Daily Archives: January 24, 2019

My family has been involved in a project called Orange Socks. It’s an initiative of Rise, inc. and its purpose is educate people on the joys and challenges of raising a child with disabilities. Its tag line is “Inspiring Life Despite a Diagnosis” and they work to connect parents with each other to create support systems. Most of the time people associate challenges with raising a child who has disabilities but often don’t know of the joys that come to parents and siblings. The initiative started when statistics showed that most children with Down Syndrome are aborted. The Orange Socks founder realized that most people who are told they are having a child with Down Syndrome only heard the negative things about having a child with this condition. He decided to interview parents of children with Down Syndrome to get the good things as well as the hard about raising a child with this syndrome. It didn’t take long before Orange Socks branched out to include all disabilities and to also interview siblings. The initiative is now celebrating its two year anniversary and has interviewed over 100 families from all over the United States. The interviews can be heard on their website Orangesocks.org. In the last year they have also started doing video interviews.

I have been lucky enough to be involved in some of the interviews. I am amazed to see parents tackling hard situations and more than rising to the occasion. They grow as individuals as they care for their children in some times hard ways. Often other people will say something like “I could never raise a child with disabilities, I’m not strong enough.” What I have learned is that people are stronger than they think. In the interviews I sat in the parents all talked about how they rely on prayer and God to help them. They also talk about how their other children have learned to be more compassionate and kind. People sometimes forget that whatever child they have will have some challenges. In my experience with my daughter who has Down Syndrome I have some challenges that I did not have with my other children. But there are also some challenges that I had with my other children that I will not have with her, and she definitely has taught us a lot.

What really amazes me is that these parents in the interviews focus on the joy their child has brought to their lives and how much they love that child. They also talked about how they feel it is a privilege to “raise an angel.” The Orange Socks founder says there are usually three stages that parents go through when they find out they are having a child with disabilities. The first stage is “Why me,” as they come to terms with it. The second is “Why not me” as they realize life goes on and they are stronger than they thought. Eventually parents get to the third stage which is “Thank God it’s me” when they learn they have the privilege of raising an angel.

https://orangesocks.org/