Dear Rosemary,
Parents who have sons and daughters with an intellectual disability are most likely to experience, due to the lack of supports available in the community, a prolongation of, and continuance in, their intensive parenting role well beyond the years generally accepted by the broader community. It is the parents who are expected to provide support,physically,emotionally and financially. They are very much stakeholders and societal/governmentexpectation appears to be that if their offspring with a disability has a child (with or without a disability) and cannot raise that child unassisted that it is the family who would take up the reins on a second involuntary term of intensive parenting. Parents know only too well the difficulties experienced in raising a child with a disability. Most parents want a better life for their children than they have had. So why would they a) want to their son or daughter to replicate their experiences particularly when their offspring's coping mechanisms may not be as finely honed as their own and b) line themselves up for a perpetual double dose of of intensive parenting. There can be virtue in selfishness.
Regards
felicity
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