?t they use their parental rights (which are very solid in law)"

To me, that is just meaningless jargon.

I agree Fio. Ds1 will end up in care someday. I'll be pretty pissed off if she thinks she understands our life or if she thinks she's representative.

Oh Fio I don't think its the same at all as choosing residential schooling/care an older sn child.
My severely autistic cousin went to a resident school but it wasn't his parents giving up their parental rights & saying they couldn't cope with caring for a disabled child it was about finding the best place for him with the best facilities & therapies.
Not just passing him on to someone else but providing the best care for him. But even then they felt guilty & certainly were not shouting from the rooftops about it.

"if you read the book you will discover
how far from easy it was.". This is just another bloody plug for her book isn't it?

I wonder if she's perhaps not getting the sympathy/support she thought she was going to get; I wonder if she was expecting a response from the parents of severely disabled children, along the lines of "at last someone has dared to speak out about how difficult it is, at last someone has dared to put into words how often parents of severely disabled children want to kill them/abandon them/shout that they cannot "celebrate" them in the way we celebrate our other children.". But instead the parents of those severely disabled children have distanced themselves from everything she stands for.

Although maybe she's not justifying it to the world - maybe she's justifying it to herself - one thinks the lady doth protest too much?

for daring to suggest such a sick idea

It's the difference between 'them' and 'us' all the time.

Why is it a good thing that Tanya provides foster care for a low remuneration, while we are all expected to understand that somebody like Julia Hollander can't live on benefits?

Or like the first article that started off with her posh school and the expectations its students had of their lives- how the hell is that relevant to whether you have a disabled child or not? Isn't she saying more or less that having a disabled child is all very well for the proletariat, they don't know any better, they don't feel pain as we do...?

I thought Dickens put an end to that sort of nonsense

FFS. I've tried to be patient but I'm starting to lose my temper.

If she feels that there are these legal rights that parents with special needs children have but are too "nice" to use, why doesn't she spell out what they are?

When I was battling to get services for my son, having studied every line of the 1989 Childrens Acts, I found that one of the problems was that the "rights" such parents had were vaguely defined.

And as to the option of having your child brought up by a carer, apart from the national cost which she vaguely deals with, there is also the question of where these carers can be found; there is a desperate shortage in many areas of people to offer respite care, let alone full-time care.

And who is this Prophet Khalid Gibran that she quotes in defence of her viewpoint? Whatever happened to the vicar who was always popping round for tea and agreeing with her?

I'm starting to get really cross. I will respond to Fio-Fio's request on another thread to put something together for a book once I've calmed down and gathered my thoughts.

PS. How is JH's book selling? Couldn't find it on the Amazon's bestsellers list anywhere.

And how sickening that she positively crows about how little it is costing her child's carer to look after her.

They are obviously women of two different social classes. i wonder if that is something she thinks of.

"If I had gone on trying to care for Immie, I myself would have been living on benefits, and possibly my other child would have had to go into care."

Ah, so it's alright for a disabled child to be put in care but not an NT one?

I don't get the connection anyway. How many of us have 'kept' the disabled child and had to put our other children into care? Where did she get that idea from? Honestly, the woman's on another planet.

Remember she thinks it's impossible for MT siblings to be brought up in the same family as a profoundly disabled child without being damaged

MT? NT!

What's that? 'Mentally typical'?

"Although maybe she's not justifying it to the world - maybe she's justifying it to herself - one thinks the lady doth protest too much?"
as posted by wannabe seems to be very true to me.
she seems to want to blame everyone else except herself.

Very good point Coppertop!

I am suspicious of these people (and am not just talking about the world of SN) who can see calamitous events occuring in the future so clearly.

I remember once seeing an interview in which the woman was bleating about 'being worried about what it damaging my relationship with my husband'.

Oh really? In that case ,bloody well do something about it NOT damaging the relationship.