"Welcome to Holland" is a prominent essay, written in 1987 by American author and social activist Emily Perl Kingsley, about having a child with a disability. The piece is given by many organizations to new parents of children with special needs issues such as Down syndrome. As a testament to its popularity, several individuals have received the first name "Holland". [1]
Emily Kingsley is the mother of Jason Kingsley. The younger Kingsley is an actor who has appeared on programs such as Sesame Street and enjoyed a varied career, despite the family being told early in his childhood that his struggles would prevent him from having a meaningful life. "Welcome to Holland", written in the second person, employs a metaphor of excitement for a vacation to Italy that first becomes disappointment when the plane lands instead in Holland and then contentment at the happy events which they experience instead. [1]
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.
The metaphor is that the trip to Italy is a typical birth and child-raising experience, and that the trip to Holland is the experiencing of having and raising a child with special needs.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned.
In the end, however, the reader sees that the "trip" is still well worth it:
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
Author and social activist Emily Perl Kingsley wrote the piece based on her experiences with her son, Jason Kingsley, and her changing beliefs through parenthood. The younger Kingsley was born in 1974 with Down syndrome. Their doctor labeled the child as a "mongoloid" that would fail to learn to speak or walk and instructed the parents to act essentially as if the birth hadn't happened, with the mother sent to receive tranquilizing drugs preventing lactation. She recounted that she cried for several days straight. [1]
Although such medical attitudes were consistent with the prejudices of the time, the distraught family resisted and determined to provide the boy with as intellectually stimulating an environment as possible. Accounts of widespread abuse as a result of controversial institutionalization policies served to spur them on even more. The younger Kingsley has worked as an actor, appearing on programs such as Sesame Street , and otherwise enjoyed a varied career despite various challenges. [1]
As a testament to its popularity, several individuals have received the first name "Holland". [1] In 2004, Will Livingston wrote a song loosely based on the story. He also used the title "Welcome to Holland".
Critical analysis of the work and its influence has compared it to poet Robert Frost's piece The Road Not Taken , which also discusses the human tendency to look back and fret about 'what might have been' after people make decisions.
A response essay describing the possible toll that parenting can take on a family's welfare, such as raising children with severe autism, was created titled "Welcome to Beirut", [1] with the later piece alluding to the suffering from the Lebanese Civil War. "Welcome to Holland" has also attracted some amused, humorous responses from individuals living in both Holland and Italy in contrast to the original story's American perspective.
Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's, was the name of a neurodevelopmental disorder no longer recognised as a diagnosis in itself, having been merged into autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It was characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests. It was said to differ from other diagnoses that were merged into ASD by relatively unimpaired language and intelligence. The syndrome was named after the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, who, in 1944, described children in his care who struggled to form friendships, did not understand others' gestures or feelings, engaged in one-sided conversations about their favourite interests, and were clumsy.
Stockholm syndrome is a condition in which hostages develop a psychological bond with their captors during captivity. It results from a rather specific set of circumstances, namely the power imbalances contained in hostage-taking, kidnapping, and abusive relationships. Therefore, it is difficult to find a large number of people who experience Stockholm Syndrome to conduct studies with any sort of power. This makes it hard to determine trends in the development and effects of the condition.
Mr. Harold Hooper was one of the first four human characters to appear on the television series Sesame Street. Created by producer and writer Jon Stone, Mr. Hooper is the original proprietor of Hooper's Store, the neighborhood variety store and combination diner/corner store that serves as a place for Muppets and humans to meet and interact. Lee, a character actor and instructor who had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era, was "perfectly cast" as Mr. Hooper. Mr. Hooper ranked first of all human characters of the show in recognition by young viewers. Mr. Hooper, who has been described as "slightly cranky but good-hearted" and "curmudgeonly", bridges the gap between the older generation and its young audience. Hooper's Store, "an idealized social institution", is an extension of his personality. He had a special relationship with the Muppet Big Bird.
Elmo's World is a segment that is shown at the end of the American children's television program Sesame Street. It premiered on November 16, 1998, as part of the show's structural change and originally lasted fifteen minutes at the end of each episode until 2009. However it was then rebooted in 2017. The show was designed to appeal to younger viewers and to increase ratings, which had fallen in the past decade. The segment is presented from the perspective of a three-year-old child as represented by its host, the Muppet Elmo, performed by Kevin Clash in the original series and Ryan Dillon in the 2017 reboot.
I'm OK – You're OK is a 1967 self-help book by psychiatrist Thomas Anthony Harris. It is a practical guide to transactional analysis as a method for solving problems in life.
Empty nest syndrome is a feeling of grief and loneliness parents may feel when their children leave home for the first time, such as to live on their own or to attend a college or university. It is not a clinical condition.
