The debate over "normal"

Original Print Date: May 10, 1992

In television's "Life Goes On," Corky is a teen-ager with Down's syndrome who has a girlfriend. She has Down's syndrome, too.

While some laud ABC for its gutsy portrayal of people with disabilities, others say the show is unrealistic and that it does more harm than good.

It's the same debate as the one that rages in the disabled community when it comes to the issues of independent living, marriage and parenthood.

Ask Tommy Pankratz, who is mentally retarded, whether he wants to have a girlfriend, get married and have a family, and he'll respond the way most other 21-year-olds would.

Yes, that sounds good.

But ask some parents of disabled adults, and you'll hear an entirely different side.

"When Tommy tells me he wants to get married and have children," says Mary Ellen Pankratz, Tommy's mother, "I look at him and say, 'You can't even take care of yourself. How can you care for a baby?'"

The staff at the Community Continuum College say they aren't keen on the idea, either. They've seen the down side of developmentally disabled adults who live together or marry.

"We've had three couples who had children, and it was a disaster," Carol Ferreira says. "They were so desperate to fit in to a normal life, but they didn't have it together enough to take responsibility for any of it."

Ferreira is the administrator of lthe day training activity center in Turlock.

One couple, she says, moved out of their board and care home after they had a child and ended up living in a car. Their second child, born with medical problems, was kept in the hospital then placed in a foster home. They didn't understand why.

Another couple set up house in an apartment, but their baby is being raised by grandparents.

Now the mother is pregnant again — with a different man.

"You can teach someone to cook," says Rose Rodriguez, who also works at the Turlock center, "but you can't teach emotions and all the stuff that goes into being married and having children."

Bob Phillips, driector of the Area VI Developmental Disabilities Board, disagrees.

"People have the right to make informed choices about how they are going to live. That cannot be taken away from them."

Lafreda Mitchell says she'd never think of discouraging her daughter from doing anything she wanted. Mitchell is the mother of Tammy Willett, a woman with cerebral palsy.

"She always had told me she wanted to get married. I never thought she would, just like when she said she wanted to have a baby. But I never said no. I didn't want to kill her dreams."

Willett married a man with mental retardation.

"I often think if Tammy was never sick, would she ever consider him for a mate," Mitchell says. "Boy, she'd be a rescal if she didn't. He's slow, but he's really special, We always say that he's the muscle, and she's the brain. They are doing really well."

Bob Phillips says the trend is to encourage independent living — or so-called supported living in the natural environment — as opposed to dependent living in residential care facilities or group homes.

In the last year, Valley Mountain Regional Center has started programs to catch up with that trend.

Six families are living in a Modesto appartment complex as part of an independent living program, says Gwen Caldeira, director of planning and resources for VMRC.

The families receive round-the-clock services.

"We felt if we were going to put them out on their own," Caldeira says, "they needed a fair amount of support."