When People Judge Me for Having More Children After My Son Was Born With Disabilities

I have been blessed to be Mommy to my son for nearly six years now. For me, parenting has had more than its fair share of ups and downs. While my friends are toting their kids to karate and ballet, I am taking my son to one of our roughly 8-10 hours of therapy a week. My son’s first diagnosis came eight weeks into my parenting journey. There I was a new mother, scared my child might die, unsure in my ability to provide all that my son needed and determined to handle whatever may come. Many words and strings of letters joined that first diagnosis over the last five years. Conditions called epilepsy, cerebral palsy (CP), language delays and finally autism. It was during these early weeks post-diagnosis (or the PD period as I jokingly call it), that I found out I was expecting my dear sweet daughter.

While most pregnancy announcements are met with joy or at the very least an expected “Congratulations,” my announcement was met with a slew of “Are you ‘crazy?’” or “You are going to abort/adopt, right?” At the time I was unaware there are many people who believe that once you have a child with special needs, you are expected to not have any additional children. While my son’s condition is not genetic, it was assumed that my then-unborn child would be like her older brother. After her rather unremarkable birth, I received comments of how beautiful she was, followed by “So you’re done with kids, right?” It was assumed my daughter’s healthy birth was the fluke.

Even as my son and daughter grew and my son made progress beyond all of the expectations originally set by our doctors, a stigma still lingered that I was wrong to have my daughter and raise her with her disabled brother. When my younger son arrived much in the same way his sister did, I was really “pushing my luck.”

It’s funny in a way, that those who do not have children are often the most opinionated about how a child should be raised. I was being unfair to my daughter and younger son by bringing them into this world to be “burdened” by their older brother. It was unfair to them to share attention and love because their older brother had so many needs. They would be embarrassed. They would resent their father, their brother and me for all of this. The most common judgment I have heard over the years was that I should have never had other children, because they might have been like my eldest — because everyone knows that a non-genetic condition is likely to happen again.

As I write this, I am awaiting the birth of my fourth (and last) child. If he is healthy, I will be blessed. If he is unwell or has special needs, I am still blessed. Every child, no matter what their strengths, weaknesses, needs, ability, or diagnosis is a blessing. All of my children are a blessing, and no social stigma about disability will ever change that.

The Mighty is asking the following: What’s one thing people might not know about your experience with disability, disease or mental illness, and what would you say to teach them? If you’d like to participate, please send a blog post to community@themighty.com. Please include a photo for the piece, a photo of yourself and 1-2 sentence bio. Check out our Submit a Story page for more about our submission guidelines.