THAT really is a condition where mourning is appropreate. I mean yeah.....mental disabilty kids are nice and sweet and all....but again they are limited mentally. Especially severe and profound kids...
But I don't understand the mourning of finding out that your kid is blind or low vision or dhh or whatver.
Well, there's always a bit of a challenge in dealing with unexpected change, whatever it is. It's mourning over the loss of one dream and facing the unknown. People with no or little experience with deafness or blindness- or whatever it is- do need some time to learn enough about it to understand it and deal with it, but I think
mourning is an inappropriate response for outsiders, period. Sympathy for the challenges the parents are facing, yes. But mourning, no. And some of those challenges have less to do with the child's issues than with the time consuming issues of dealing with the medical and educational community.
We have a mentally disabled child, and I have no use for people who make pity faces at me and tell me how sorry they are for her. SHE is a happy child and doesn't need their pity. They aren't really sorry for her.they are only thinking of how they think they would feel if it were them. But my daughter doesn't know or care that she is different, and she's happy with her life.
We also have a grandchild who was born with multiple problems. For most of the first year of his life he had a diagnosis that mean he was not likely to live to his teens. We mourned at first, but we really were more interested in enjoying every moment we could have with him, not wasting that limited time weeping over the fact that he might die before he was two. And we weren't interested in other people wasting our time with pointless tears, either. (Happily, that diagnosis was false, and while he still has some issues and has to be on medication forever, his life expectancy is great). His parents appreciate sympathy and understanding for the time consuming nature of the therapy he needs and the idiotic insurance policies they deal with, but they don't want mourning over their *child*.
I have a friend who had a baby born with Down Syndrome. Some idiot sent her a sympathy card. I assume that person meant well, but sympathy cards are for the death of a family member, not for family members who are less than perfect.
