...and also by the fact that if you ask people if they hypothetically would abort for a positive they consider very unlikely, they answer much more in denial (23%-33%) than if you actually give them a positive test, at which point choosing to abort skyrockets to 89%-97.
“Of the 2,044 respondents, 99% reported that they love their son or daughter; 97% were proud of them; 79% felt their outlook on life was more positive because of them; 5% felt embarrassed by them; and 4% regretted having them. The parents report that 95% of their sons or daughters without Down syndrome have good relationships with their siblings with Down syndrome. The overwhelming majority of parents surveyed report that they are happy with their decision to have their child with Down syndrome and indicate that their sons and daughters are great sources of love and pride.”
If the first part is true, doesn’t that also apply to the second par? Where the reported rate would be much different from the true sentiments as revealed by actual decisions?
I do not see how that follows? The hypothetical, feared thing has actually happened, and they find it to be a lot less awful than they thought—they actually find that once they get the support and information they need and process the information, they are very happy. There always seems to be an initial shock, fear and overwhelm, but it appears that that tends to pass relatively quickly.
We could imagine a pressure to pretend to love your kid, as that is common, leading to an underreporting of regret.
But in that case, we could compare reports from parents of kids with Down syndrome being regretful with parents of kids without the syndrome being regretful.
In this context, the study “Regretting motherhood” comes to mind.
Can’t find a version without a paywall, and it is qualitative research (I assume because lies are so expected), so we have no straightforward numbers to compare (unless she details the recruitment process?), but the summary of her interviews suggests that regret was not correlated with the health and personality of the children, but with whether the woman herself wanted children in general. If the woman did not want to become a mother, the child being healthy and lovely did not change that. But if she did want to become a mother, a child with Down syndrome still brought happiness.
Another thing one could look into is kids given up for adoption. This is certainly more common with Down syndrome in countries where the parents are poor, and receive no support with medical problems, and experience a lot of discrimination. Which is how these kids end up adopted out to families in countries with a decent security net and less discrimination.
There are also adoptions within the US; people whose kids have Down syndrome wanting to adopt them out, others wanting to adopt them, and parents who considered adopting them out, but kept them. Reading the reports, a recurring theme is that the parents are initially extremely fearful and aversive, but upon spending time with kids who have the condition and their parents, their opinion often changes.
Here is one of a woman who adopted out—the text makes it clear she grew very fond of the child after birth, but didn’t think her life situation would make it possible for her to support a special needs child (she had only just met the father, they didn’t want a long term relationship, etc.) Again, decent social support seems to make a difference; the concern isn’t that they won’t love the child, but that they won’t manage to give it the support it needs https://www.ndsan.org/adoption-stories/i-made-an-adoption-plan/story-2/
No matter how you turn it—there seems to be a significant discrepancy between the number of parents who would chose against a child with down syndrome immediately and without any first hand experience, and those who have them and tend to actually be glad.
if your confused about the meaning of my comment, the accuracy of the numbers given in the quoted text:
Of the 2,044 respondents, 99% reported that they love their son or daughter; 97% were proud of them; 79% felt their outlook on life was more positive because of them; 5% felt embarrassed by them; and 4% regretted having them. The parents report that 95% of their sons or daughters without Down syndrome have good relationships with their siblings with Down syndrome
… sound like wishful thinking as much as the wishful thinking revealed in your point:
...and also by the fact that if you ask people if they hypothetically would abort for a positive they consider very unlikely, they answer much more in denial (23%-33%) than if you actually give them a positive test, at which point choosing to abort skyrockets to 89%-97.
i.e. If the reader accepts that the “23%-33%” is bogus then the “99%, 97%, etc.” would also be bogus for the same reasons.
For the change in mind when the question on abortion goes from hypothetical and abstract to imagined acutely now, one can easily imagine an explanation—that people, for the first time, think through the implications of actually having a disabled kid right now, with their current finances and jobs and obligations, and feel utterly overwhelmed at not thinking about handling this one day maybe, but handling it right now, when it is not what they were expecting at all.
But later, they have had the child, their position has fundamentally changed, they know a lot more, they actually know what it is like after the initial shock, how much of their fear was rooted in ignorance and stereotypes. Yes, their position has also changed in that getting rid of the child is now more difficult, so there may well be a phenomenon where they accept a position that is hard to change and talk themselves into liking it. But this is true of all parents. And yet, among down syndrome children, the result does not seem that different.
If they said that yes, keeping the child with the condition was in fact awful, I find it plausible that they would be judged less than parents of children without the syndrome, who tend to get hell for saying they regret their children’s birth, so the pressure to lie would be less. After all, the numbers above suggests that the people who ask you would likely abort such a child themselves, so who are they to judge a person for not being happy with such a surprise child? And yet, the parents of kids with the syndrome generally do not express persistent regret—and they are so convincing in their statements that after talking to them, and seeing them with their kids, many prospective parents decide to keep the baby, or adopt a child with this condition. And the parents who make these statements sometimes end up adopting an additional child with down syndrome. I can’t imagine why they would do that if they didn’t mean it, noone is expecting them to. This is also consistent with the general finding that aversion to having a disabled child is higher if you have spent less time with disabled children—when you actually interact with them, and get more data and experience, you find they are not what you expected.
