Holland

I first read this poem as a community health nurse when I learnt how to teach baby massage.

WELCOME TO HOLLANDby
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

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're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo 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 up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been 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 new guide books. 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 for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and 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 what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

 
When the boy became unwell with depression last year, this poem became so acutely true for me, I resonated with it strongly. That is I resonated with the negative aspects of being in Holland so to speak, I struggled and still do struggle with the  special aspects of being a mother of a child with special needs. The comedian and author Kathy Lette in her book The Boy who Fell To Earth, describes how she felt as if she was shut out of a dining room that was serving the most exquisite food. She could smell delicious aromas but was not allowed in to taste the dishes being served.

The sense of isolation was overwhelming. I was not prepared in any way for my life to be so disrupted. I had followed lifes rules, I worked hard, continually strove to be a good mother, I had never been a cause for concern in my life and yet the hand of fate had decided it was me that was destined for a extremely different path than my peers. But I didn't want to be there. No matter how many tulips, Rembrandts you could throw at me , I wanted to be Italian. I was not at all gracious or accepting of this life change.  Some people say that it takes a special parent to parent a child with special needs, to which i would grit my teeth and imagine handing them the baton so they could be special instead of me.I hated my life being controlled by circumstances and inside I was so angry. Professionals that were meant to guide me and support me during this time also appeared to speak in a different language,  so their advice was totally inappropriate for us to use. I needed to know how to be Dutch. I had Italian ways of thinking and it was so difficult to adjust to this new lifestyle.  It hurt so much to listen to the Italians telling me how well their children were doing.I started to unfriend acquaintances that moaned on Facebook that they had nothing to be happy about to post. How could they say that when they had a job and children that were healthy and confident?

I comforted myself by thinking that at least us Dutch people were more compassionate and genuine than the two faced Italians. Because I had to leave my job, I had more time at home and I too started to appreciate being able to have more time for both of the children and my community. My whole perspective on life  changed so much and I love the liberation that I have through home education.But it is still difficult to accept. If I could tap my sparkly red shoes together I would wish for Italy.The future in Holland just seems so uncertain, I do not know how things will be for the boy. Will he ever leave home and get a job? How do I access support to enable him to do this, because life is so much , more challenging for him. Will he be well, or is he destined for a lifetime of fighting depression?

So yes, life in Holland is beautiful,  however the slower pace does not mean that it is an easy ride. Parents are crying out for more support from pressurised services, they have to hammer on so many doors to access any form of help, I would argue that I am a lot stronger for having gone through this experience.  We have made some extremely difficult decisions to adapt to our new path in life, but strangely enough the boy is flourishing.  He is understood,  he doesn't need to change to be accepted anymore and that is worth more than all of the Rembrandts in the world.