Explaining Through Stories
Informant information:
Pam is from Andover, Massachusetts. She has a seven-year-old daughter with Down Syndrome who participates in the “My Own Voice” choir, a choir for children with special needs in Andover.
Type of lore: Customary
Language: English
Country of Origin: United States of America
Social / Cultural Context: This book is shared among parents of children with special needs when trying to decide how to explain a new baby’s special needs to their typical siblings. Therefore it is most often used when the family is first entering the special needs community.
Informant’s comments
Another book, I thought was very helpful in explaining Down Syndrome to my other kids was… “We’ll Paint the Octopus Red” by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen
It is a story about how a family is expecting a baby, and the older sister is all excited to do all these fun things with the new baby ( go to the beach, visit grandma, sing, paint, dance, love, play kickball etc). But after the baby is born the parents are crying. The little girl asks what is wrong? The Dad explains that the baby, little Isaac has Down syndrome. the girl says, ooh.. So does that mean the baby can’t play kickball with me? The dad says, it might take the baby a little longer to learn how to walk, but he could learn to play kickball. The little girl says, so baby Isaac won’t be able to ride in the minivan and eat fruit snacks with me, and the dad says I think he’ll be able to do that too.. Well then he won’t be able to go visit grandma and have sleepovers with me, and the dad says I think he would love to do that… So the little girl says, so if Isaac has this down thing then what can’t he do? And the dad says there actually probably isn’t anything that he can’t do.
We found the book helpful. And then it was a good conversation starter about what is Down syndrome… we explained it to our kids, how everyone when they are born are given a set of chromosomes, one set from your mom and one from your dad. And how these chromosomes are the directions that your body follows on everything, how to breathe, grow, the color of your eyes, if you will be a good singer etc.. And when [our daughter] was born she got one more chromosome then the rest of us… So she has more sets of directions to follow then us, and that is why it takes her longer to learn how to walk and talk and sing…
Collector’s comments:
The informant stated that the title of the book was “Let’s Paint the Octopus Red” but the title is actually “We’ll Paint the Octopus Red”
The book itself is not folklore since it has an author, and folklore is authorless by definition. However, we found that the shared behavior of using this book to explain Down Syndrome to children was a tradition shared between parents of children with special needs.
Tags/Keywords: special needs, Tradition, Down Syndrome, Folklore, Book, Story
