Viewpoint – It’s down to having Down’s syndrome



Our new columnist Sara Pickard finds that being taken seriously when you have a visible learning disability is no easy matter. Having Downs syndrome and being quite small in stature can mean that people are going to see me and can take pity and think, “Aww, isn’t she cute”. This is sometimes what I have heard being said. This is something that can make me feel smaller than I actually am, and I am actually 33 years old!

On this note, I was at an event with my work once before where a politician patted me on the head, while another got down on his knee to talk to me. As well as feeling quite honoured, and knowing that the individual’s intentions were good, it did make me feel slightly patronised.

I do believe that a lot of things like this are down to differences in generations and well intentioned and not to be nasty at all.

When I was working on an exhibition stand at a museum an elderly lady came up to ask my work colleague, who is quite a bit older than me, if she could give me a pound to buy an ice cream!! She was coming from a place of caring but for me this made me feel that I was being a bit patronised. We did take the opportunity to explain to her that I was at work and that I could answer for myself…. and that I didn’t really want an ice cream! We didn’t want to upset her but hopefully she will approach someone like me differently in future.

Colouring pencils

I have had a few other ‘interesting’ times, like being in France on a holiday with my parents, in an Italian restaurant. When we got to the restaurant, it was very busy and the waitress only saw a ‘little’ girl with a visible disability, who is quite small in height. She had gone to get our menus and also brought back a colouring pad with a pencil case of colouring pencils and put them in front of me! I was 25 at the time and had studied French for my GCSEs so I decided to use this to my advantage. “J’ai vingt-cinq ans,” I said to the waitress. She seemed so embarrassed and said that she was twenty-five as well and still liked to colour in herself. I think this took her slightly by surprise and even my parents were a bit shocked. The waitress thought she was doing the right thing …  but got it wrong.

I want to be able to prove to others around me that, despite being someone who has a visible disability, who looks younger and smaller in height, I still live a very active life with a lot of friends. l Iike to do things like anyone else would, so I think that being treated equally, like everyone else, is really important.

Maybe the general public has a stereotypical image of people with a learning disability, especially if they have not had personal experiences themselves of spending time with someone with a learning disability.  Even though we experience what can be embarrassing situations we can use them to help in educating the general public so that they respond differently in future.  Seeing more people with learning disabilities featuring on TV or in films can also help.

I don’t let having Downs syndrome be a barrier stopping me doing what I want to do.

Just like my motto in life suggests, “Downs syndrome …

so what?”

Sara Pickard works for ‘Hidden Now Heard’ a Welsh oral history project, and for Inclusion International.

Illustration by Henny Beaumont