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When I learned of the birth of my daughter, I drank a whiskey. It was 9 am and the shock of the announcement was such that faced with the misfortune of Mina, my wife, I found no other solution than to leave the maternity ward. I said two or three silly words, a “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it”, and I sped off to the bar…
Then I pulled myself together. I had two sons, an adored wife, and the urgent need to become the expected father, the one who would find the solution to our little Yasmine’s “problem”. Our baby had Down’s syndrome. Mina had just told me, brutally. The news had been conveyed to him a few minutes earlier by the doctors, in this maternity hospital in Casablanca. Well so be it, she, I and our tight-knit family would know how to raise this different child.
Our goal: to raise Yasmine like all children
In the eyes of others, Down syndrome is a handicap, and some members of my family were the first to not accept it. But we five, we knew how to do! Indeed, for her two brothers, Yasmine was from the outset the cherished little sister, to protect. We made the choice not to tell them about his disability. Mina was concerned that we raise our daughter like a “normal” child. And she was right. We didn’t explain anything to our daughter either. If sometimes, obviously, her mood swings or her brutality differentiated her from other children, we have always been keen to make her follow a normal course. At home we would all play together, go out to restaurants and go on vacation. Sheltered in our family cocoon, no one risked hurting her or looking at her strangely, and we liked living like this between us, with the feeling of protecting her as it should. A child’s trisomy can cause many families to explode, but not ours. On the contrary, Yasmine has been a glue between us all.
Yasmine was received in a crèche. The essence of our philosophy was that she had the same chances as her brothers. She started her social life in the best possible way. She was able, at her own pace, to assemble the first pieces of a puzzle or to sing songs. Helped by speech therapy and psychomotor skills, Yasmine lived like her comrades, keeping pace with her progress. She began to annoy her brothers, to whom we ended up explaining the handicap that affects her, without going into details. So they showed patience. In return, Yasmine showed a lot of answering. Down’s syndrome does not make a child so different, and ours very quickly, like any child of its age, knew how to take its place or demand it, and develop its own originality and its beautiful identity.
Time for the first learning
Then, it was time to learn to read, write, count … Specialized establishments were not suited to Yasmine. She suffered from being in a group of people “like her” and felt uncomfortable, so we looked for a private “classic” school willing to accept her. It was Mina who helped her at home to be level. It took him longer than the others to learn, obviously. So both worked until late at night. Assimilating things takes more work for a child with Down syndrome, but our daughter managed to be a good student throughout her primary school education. It was then that we understood that she was a competitor. To amaze us, to be our pride, that’s what motivates her.
In college, friendships gradually became more complicated. Yasmine has become bulimic. The nastiness of adolescents, her need to fill the void that was gnawing at her, all this manifested itself in her like a great uneasiness. Her primary school friends, remembering her mood swings or spikes of aggression, kept her out, and she suffered from it. The poor have tried everything, even to buy their friendship with sweets, in vain. When they weren’t laughing at her, they were running away from her. The worst was when she turned 17, when she invited the whole class to her birthday and only a few girls showed up. After a while, they left for a walk in town, preventing Yasmine from joining them. She deduced that “a Down’s syndrome person lives alone”.
We made the mistake of not explaining enough about its difference: perhaps she could have understood better and better cope with the reaction of others. The poor girl was depressed at not being able to laugh with children her age. His sadness ended up having a negative impact on his school results, and we wondered if we had not exaggerated a little – that is, asked too much.
And the bac, with honors!
We then turned to the truth. Instead of covering it up and telling our daughter that she was “different”, Mina explained to her what Down syndrome was. Far from shocking her, this revelation raised many questions from her. Finally she understood why she felt so different, and she wished to know more. She was the one who taught me the translation of “trisomy 21” into Arabic.
And then, Yasmine threw herself headlong into the preparation of her baccalaureate. We had recourse to private teachers, and Mina, with great care, accompanied her in her revisions. Yasmine wanted to raise the goal, and she did it: 12,39 average, Fair enough mention. She is the first student with Down’s syndrome in Morocco to obtain her baccalaureate! It quickly went around the country, and Yasmine liked this little popularity. There was a ceremony to congratulate her in Casablanca. At the microphone, she was comfortable and precise. Then, the king invited her to salute her success. In front of him, she did not deflate. We were proud, but already we had in mind the new battle, that of university studies. The School of Governance and Economics in Rabat agreed to give it a chance.
Today, she dreams of working, of becoming a “business woman”. Mina installed her near her school and taught her to keep her budget. At first, loneliness weighed heavily on her, but we didn’t give in and she stayed in Rabat. We congratulated ourselves on this decision, which initially broke our hearts. Today our daughter is going out, she has friends. Even though she continues to show aggression when she feels a negative a priori against her, Yasmine knows how to show solidarity. It carries a message full of hope: it is only in mathematics that the difference is a subtraction!