The thing I learnt this weekend: there are some t-shirts you really shouldn’t wear out, especially when you find yourself in a pub sitting opposite a young lady with Down’s Syndrome, her parents staring at you rather frostily.
Yep, that was an uncomfortable moment or two.
…and what might a young lady with down syndrome be doing in a pub with her parents?!?
Roffle!
You should have informed them about the low price (15.99)!
Was the problem that they could not read the shirt because of their insecurity problem.
You maybe should have read it for them.
This is from knowing a sweet downs kid who is very happy but her parents are more concerned about their appearance than she will ever know.
Maybe a shirt for them saying ;
“Yeah our kid has Downs what have you done to help. Ask Me !”
I was looking for blogs to add to my brand new UK directory and yours was one of the first I stumbled onto. What a coincidence that the most recent post was about your awkward encounter at the pub.
My oldest son, Brian, has downs and frankly it’s been very difficult for me (less so for my wife I believe) and I’m not sure how I would have reacted if I was the dad there at the time.
You at least were affected by it enough to write a few words about the incident and if I ever have the opportunity to be in that same position I’ll be sure to break the ice and put everyone at ease. I know people don’t say things and wear shirts to intentionally hurt us or our kids with downs. They’re just far and few between and very, very easy to pick on. I wish it weren’t the case, but I was guilty of it growing up myself and understand the compulsion.
Thanks for the opportunity to speak out about it and perhaps reduce the tension that these moments cause for ALL involved. Just smile at these kids so they feel welcome. They’re born without the “mean” gene and have an extra couple of “nice” genes I believe.
Cheers
David
The T-shirt is grammatically incorrect. Perhaps the parents were appalled at this shocking use of bad grammar!
I think thats kind of the point…
Did someone steal a kid’s flower? I’m not getting it.
….which reminds me; where is my ‘So many kittens, so few recipes’ T.Shirt for the kittenwars book launch party….?