This past week, I filled out my March Madness bracket and guessed which team would be the next “Cinderella story.” We look forward to it every March – we cheer for the underdog in the competition, the team that overcomes a mountain of adversity to advance deep into the tournament.
March 21 is day two of the tournament’s first round – and it is also World Down Syndrome Day. I look at my 4-year-old daughter, Josie, who has Down syndrome. I know well that she has overcome developmental obstacles since the day she was born, and still triumphs over challenges to this day.
Our outlook as her parents is anything but sad, worried, burdened, or any other fear that many might think would be our lot. Having Josie has taught us to love and appreciate the little things and the little wins that the vast majority of us take for granted. And, furthermore, it has granted us a level of wisdom and insight that we would not have had otherwise.
Yes, there have been struggles. For our two oldest children, we successfully taught them to drink out of a straw within a couple of days. For Josie, that simple skill took her around eight months to master.
But when she finally sat down and drank out of a straw on her own, my wife wept with joy knowing full well what an accomplishment this was, and how much work she herself had poured in to ensure Josie could experience that moment.
I also recall another time at home alone with Josie when we were playing with a small ball for the first time. I began tossing it to her, and while she failed to catch the ball on the first couple of attempts, she caught the next one. I was jumping up and down in the living room with excitement. We ended up just tossing a ball back and forth for over an hour, and I couldn’t wait to show my wife Josie’s new skill when she returned home.
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Both of these instances involved activities most of us would consider mundane. But we discovered a profound truth with Josie – the successes aren't nearly as fun if we don't have to overcome obstacles first.
As basketball fans, we see the same thing in the tournament. When a “blue blood” basketball program wins a second round tournament game, no one bats an eye. But if a 15-seed underdog surprises everybody by advancing to the Sweet 16? That’s national news. Very few expect a small college or a commuter school with a minimal recruiting profile, humble facilities, and limited resources to advance that far into the tournament. The players obviously had to overcome these deficits to win their games. And that’s what we all love about March.
Celebrating these wins also helps us all reconnect with the real priorities in life. Celebrating the “little things” helps inoculate us against that mirage of success, and refocus our attention on where it should be – on our child, a person. Not their to-do list, not their grades, not their trophies, not our status in the neighborhood – the simple marvel of who this child is and that they are wonderfully made.
That’s not to say that parenting in these cases can’t be tough. These “little wins” are near and dear to our hearts as parents, because for any one of us who have children with special needs, we all know that we do not have the guarantee that they might return our affection, at least in the way we’d desire. But a few months ago, I laid Josie to bed and she said “Love you, Daddy.” I knew two things at that moment – I was never sure I would ever hear that, and I also would never forget that special moment.
Many prospective parents are afraid of these challenges. It might be because, with our ever accelerating technological progress, we try to predict the future as much as possible. We try to avoid what we see as needless pain and suffering.
But this mentality misses the profound truth – life brings its share of challenges, but with each challenge comes a chance for incredible triumphs.
As the sports saying goes, it's why they play the game. Just because a team is a huge underdog doesn't automatically determine the outcome of the game. Just several years ago, the University of Maryland Baltimore County scored one of the biggest upsets in NCAA history and accomplished what no other team had before – win an NCAA tournament game as a 16-seed. They obviously didn’t pay attention to the 98 percent of brackets nationwide that picked against them.
So many children who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome never get a chance to “play the game” of life. An estimated 67-85 percent of these cases result in abortion. It is a horrifying and sobering statistic, all the more so because my wife and I have seen the joy that Josie has brought to our family of five. We have all benefited from her presence in so many unseen ways.
It’s a stirring reminder that abortion, far from promoting choice or stability in families, actually eliminates the glory that can result from difficult circumstances.
Because a world without challenges is a world without triumphs.
Jason Law is the director of marketing and communications for Human Coalition, one of the largest pro-life organizations in the nation which operates a growing network of Telecare and brick-and-mortar women's care clinics across the country.
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