I've posted my experience before about growing up with a younger brother diagnosed as severely retarded and with Dubowitz syndrome. There are not enough resources for handicapped children or for their parents :
My brother was severely retarded and had Dubowitz syndrome. All his life he never got past being a two year old mentally, he couldn't speak, could barely understand words, had terrible balance when he walked, cried horribly when he was bored (which was often - we either had to have Barney on constantly or I would to dance with him to loud music until I was exhausted). If we didn't watch him, He would go to the bathroom, turn on the hot water water and put his hand underneath it (I used to wonder if there was a sentient person trapped in his brain and this was his only method of communicating). He pulled my hair in the morning because he'd wake up at 6am because he naturally woke up that early and I, being a kid, didn't and my mom, exhausted from taking care of him all the time, didn't either. He'd smear corn infused poop everywhere if he wasn't changed right away (he always wore diapers) and when you're a single mom of a brat (me) and a mentally handicapped kid and your job is already exhausting because you're on your feet all day, you can't come home and relax you have to take care of him, but there's a point where you break and you can't do it anymore and you sit in your chair, depressed and alone and overwhelmed, and there are not enough resources for these families.
He got into a group home before I went into fifth grade. That was after a many years long waiting list. The guilt my mom experienced for "abandoning" him... For not being able to care properly for her child.. It destroyed her. To this day. He died a week before his 21st birthday and I hadn't seen him for 5 years before then.
I wouldn't wish that existence on anyone. Not what my mother went through, not what he went through. There was no point to his life. I would never want that for any child I bore. I would never want that life for any other children I bore who would become their sibling.
You have to be STRONG to survive raising a child like that. Not everyone has that strength. Not everyone with that strength may last. It is hard. Harder than any one who hasn't experienced it could know. And I don't wish anyone to experience it if they don't want to.
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