You are right. We don't know what it is like to the degree you do. We can know people with similar situations. We can know certain delays in our own children. But we won't know. All I can do is listen and offer support. And I will :)

Thank you for this post and the link.

Thanks for the link, Andrea. Particularly chilling reading after that debate we had with the woman who advocated inducing early live births (at 24 weeks) instead of late-term abortions...

This is a great article, Andrea. Wow. You have really been on track lately pointing to all sorts of great reads and thought-provoking debates. I think every family with a child somewhere off the "normal" track (I know, that sounds weird) has read that article and felt alternately inspired and pissed off about it. It really does not come as a surprise at all to learn that Emily Perl Kingsley also writes for Sesame Street--a place that does not really exist, but doesn't it look great? I think her version of this life is really the idealized one. But, hey, there's nothing wrong with shooting for an ideal, is there?

Moreena--thanks.

I wrote this initially and then thought of postcards to holland and got worried that you might be upset. Or wouldn't like it. So I'm glad that you enjoyed the article (though maybe 'enjoyed' is the wrong word).

No, there's nothing wrong with shooting for the ideal. And like you said, I found it both inspiring and irritating. But the problem I have with it is not so much the article itself, as it's coming from someone who's "been there, done that." It's when it's coming from someone who's baby or child is completely normal yet still feels like they can give you advice or whatever--*that's* what gets me.

I remember when my cousin died (at 5 years old), someone came up to my aunt at the funeral and told her she shouldn't cry or be sad b/c she still had 2 healthy children. Not that he had kids of his own, alive or otherwise, but he still felt like he could tell her what the appropriate reaction should be: Something that made him comfortable.

At root, it's different in degree but not in kind. I've had interactions like those with people in my life, and when I get furious and upset they seem to think it just proves that I really am as crazy as they think. Maybe if more people read articles like this one they'd see that it's not some strange fringe minority, but a common feeling and a common reaction among women who have kids who don't fall on the chart--whichever chart that might be.

I think the real issue with the Holland story, and the reason that it both inspires and irritates, is that parents of these kids have two conflicting desires. One is that their child gets to live as normal a life as possible and doesn't feel that their particular issue is a hardship for the family - and that's where the inspiring bit of Welcome to Holland comes in. We're not freaky families with freaky kids - we're just living in a different place and a normal family, too, in our own way of normal. On the other hand, parents also want it to be recognized that it can be damned hard sometimes. Or all the time, whatever the case may be. We get tired of people seeming to undercut and underestimate our efforts, or the difficulties/pain that our child is facing. And that's when we say things like "Holland, my ass." I've never had someone give me this piece that wasn't another parent in the same boat, but I have had lots of people act as if transplant was the cure and now all her problems are over. If only. So I think that, once again, you have it right on the nose. The problem is not really with the piece so much as who it's coming from.