You can endure the scorn more than you had ever thought, you can endure on many occasions that you none and assume that you don't care because meanness is really the order of the day but no, You can't stand when, without any logical reason, they do it to one of the people you love most in the world.
Invite the whole class of your eight-year-old son's school, except him because he has Down Can you imagine it?
Sawyer's mother lived it, his heart broke when he saw the sadness in Sawyer's eyes and He wrote on his Facebook wall an open letter to the parents of the boy who was making the party. The letter they read it themselves and thousands of people around the world and shared with her their own stories of intolerance and misunderstanding.
And in the end, the parents of the other child talked with their son about it and also understood that having Down is not a logical or sensible reason to exclude a classmate, from the social life of their own child and They prepared a second party to which of course Sawyer was also invited.
There are stories that start very badly, with a lot of pain without any sense but that later serve for everyone to learn and draw our own conclusions.
Jennifer's letter, Sawyer's mother, certainly helps a lot to put herself in the child's skin because He did not write it from anger but from the pain of seeing his son excluded at a partner's party only his son, while inviting all other classmates, the other 22 children who share a classroom with Sawyer and many whom he considers his friends.
“I know it wasn't because he was a bad boy (he refers to his son Sawyer). I know it was not because it is not fun. (...) The only reason he decided (he addresses the parents of the child celebrating the birthday party) that it was okay not to invite my son to his son's birthday party is because he has Down syndrome. ”
And that ... that's not a reason.
The injustice of prejudice
Nor was it a reason to leave only one child at his birthday party just because he has autism. A story that we also talked about from this page at the time and also had a happy ending thanks to social networks and its media impact.
Jennifer Kiss-Engele also writes this open letter from the pain and from the perspective that perhaps she should have done more about it to prevent or avoid a similar situation. It is ignorance and therefore prejudices, which have led to this situation and she assumes that maybe she should have talked to the parents of her son Sawyer's classmates to banish misconceptions about the Down, something other parents do with children with Down in other schools.
Perhaps that is why Jennifer's letter has been so viral because she does not face the prejudices of the other parents but tries to understand them, in fact she points out that when she learned that her son had Down he thought of his other children and did not know well how they were going to react, until Sawyer reached their lives and everyone learned to love and respect each other, it was not so complicated and now Jennifer recognizes that they have learned a lot and made them better with others.
“Even if he sees that he has Down syndrome, it doesn't mean he doesn't want to have friends. This does not mean that you do not want to have friends. This does not mean that you have no feelings. This does not mean you don't like going to birthday parties. People with Down syndrome want the same things as you and what you do. They want to have close relationships, they want to feel love, they want to contribute, they want to have a meaningful life and they want to go to birthday parties ”
This is what Jennifer expressed in her letter, after reading it it is clear that the difference too many times is only in the eyes of the one who looks, don't you think?
Via and Photos | Jennifer Kiss-Engele Facebook
In Babies and more | A father says his son's Down syndrome is the best thing that has ever happened to him | "The story of Jan", an emotional documentary that shows the daily life of a child with Down syndrome | Happiness does not understand chromosomes: World Down Syndrome Day