A spoiled child or spoiled brat is a derogatory term aimed at children who exhibit behavioral problems from being overindulged by their parents or other caregivers. Children and teens who are perceived as spoiled may be described as "overindulged", "grandiose", "narcissistic" or "egocentric-regressed". When the child has a neurological condition such as autism, ADHD or intellectual disability, observers may see them as "spoiled”. There is no specific scientific definition of what "spoiled" means, and professionals are often unwilling to use the label because it is considered vague and derogatory. Being spoiled is not recognized as a mental disorder in any of the medical manuals, such as the ICD-10 or the DSM-IV, or its successor, the DSM-5.
An only child is a person with no siblings, by birth or adoption.
Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions that are due to mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, especially in "language, mobility, learning, self-help, and independent living". Developmental disabilities can be detected early on and persist throughout an individual's lifespan. Developmental disability that affects all areas of a child's development is sometimes referred to as global developmental delay.
Emily Perl Kingsley is an American writer who joined the Sesame Street team in 1970 and continued to write until her retirement in 2015.
Factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), also called Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP), is a condition in which a caregiver creates the appearance of health problems in another person, typically their child. This may include injuring the child or altering test samples. The caregiver then presents the person as being sick or injured. Permanent injury or death of the victim may occur as a result of the disorder. The behaviour occurs without a specific benefit to the caregiver.
Self-stimulatory behavior, also known as stimming and self-stimulation, is the repetition of physical movements, sounds, words, or moving objects. Such behaviors are found to some degree in all people, especially those with developmental disabilities and are especially frequent in people on the autism spectrum. People diagnosed with sensory processing disorder are also known to potentially exhibit stimming behaviors. Stimming has been interpreted as a protective response to overstimulation, in which people calm themselves by blocking less predictable environmental stimuli, to which they have a heightened sensitivity. A further explanation views stimming as a way to relieve anxiety and other negative or heightened emotions. Although extremely beneficial at times, stimming has been highly stigmatized and dramatized. People who are neurodivergent often feel that they need to hide or decrease their self-stimulatory behavior, as it often elicits an undesirable response from those who do not understand the compulsion behind them.
Societal and cultural aspects of autism or sociology of autism come into play with recognition of autism, approaches to its support services and therapies, and how autism affects the definition of personhood. The autistic community is divided primarily into two camps; the neurodiversity movement and the Pathology paradigm. The pathology paradigm advocates for supporting research into therapies, treatments, and/or a cure to help minimize or remove autistic traits, seeing treatment as vital to help individuals with autism, while the neurodiversity movement believes autism should be seen as a different way of being and advocates against treatments, therapies or a cure, seeing it as trying to exterminate autistic people and their individuality. Both are controversial in autism communities and advocacy which has led to significant infighting between these two camps. While the dominant paradigm is the pathology paradigm and is followed largely by autism research and scientific communities, the neurodiversity movement is highly popular within autism advocacy and autism rights organizations.
"I Stand Here Ironing" is a short story by Tillie Olsen. It was published in her short story collection Tell Me a Riddle in 1956.
Sesame Street is an American children's television program that is known for its use of format and structure to convey educational concepts to its preschool audience, and to help them prepare for school. It utilizes the conventions of television such as music, humor, sustained action, and a strong visual style, and combines Jim Henson's Muppets, animation, short films, humor, and cultural references. The show, which premiered in 1969, was the first to base its contents, format, and production values on laboratory and formative research. According to researchers, it was also the first to include a curriculum "detailed or stated in terms of measurable outcomes".
The children's television show Sesame Street, which premiered on public broadcasting television stations in 1969, was the first show of its kind that utilized a detailed and comprehensive educational curriculum, with specific educational goals, in its content. Its goals were garnered from in-house formative research and independent summative evaluations, and its first curriculum was created in a series of five seminars in 1968.
Aspergirls: Empowering Females with Asperger Syndrome is a non-fiction book written by American author Rudy Simone. It was published in 2010 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. The book is about women and girls who have Asperger syndrome and their experiences. It was written to help girls and women who have been diagnosed with Asperger's.
Autism-friendly means being aware of social engagement and environmental factors affecting people on the autism spectrum, with modifications to communication methods and physical space to better suit individual's unique and special needs.
Jennifer Cook is an American author and speaker. She is known for her six Asperkids books, which have been translated into six languages and include the winner of the Autism Society of America's Book of the Year Award. Her memoir Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of a Female Life on the Spectrum is a Wall Street Journal Bestseller, a "Best Book" title winner by Publishers Weekly, and named a "Best Memoir" and one of both the "Best Autism Books of All Time" and "Best-Selling Autism Books of All Time" by BookAuthority. She is the on-camera autism expert in Netflix's series "Love on the Spectrum US."
Tarah Lynne Schaeffer is a former American child actress. She is known for her role as Tarah on Sesame Street.