Like, seriously, listen to such parents and their kids and judge yourself if it looks like they are all lying. It is common to assume that they must be lying or delusional before engaging with them, because people who have no exposure to disabled folks often cannot imagine being genuinely happy with them. But it really looks like this changes when you actually meet them. They do, very honestly, state that their initial reaction was shock, grief, devastation, but trace how that changed over time.
If the first part is true, doesn’t that also apply to the second par? Where the reported rate would be much different from the true sentiments as revealed by actual decisions?
I do not see how that follows? The hypothetical, feared thing has actually happened, and they find it to be a lot less awful than they thought—they actually find that once they get the support and information they need and process the information, they are very happy. There always seems to be an initial shock, fear and overwhelm, but it appears that that tends to pass relatively quickly.
We could imagine a pressure to pretend to love your kid, as that is common, leading to an underreporting of regret.
But in that case, we could compare reports from parents of kids with Down syndrome being regretful with parents of kids without the syndrome being regretful.
In this context, the study “Regretting motherhood” comes to mind.
Can’t find a version without a paywall, and it is qualitative research (I assume because lies are so expected), so we have no straightforward numbers to compare (unless she details the recruitment process?), but the summary of her interviews suggests that regret was not correlated with the health and personality of the children, but with whether the woman herself wanted children in general. If the woman did not want to become a mother, the child being healthy and lovely did not change that. But if she did want to become a mother, a child with Down syndrome still brought happiness.
Another thing one could look into is kids given up for adoption. This is certainly more common with Down syndrome in countries where the parents are poor, and receive no support with medical problems, and experience a lot of discrimination. Which is how these kids end up adopted out to families in countries with a decent security net and less discrimination.
There are also adoptions within the US; people whose kids have Down syndrome wanting to adopt them out, others wanting to adopt them, and parents who considered adopting them out, but kept them. Reading the reports, a recurring theme is that the parents are initially extremely fearful and aversive, but upon spending time with kids who have the condition and their parents, their opinion often changes.
Here is a report of a mother who got the diagnosis and freaked out, wanting to adopt out, but changed her mind after interacting with kids with the syndrome, and is glad she did: https://www.ndsan.org/adoption-stories/i-decided-to-parent/story-1/
Here is one of a woman who adopted out—the text makes it clear she grew very fond of the child after birth, but didn’t think her life situation would make it possible for her to support a special needs child (she had only just met the father, they didn’t want a long term relationship, etc.) Again, decent social support seems to make a difference; the concern isn’t that they won’t love the child, but that they won’t manage to give it the support it needs https://www.ndsan.org/adoption-stories/i-made-an-adoption-plan/story-2/
And as for those who adopted—the process is a lengthy, complicated nightmare, they clearly really, really, really want those kids and are over the moon when they get them https://www.lovewhatmatters.com/we-found-our-phones-with-several-missed-calls-texts-congratulations-youve-been-matched-with-a-baby-boy-adoption-special-needs-family/ Again, a core theme is that they actually know people with the syndrome; the adoptive mother here had a cool uncle with down syndrome who was influential in her choice to want one.
No matter how you turn it—there seems to be a significant discrepancy between the number of parents who would chose against a child with down syndrome immediately and without any first hand experience, and those who have them and tend to actually be glad.
if your confused about the meaning of my comment, the accuracy of the numbers given in the quoted text:
… sound like wishful thinking as much as the wishful thinking revealed in your point:
i.e. If the reader accepts that the “23%-33%” is bogus then the “99%, 97%, etc.” would also be bogus for the same reasons.
I do not see how that is trivially obvious?
For the change in mind when the question on abortion goes from hypothetical and abstract to imagined acutely now, one can easily imagine an explanation—that people, for the first time, think through the implications of actually having a disabled kid right now, with their current finances and jobs and obligations, and feel utterly overwhelmed at not thinking about handling this one day maybe, but handling it right now, when it is not what they were expecting at all.
But later, they have had the child, their position has fundamentally changed, they know a lot more, they actually know what it is like after the initial shock, how much of their fear was rooted in ignorance and stereotypes. Yes, their position has also changed in that getting rid of the child is now more difficult, so there may well be a phenomenon where they accept a position that is hard to change and talk themselves into liking it. But this is true of all parents. And yet, among down syndrome children, the result does not seem that different.
If they said that yes, keeping the child with the condition was in fact awful, I find it plausible that they would be judged less than parents of children without the syndrome, who tend to get hell for saying they regret their children’s birth, so the pressure to lie would be less. After all, the numbers above suggests that the people who ask you would likely abort such a child themselves, so who are they to judge a person for not being happy with such a surprise child? And yet, the parents of kids with the syndrome generally do not express persistent regret—and they are so convincing in their statements that after talking to them, and seeing them with their kids, many prospective parents decide to keep the baby, or adopt a child with this condition. And the parents who make these statements sometimes end up adopting an additional child with down syndrome. I can’t imagine why they would do that if they didn’t mean it, noone is expecting them to. This is also consistent with the general finding that aversion to having a disabled child is higher if you have spent less time with disabled children—when you actually interact with them, and get more data and experience, you find they are not what you expected.
Like, seriously, listen to such parents and their kids and judge yourself if it looks like they are all lying. It is common to assume that they must be lying or delusional before engaging with them, because people who have no exposure to disabled folks often cannot imagine being genuinely happy with them. But it really looks like this changes when you actually meet them. They do, very honestly, state that their initial reaction was shock, grief, devastation, but trace how that changed over time.