Superintendent’s Chat

Richard J. McClements, Shonto Preparatory Schools

The following is a very beautiful description of one mother’s account of what it’s like to raise a handicapped child. The publishing source is unknown, but it is entitled, “Welcome to Holland,” by Emily Pearl Kingsley.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a

disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique

experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like

this…

When you are going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous

vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make

wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michaelangelo, David, the

gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian.

It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack

your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The

stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?!” you say. “What do you mean Holland? I signed on

for Italy! I am supposed to be in Italy. All of my life I’ve dreamed

of going to Italy.”

But there was a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland

and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven’t

taken you to a horrible , disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine,

and disease. It’s just a different place. So you must go out and buy

guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will

meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It’s just

a different place. It’s slower paced than Italy. Less flashy than Italy.

But after you’ve been there awhile and you can catch your breath, you

look around and you begin to notice that Holland has tulips; Holland

even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they’re

all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the

rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go.

That’s where I planned to go.”

But if you spend the rest of your life mourning the fact that you didn’t go

to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely

things about Holland.

Every child is indeed a gift from God. Like the lady who landed in Holland, we don’t always deliver the child we expected. The brilliant scholar doesn’t always have the child who learns easily. The beauty contest winner doesn’t always have the child with the attractive appearance. The All-American college fullback may have a son who is the 100-pound weakling who gets sand kicked in his face. The minister’s son may be the worst behaved child in school. The hardest working man at the plant may have the laziest child in third grade. The child of a policeman may be in constant trouble with the disciplinary rules of the high school. Then too, child number two doesn’t always measure up to child number one. You ask yourself, “How can this be?” All that we ask of you is that you love your child unconditionally, regardless of any shortcomings, and support the efforts of the school district to help that child to become all that s/he is capable of being.

Every school district wants to make a difference in the lives of children. We, in the Shonto Preparatory Schools understand that every child is special and unique. We hope to welcome and educate all.