- Joined
- Apr 8, 2019
I don’t feel comfortable determining if anyone is happy just from what I see online, it’s a very relative thing.
But Hotwheels certainly managed to build a life for himself, which is about as good as it gets for most adults. I think not having female companionship, and being a virgin, was an issue years ago that made him unhappy, but moving to the Philippines allowed him to afford prostitutes and I would assume assistants to help him with daily life. Maybe he’s even found a girlfriend idk, but I hope so.
I’m not casting any aspersions on you. I’m glad you’ve found a way to lead a happy life with your condition. If your son is 25 there wasn’t early genetic testing readily available to try and avoid passing it along to a child. Fredrick was certainly writing that essay to address what’s available now thanks to science.
However one of his quibbles was his mother had multiple children, some with the condition, some without. She was never really able to care for any of them but kept having them anyway. The govt provides money and benefits for such children. In loving household that cares for a disabled child properly the additional money probably doesn’t even cover all that’s needed, but for a parent who doesn’t give a shit it’s a gravy train.
Basically for a certain type of person the govt is incentivizing having disabled kids instead of trying to prevent it. (This goes well beyond OI. There are families who try to get kids Dx with autism simply for the extra money they get from SSI.) For some people using disabilities, real and faked, to generate income is a way of life.
I think his idea of incentivizing not having kids if you are disabled is interesting. There’s a great danger in trying the ban any group from having kids, the famous slippery slope. But instead of some govt eugenic overreach or punishment instead let parents benefit/be rewarded for making a decision to not have kids if they suffer from or are a carrier for a debilitating inheritable genetic condition. There will still be disabled people because many conditions are flukes or mutations, but it would reduce the number. Reducing the preventable cases means more money and services available for living disabled people.
Everyone wants to be loved, so yeah, I can see why he'd have been unhappy before. Maybe he's happy now (I hope so) and I am misreading it, but I think most adults (even non-disabled) with 2 shitty parents and a shitty living situation would be happier after some therapy.
Not only was genetic testing not readily available, but misinformation about our condition was also rampant. We were told multiple things that science now knows were untrue that affected decisions we made.
Absolutely! Sadly, parents using their disabled children as meal tickets is not uncommon. It's disgusting. Government agencies don't investigate or prosecute it, maybe because it's difficult to prove, I don't know but something needs to be done.
I think his idea of incentivizing not having kids if you are disabled is fantastic. I'd much rather pay someone to not have children who will suffer (because they are uncared for or because of their conditions) than pay them to pump out more and more babies.
Another problem is many states sterilization laws are prohibitive. I couldn't get my tubes tied when my son was born because in my state you had to be at least 21 or be under 21 with 4 or more children. I was only 18 and he was my first, but we knew we didn't want to risk passing this on again. It should have been my choice, but my Dr.'s hands were tied by the law. How does that make sense?