Not long after Lincoln was born, Sam and I heard a statistic that there is an 80% divorce rate among parents of children with special needs. Now, one of the first things we learned in raising Linc is that you’ve got to pretty much ignore the statistics thrown at you because they just don’t accurately reflect the reality of your child or your life. We’ve seen Linc defy statistic after statistic with his health and his development.
But still, hearing that 80% divorce rate statistic felt like a bit of a marital death sentence. We looked at each other and thought, “Is it going to get so bad we won’t be able to stay together? Just how hard is this going to be?” We knew we were a strong couple and dealing with Linc’s diagnosis had already brought us even closer together, but there was a moment of fear that a few years or decades of parenting a child with special needs could slowly rip us apart.
Like so much about this journey, our experience during the last four years has not matched up to the reality we imagined when we heard that statistic. Caring for Linc hasn’t been an exhausting burden, hasn’t felt like a weight around our necks or a wedge working its way deeper and deeper into our relationship. We get tired, we have frustrations, we fight. Like any couple. Not like a doomed couple on the edge of destruction. Just like two people trying to make it work, failing and falling and getting back up, wrapping our arms around each other and trudging ahead. If anything, I think we feel less doomed since Linc came into our lives than we did before.
And finally, some research is coming out to reflect that reality, the reality that we’ve experienced and that we’ve witnessed in other families like us. I ran across this article highlighting a trio of studies scheduled to be published in the October issue of the American Journal of Medical Genetics that all back up what we’ve encountered in our lives: families that include a child with Down syndrome are happy. Here's a quote from the article that sums up the studies' findings:
"The vast majority of parents said they have a more positive outlook on life because of their child with Down syndrome. And, nearly 90 percent of siblings indicated that they feel like they are better people because of their brother or sister with the developmental disability. Nearly all of the survey respondents with Down syndrome said they were happy with their lives, themselves and their appearance.”
These studies show that parents and siblings live improved lives because of, not in spite of, the addition of a person with Down syndrome in their family. That’s pretty much exactly what we’ve been trying to say with this blog. Not that there aren’t hard moments, not that it hasn’t been an adjustment, but somehow through it all, we’ve come out better than we were before. How could we not feel joy, real deep down joy, when we see this little face staring up at us everyday?
But I think it's also important to note that people with Down syndrome are happy with their lives, too. I know plenty of typical folks who would have a hard time saying they are "happy with their lives, themselves and their appearance" on any kind of regular basis. Just another reason why being normal is so very overrated.
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