20 August 2005

To tell or not to tell.

We talked a bit, my wife and I, on the matter of what to tell people and what not concearning Abbe’s chromosome aberration. I mean, we’re all prejudice. If I say chromosome aberration people hear mongoloid, retarded and so forth. We simply don’t know enough. And to be honest, I didn’t know of many chromosome aberrations but Down’s syndrome, before Abbe was born.

What we don’t want is to give people a set idea of Abbe as a person, risking thet it be self-fulfilling. Like “you become what you’re being treated as”, if you get my point. If we choose to tell, will pre-scool staff, scools, friends and aquaintances see Abbe for who he is or will they be searching for handicaps?

On the other hand, if we don’t tell, they’ll notice anyway. Without a diagnosis, a name for it and an explanation, they might just find him odd. When you know you know. Imagine the amount of explaining one would have to do otherwise.

And yes, you’ve probably guessed what conclusion we came to. So now everybody knows. Including you.

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