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SN children

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Original poster

I have read the Hollander book now

emkana · 2008-04-15T21:21:38+00:00

1) Julia Hollander has very fancy ideas about the wisdom and culture she can fill her children with, and believes that the taking care of physical needs, which would be the main aspect of caring for a brain-damaged child, is not parenting. 2) Her husband Jay seems to be a complete nutcase who had frequent thoughts on how best to murder Immie. 3) having read the book I have a teeny tiny bit of sympathy for her because it sounded as if she might have kept Immie if there had been an ounce of help and support from her husband and/or family. But Jay did not only not want to care for Immie, he wanted to kill her. And her parents told Julia point blank that she could not expect any help from them.

22 replies

emkana · 15/04/2008 22:21

Julia Hollander has very fancy ideas about the wisdom and culture she can fill her children with, and believes that the taking care of physical needs, which would be the main aspect of caring for a brain-damaged child, is not parenting.
Her husband Jay seems to be a complete nutcase who had frequent thoughts on how best to murder Immie.
having read the book I have a teeny tiny bit of sympathy for her because it sounded as if she might have kept Immie if there had been an ounce of help and support from her husband and/or family. But Jay did not only not want to care for Immie, he wanted to kill her. And her parents told Julia point blank that she could not expect any help from them.

OP posts:

yurt1 · 15/04/2008 23:07

Did you pay for it

Gosh that sounds like quite a rollercoaster. Did you feel her parents were like that because of her brother's death? I thought what she said about her brother being 'allowed' to die was key. How difficult.

Point 1 sounds interesting too. I suppose that explains the youngest being the sibling they had hoped for in Immie.

Original poster

emkana · 15/04/2008 23:10

Got it from the library.

She goes on a lot about taking her older daughter for nature walks, singing to her, making music, cooking, talking about her travels, all htat, and having Immie and not being able to do any of that stuff with her (or thinking she couldn't) she was just at a loss how to be a parent to her.

You don't really find out enough about the parents to know what their motivation was. Might be a generational thing as well though? I know that my parents always said that a home would "surely be the best solution for a very severely disabled child"

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yurt1 · 15/04/2008 23:14

Gawd - she does have a very clear notion of parenting doesn't she? I suppose she thought it was her 'right' to get that experience or something. I think reading that would irritate.

JH is always banging on about Immie needing lots of people to care for her and yet most of the time she's cared for by one person (who also cares for another severely disabled child or 2). I suppose that fits with the home thing. In her Radio 4 interview she seemed to think that Immie needed trained nursing care more than parental love. Sad.

Original poster

emkana · 15/04/2008 23:18

I found one part very sad where she said that after Immie went to live with Tania she came back to them one day a week and that they ended up basically ignoring her because they didn't know what to do with her. She says in the book you can't take Immie out anywhere... em why? But I think because Immie has no understanding JH feels it's pointless.

Sad also that you can feel in the book that there were some indicators that things were getting easier but then the diagnosis came and they, esp Jay, were not willing to give it another chance.

Absolutely chilling to read about Elinor's reaction to Immie leaving, how upset she was when Immie woudl go back to Tania's house after a day spent with them.

OP posts:

yurt1 · 15/04/2008 23:21

She sounds totally clueless doesn't she. She could have been flicking through Rompa catalogues. She took her into a TV studio Sad that they still see so little value in her.

I want to read it now. Will have to check out the library as I don't want to spend money on it!

heartinthecountry · 16/04/2008 13:46

"taking her older daughter for nature walks, singing to her, making music, cooking, talking about her travels"

How sad that she didn't feel she could do this with Immie, or that Immie wouldn't get anything out of it. It sounds pretty much exactly the stuff you should do with a child with severe disabilities.

Mamazon · 16/04/2008 13:52

I do think that Ignorance played a huge part in teh decisions the Hiollanders made.

Oblomov · 16/04/2008 13:57

Very interesting.
Mind you, just from your comments, I don't think I have leant anything that I hadn't 'presumed before' though. Do you feel you have Emkana?
Do you see her/ it all differently, having been 'enlightened'.

expatinscotland · 16/04/2008 13:57

I don't. She's WAY too educated and clever to claim ignorance.

She was an adult with every advantage and no SN herself.

