Welcome to Holland

by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...


When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. Michelangelo's David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.


So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills... and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
Copyright © 1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley

This is so so true!!! In 1994 I was booked to go on a trip to the Papua New Guinea and even started to learn Pidgin English. At the last minute, the trip was cancelled and I was sent to Thailand instead. I had NO interest in going to an Asian country but you know what? I LOVED it and went back again 8yrs later.

In 2002 we planned a trip around the world. Hubby suggested we go to USA, again, I had NO interest in going there at all! What was the point of travelling, just to go to a country that we know all about from TV etc etc...boring... NOT!! I loved it! And I want to go back again!!!

I never planned to have a child with DS (although when I was 12 and met a 7yr old girl with it, I secretly wanted a daughter like her ) but I would NOT change it, and if we weren't feeling like our family was full, I'd go adopt a child with DS if I could

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