IN AFRICA, DISABILITY IS OFTEN UNDERSTOOD AS A CURSE. HOWEVER, DISABILITY MAY HIT ANYONE. WORLD CELEBRITIES ARE NOT EXEMPTED AS THEY ALSO HAVE CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES. THE FOLLOWING STORIES TELL US THAT CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES ARE NOT TO BE HIDDEN BUT WELCOMED THEY WAY THEY ARE
Grey’s Anatomy star Caterina Scorsone is a mom to three girls — Eliza, 10 Pippa, 6, and Arwen, 3. Pippa has Down syndrome, and she was initially fearful of the diagnosis before she realized there is no “standard, objective perfect human being.”
“The metrics of perfection are arbitrary and imposed in the service of those who fit them,” Caterina told PEOPLE. “My daughter is perfect. Exactly the way she is.”
The diagnosis also taught her the overwhelming value of community.
“Parents of other kids with special needs became like instant family,” she told Parents. “It’s in moments of vulnerability that we either become insular or accept that we need others.”
Neil Young has two sons — Zeke, 50 and Ben, 45 — both of whom have cerebral palsy. Ben is also quadriplegic and nonverbal. Young has said CP is not a disease, but a “condition of life.”
“A lot of the things that we take for granted, that we can do, [Ben] can’t do,” the singer told Rolling Stone. “But his soul is there, and I’m sure that he has an outlook on the world that we don’t have because of the disabilities”.
During a conversation about his movie, The Whale, with Freddie Prinze Jr. for Interview Magazine, Brendan Fraser shared, “My oldest son Griffin has special needs. He’s autistic. He just turned 20. He’s a big kid. He’s six foot five. He’s got big hands and feet, a big body. I understand intimately what it is to be close to a person who lives with obesity.”
He continued, “And because of the beauty of his spectrum — call it a disorder if you will, I disagree with you — he knows nothing of irony. He doesn’t know what cynicism is. You can’t insult him. He can’t insult you. He’s the happiest person and is, in my life and many others’, also the manifestation of love. Being with my kids and their mom and our family has given me such love that if ever I needed to hold something of value up to try and translate that to what was important to [my character in the film] Charlie, I didn’t have to look far.”
Colin Farrell and Kim Bordenave’s son, James, has a rare genetic disorder called Angelman Syndrome that leaves him nonverbal and unable to care for himself. While that may seem like a heavy burden for James’ parents, Farrell believes he’s one of the greatest gifts in his life.
“By virtue of his honesty, struggle, persistence and his personality, James brings out the best in people. He literally saved my life,” the Dumbo actor said at the 2017 Power of Possibilities charity event. “I was on a destructive path. When I couldn’t make the changes in my life for myself, I made them for James. He gave me the reason to be a better man and father.”
Mia Farrow’s home has always been open to children with special needs. Out of her most of them adopted14 children, four of them had disabilities. Son Thaddeus, who died in 2016, had contracted polio as a young child in an Indian orphanage and was paralyzed from the waist down. Moses Farrow, adopted from a South Korean orphanage, was born with cerebral palsy. Frankie-Minh Farrow is blind and was adopted from Vietnam, and Quincy Farrow struggled as a newborn after being exposed to drugs in the womb.
It was Mia’s son Ronan, who summed up his mother’s caregiving skills and how she raised their kids to never think about their limitations, only their possibilities.
“I am so proud of my family,” Ronan told Vanity Fair. “I grew up across the table from Moses, who has cerebral palsy, and next to my sister Quincy, born of a drug-addicted inner-city mother, and Minh, who is blind. I could never have understood what it means to grow up blind or with cerebral palsy. I saw problems and needs, so the next thing you think is: O.K., what are you going to do about it?”
Extract from https://www.sheknows.com/parenting/slideshow/2456075/celebrity-parents-kids-with-disabilities/1/