Proud dad of girl who “happens to have Down syndrome” strikes a chord with his blog and Facebook posts
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Wyn Evans with daughter Angharad
This is a post on Wyn Evans’ blog–“Musings of a proud father”–which he describes as a blog that “shares the joys and occasional stresses of a full-time dad caring for his daughter–who happens to have Down Syndrome.”
It is a perfect example of his whimsical approach–of paradoxically taking a serious look at the silly side of being a parent of a nine-year-old who, indeed, just happens to have Down syndrome.
Philip Dewey, writing for Walesonline, introduces his reader to Evans, his daughter Angharad, and his wife, Nikki.
“The 56-year-old from Cardiff started the blog to keep family members in Yorkshire and west Wales updated about Angharad,” Dewey writes, “but it took on a life of its own after more and more people started to read and engage with it.”
If you go to his Facebook page, you find that it has a whopping 44,000 “likes.” So why does Evans think he has struck such a chord?
‘I don’t think we’ve had anything
other than positive comments’ Former NHS director Wyn said: “We get a
lot of hits so we must have tapped into a market of people who wanted
information about our little girl and the life of parents with a child
with Down’s Syndrome.
“It’s wonderful, I don’t think
we’ve had anything other than positive comments. Their enjoyment of
hearing about my daughter’s life has been joyous.
“I try and cover everything we
have been through – the pressure we were under from clinicians to do
pre-natal testing to push us down the abortion route which we wouldn’t
do full stop, the joy of the birth, the worry when she had open heart
surgery to close holes in her heart, the happiness when it went well and
she’s now as fit as a fiddle.”
“It was important to me to write about the trip because the Nazis started off their genocide on their own children and adults with disabilities and terminated them,” he told Dewey. “”It was intriguing to connect these children and adults to the Jewish people and Romany Gypsies killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau.”
While occasionally someone says something negative about his daughter or Down syndrome children in general, Evans says “Angharad is welcomed and accepted as part of the community. We treat her with love and respect and try to challenge her to help her grow. She throws herself into everything she does.”
Evans’ optimism on his blog and Facebook page was also evident in his interview with Dewey.
“It’s a wonderful time to be a parent of a child with Down’s Syndrome because there is a lot of work being put into helping kids with special needs, including those with Down’s Syndrome, so there is much more focus on how to meet their particular needs educationally,” he said.
“There are now role models of kids and adults with Down’s Syndrome who are holding down jobs, passing driving tests, and getting married. Things have changed.”
A tip of the hat to Life News.
Source: NRLC News
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