...that is the question that Amy Julia Becker deals with in a balanced, thoughtful post over at Thin Places. I particularly like this:
"Knowing that Penny had an extra chromosome would have told me very little about her. It couldn’t even tell me the most basic characteristics–her hair or eye color or gender– much less the distinctive markers that make her her–the things I’ve written about again and again, her determination, her love for books, her inability to sing on key, her pitcher’s arm, her ability to make her little sister giggle. In retrospect, I don’t know how the diagnosis “Trisomy 21″ could have helped us in utero."
Read the whole thing. As with her book, Amy Julia points out how much of this is driven by parental anxieties and the illusion of control.
"Knowing that Penny had an extra chromosome would have told me very little about her. It couldn’t even tell me the most basic characteristics–her hair or eye color or gender– much less the distinctive markers that make her her–the things I’ve written about again and again, her determination, her love for books, her inability to sing on key, her pitcher’s arm, her ability to make her little sister giggle. In retrospect, I don’t know how the diagnosis “Trisomy 21″ could have helped us in utero."
Read the whole thing. As with her book, Amy Julia points out how much of this is driven by parental anxieties and the illusion of control.
