Advocating for my kiddo

When you become a mom (or parent for that matter), your kids become your number one priority and fighting for their health and well being tops the charts....and being respected.

We have been fortunate over the last three years to be surrounded by love and support, by friends and family, but also by neighbors and strangers.... and my chances to defend and lift up my daughter because of her Down syndrome have been rare, if at all.  So I've done very little advocating.....

However, I feel like it is important on a NATIONAL level to advocate for people with Down syndrome, because some day, my daughter will benefit from the stance that we take today to make HER world a better place.  It is something I hope to become more involved in this year....starting TODAY.

On July 15th, GQ magazine published a list of Worst Dressed American Cities, written by John B. Thompson.  Boston ranked first and the author described them this way:  "Due to so much local in-breeding, Boston suffers from a kind of Style Down Syndrome, where a little extra ends up ruining everything".  GQ has since removed that phrase from their piece.

On July 18th, Brian Skotko, a physician at Children's Hospital Boston's Down Syndrome Program, wrote an article entitled "Mock My Pants, Not My Sister", in response to the GQ article.

He says in the article, "Go ahead, GQ, and mock my blue whale-emblemed Nantucket-red pants. Laugh if you want at the loud argyles that I prefer to wear with my black suit. I don’t even care if you dismiss the sexy pink polka-dotted tie that I like to wear with my blue-checkered shirt in clinic. But, whatever you do, do not mess with my sister."


We're with you Brian!  Nothing is ruined by having something a little extra.....life has only been better because of that extra chromosome in our house.  We have extra love and extra laughter and extra patience and extra friends and extra understanding and so much more.


Patti, Lily's mom and one of our blogging friends, took on the challenge as well with a video Montage.   You can read her post and watch the video montage at the bottom, HERE.  Aubrey and her extra something are at minute 1:56.


So to John B. Thompson and all the others at GQ who didn't have the sense to edit the article before it went into print for everyone to see, we have just one thing to say:

"Go ahead and make fun of my GIANT, red, size 17, crocs.  But don't you dare make fun of my daughter." ~ Woody Smith