http://featuringdave.com/logicalmeme/?p=6127
I read a really tragic article yesterday about Arthur Miller the playwright who placed his mongoloid son in an institution at birth and erased him from his life. We can’t judge what people did a half a century ago. It’s hard for us to comprehend how differently people thought then. How lucky all of you are today to be able to eagerly involve yourselves in your autistic children’s lives. Most of you seem aware that you are being enriched rather than damaged by the experience.
I’ve just posted my 14th question of A Tiger by the Tail, with questions about materialism. I plan a total of 33. My son was near the same age as Arthur Miller’s son.. There were no true villains. Both Arthur Miller and the doctors who believed autism was caused by maternal rejection were victims of the thinking of their time. If any of you aren’t reading my book as I write it, I think you’d enjoy it.
Berthajane Vandegrift
http://30145.myauthorsite.com/I posted the link to the Vanity Fair article the other day. It's a very interresting read. When Miller learned his son had Down Syndrome, he sent him to an institution when he was only a few days old. The boy's mother did visit him every week, however the article mentions that the boy had no idea who his parents were. There was a couple who acted as his parents, and he lives with them today. I believe he is 41 years old.
Miller did see his son once or twice as an adult and was taken aback by how well he was doing. Also, Miller's son-in-law, the actor Daniel Day Lewis, is involved in his life.
Miller did include his son in his will. I found this part of the article particularily interresting:
Arthur Miller signed his last will on December 30, naming as executors his children Rebecca Miller Day-Lewis, Jane Miller Doyle, and Robert Miller. Daniel was not mentioned in the will, but he was named in separate trust documents that Miller signed that day, which are sealed from public view. In those, according to a letter from Rebecca Miller, Arthur bequeathed "everything left over after taxes and special bequests to his four children. This includes Danny, whose share is no different from mine or my other siblings."
It was a dramatic gesture, and one that almost no attorney would have encouraged. To receive state and federal funding, people with incapacitating disabilities must maintain assets at or below the poverty level. Any amount above that is often claimed by the state to pay for their care. To protect their assets and to get the maximum public funding, most wealthy parents of disabled children leave their inheritances to other relatives or create a "special-needs trust."
By leaving the money directly to Daniel, Miller made him too wealthy to receive government assistance—and left the Miller estate open to being hit up by the state of Connecticut for everything it had spent on Daniel's care over the years. Which is exactly what happened. Shortly after the will was filed, Connecticut's Department of Administrative Services "issued one reimbursement claim to Danny Miller," according to the estate's lawyer, for a "portion of his care when he was a minor." That claim, the attorney says, is now in the process of being settled.
What Arthur Miller's intentions were at the end of his life remain a mystery. Did he ignore his lawyers' advice? In choosing not to establish a special-needs trust, did he want to free Daniel from the limits of government funding, to provide more for him than he would get from public assistance? The only person in a position to answer these questions is Miller's daughter Rebecca, but she refused numerous requests to be interviewed. In response to a lengthy list of questions about her father's decision to institutionalize his son, his relationship with Daniel, and his 39-year effort to keep his son's existence a secret, Rebecca Miller, who also has never spoken publicly about Daniel and would not permit him to be interviewed, wrote: "The only person who can truly answer your questions is my father, and he is dead."
http://www.vanityfair.com/fame/features/2007/09/miller200709
Here is the thread:
http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=18879&am p;am p;am p;KW=Arthur+Miller
You are right. I apologize for not using the tern Down Syndrome.
I am still posting chapters (Questions) about when autistic children were called "disturbed" at my web site. I have finished about half of them.
http://30145.myauthorsite.com/
Why didn't Arthur Miller leave this to Danny in a special needs trust? That way, Danny could have benefited more during his own lifetime. The trust could have been given to the government after Danny no longer needed the funds. I appreciate the gesture, but it seems this did Danny less good and Arthur's sense of guilt MORE good.
I know plenty of adults with Down Syndrome. They have different levels of functioning and I mostly know the higher functioning ones who are capable of swimming since they are on my son's Special Olympics swim team. I have to say that they seem very much like other young adults only they have entry level jobs as opposed to jobs that require education. They all speak normally, they all socialize normally, they all have aspirations, dreams, friends and social lives. They seem far better adjusted to the real world than many people on the autism spectrum. Of course, some people with Down Syndrome also have autism. ANd some suffer from a greater degree of mental retardation than others. But that does not have seemed to be the case with Arthur Miller's son. I am not saying that Arthur should have done anything differently. None of us knows what it must have been like 40 years ago when these children were not even allowed to set foot in schools (yes, the right to get an education did not come to our children until the late 1970's -- if a child was not "normal" in every way, the schools could simply refuse to accept them). And doctors routinely suggested that parents give up on these babies IMMEDIATELY, lest the fall in love with them and (horrors) actually KEEP them. The truth is, if Down Syndrome kids did not have dysmorphic features, no one would have acted this way toward them. I know pretty profoundly retarded adults without any dysmorphic features who are better accepted (even to this day) than even the highest functioning Down Syndrome kids. So sad that we judge people so much by their looks. I know one very high functioning Down Syndrome young woman who simply wears black eyglasses at all times so as to hide her status as having Down Syndrome. Everyone treats her like a "normal" person until she takes her glasses off. We do this with blind people, too. They wear dark glasse to spare US, not to help themselves. Sad that we humans place so much emphasis on looks. I am just as guilty as the next person. It seems to be hardwired into the "normal" brain to reject any physical imperfections.
Glad Arthur Miller remembered his son in the end. This must have made a huge world of difference to his typical kids. They should never have to feel guilty because they are "normal" any more than their DS brother should feel bad because he is not.
The term mongoloid is considered quite offensive to those who have, or love someone with Down Syndrome. It's the equivalent of calling one of our children the "r" word.