I feel zero sympathy for her with regards to beardy. She's just as much to blame for fobbing off her kid as he is.

bullet123 · 16/04/2008 14:00

Surely she could at least have sung to Immie? .

oiFoiF · 16/04/2008 16:48

I agree with expat tbh. I felt guilty because when I saw her (JH) on tv I did see a real person and believe it or not I did try and see the best in her, thought about how I might have felt if my husband and family had been the same etc and how difficult that would of been for her. I dont understand her though and I dont understand why it has to be portrayed as 'normal' on tv/newspaper/madia bla blah. I dont understand why she has to be seen as speaking for us poor 'too nice' mums of severely disabled children

I feel wretched that disabled peoples rights took a backward step through the protrayl of this book in the media. This may have not been JH's intention for the DM inparticular to report it the way they did but when one writes about something so sensitive one has to take into account that it would be misconstrude on a 1200 word article. The fact people had fought and wanted their disabled children at home generations ago and at last we could, at last it was 'normal' was never mentioned once, it was never even acknowledged. Yes there isnt enough support and social services take the piss but fgs THEY ARE OUR CHILDREN. This our life, this is our family, this is what is NORMAL to us. None of that was ever mentioned and I am pretty sure JH has no idea of what can be normal. the only normality she knows is her own and thats fine, but dont speak for the rest of us - the majority

oiFoiF · 16/04/2008 16:53

I think I ought to put a disclaimer on all my posts that I actually have awful PMT

expatinscotland · 16/04/2008 16:58

Bravo on that second paragraph of your post 16:48:32, oiF!

Very, very well put!

ancientmiddleagedmum · 16/04/2008 17:02

I think you make a very good point oif, despite the PMT. I had not thought of it like that - that JH is actually backward-thinking in just abandoning her disabled kid, as that's what automatically happened in the old days. There is a woman next door who, when I was talking about my autistic DS, mentioned that she has a Downs syndrome brother. Yet she never mentions visiting him, or he coming to her, so I can only assume he is in a home too. And the actor Richard Burton had an asd daughter, Jessica, who was put in a home at an early age in the 60s. And the playwright Arthur Miller was discovered to have abandoned a downs syndrome child in a home many years ago - the writer of such beautiful, sensitive plays, yet he just sent a child of his own away despite his wife's pleas! So yes, it was the norm then and we are meant to have moved on - yet JH is dressing up her story as something new and different and honest. No, it's not. We're supposed to have moved on from chucking children away like a defective toy.

ancientmiddleagedmum · 16/04/2008 17:05

And I have raging PMT too - the thing that's annoying me most this Easter holidays: "normal" mums making a big very vocal deal about what a wonderfully creative and inspiring mother they are - "now Jocasta and Octavian, after we've had our babycinos, we're going to go and look in the library for some lovely books and then shall we walk back by the river and feed the ducks". Yeh, like fxxxx, we all know they're off to Mcdonalds!

Oblomov · 16/04/2008 17:30

Actually, that is a very good point. The book, the tv shows, the radio shows, was presented as a new liberational, women you do have a choice, kind of thing.
But actually is is very archaic.

cyberseraphim · 16/04/2008 18:12

I think many mothers see their children as a way to showcase their own talent - 'My child is wonderful because I'm a wonderful mother' and are frightened that an SN child won't give them the raw material to 'develop' the right sort of child - the one that everyone admires and adores and is obviously the result of choosing the right parentlng/feeding/s[eeping philosophy.

yurt1 · 16/04/2008 19:19

I don't have PMT (although I have stressed holidays T) and I thought you were spot on Fio.

Original poster

emkana · 16/04/2008 20:13

After reading the book she seemed a teeny tiny bit more human than she appeared before.

The one thing I did think is that maybe she doesn't have as much money as I thought she had, which kind of negates the comments of "she could have bought in care"

Still horrified by the whole thing though.

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yurt1 · 16/04/2008 20:43

Doesn;t she live in North Oxford though? Where house prices are enormously expensive..... I mean there's poor and there's poor iykwim.

I don't think anyone can buy in the sort of care immie needs unless they're multimillionaires, but most fight for it.

Original poster

emkana · 16/04/2008 22:36

It says in the book she was renting, but yes I know what you mean.

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oiFoiF · 17/04/2008 07:33

she didnt write about her expensive holiday to stokholm etc?

She was bleating on about people dont know what poverty they have lived in. She is the one who does not know what poverty people live in. She should go and live in a two bed council flat in North London for a week and then decide whether she is living in poverty or not

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