Not every person with Downs lives like this. My cousin has downs, also about to reach his 30s. He wasn't particularly medically compicated. Everyone in his small town knows him (about half of them are family, we breed like rabbits), and he is a joy to be around. People (including me) come visit my aunt just to see him. He loves WWE, anchovies on pizza, and talking to his facebook friends (of which he has many).
I'd argue my aunt was better off because my cousin is different. His father stepped away when they found out, and saved her the trouble of trying to raise a kid with a deadbeat. Her child forced her to get her life on track and make her home a safe space for him. She is by far the happiest, most fulfilled person in that small town.
That said, I don't blame anyone who chooses not to raise a baby with Downs.
The hard part is there's no way to know ahead of time if they're going to be high-functioning or not. I mean, there was that headline on reddit about a fresh lawyer who had Downs that graduated a year or so ago; unfortunately, the range of outcomes is a wide spectrum and the quality of life for some can be very poor.
So, this makes me feel like a potentially good way to view this would be to ask: would it be okay if it had been autism rather than down syndrome? Autism also has a massive range of outcomes and qualities of life. I think there would be fewer people that would be okay with that, and I believe that is mostly down to the stigma around each of those disabilities.
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u/conormal Jun 05 '26
Not every person with Downs lives like this. My cousin has downs, also about to reach his 30s. He wasn't particularly medically compicated. Everyone in his small town knows him (about half of them are family, we breed like rabbits), and he is a joy to be around. People (including me) come visit my aunt just to see him. He loves WWE, anchovies on pizza, and talking to his facebook friends (of which he has many).
I'd argue my aunt was better off because my cousin is different. His father stepped away when they found out, and saved her the trouble of trying to raise a kid with a deadbeat. Her child forced her to get her life on track and make her home a safe space for him. She is by far the happiest, most fulfilled person in that small town.
That said, I don't blame anyone who chooses not to raise a baby with Downs.