Socks get conversation started on Down syndrome awareness

There’s talking the talk and there’s walking the walk. And then there’s the Lots of Socks (#lotsofsocks) social media campaign, where the two meet.

By wearing socks that are eye-catching and different, observers of World Down Syndrome Day helped spread awareness that people with the genetic disorder aren’t much different from the rest of us.

The idea is that someone will ask, “What’s with the wacky socks?” and the wearer will be able to talk a bit about Down syndrome. It can be something as simple as sharing, “I have someone I love who has Down syndrome,” said Modesto resident Susana Barajas.

Her special someone is daughter Elisa, a senior at Beyer High School. “I think her high school yearbook quote says it all. ... ‘We are more alike than different.’ ” Barajas said. “They are able to do everything we can do, but at a slower pace.”

From Sherwood Elementary through Somerset Middle through Beyer, Elisa’s education largely has been in an inclusive, general-education setting. She didn’t do any “reverse mainstreaming” – going into a special-education setting for math and some other core subjects – until high school, her mother said.

Barajas said her family loves the annual wild-sock day, but she also takes any opportunity she can, on any day, to help spread awareness. When speaking with youth, “what I talk to them about is how Elisa is just like them, with the same desires, hopes and fears that anyone has,” she said. “She wants to go to winter formal, to prom, she wants to graduate and go to college, to fall in love, get married, have children.”

In some cases, Elisa and others with Down syndrome might not be able to achieve goals to the same extent as other people, Barajas said. But her daughter will leave Beyer this spring with a certificate of completion and continue her education in a transition program offered by Modesto City Schools that includes a P.E. course at Modesto Junior College.

“The reality is that, unfortunately, there are not many post-secondary opportunities for kids with special needs,” Barajas said. But she hopes that within a couple of years, she’ll be able to take some classes – maybe life skills, yoga, cooking – with Elisa at MJC and “help her have the college experience she really wants.”

Elisa, 17, already is enjoying an experience so many of her teen peers have had: dating. She and her boyfriend, a fellow Beyer student, have been to winter formal and will go to prom, Barajas said.

“She has a heart and desire to have someone to care for,” Elisa’s mother said. The two families know each other, and the parents “are going to get together to talk about boundaries and things, but we don’t want to make too big a deal about it.”

Elisa’s dad, Luis, still is wrapping his head around her having a boyfriend, not because of her Down syndrome but just because she’s still his little girl, Barajas said.

Brenda Blakeley also is the mother of a child with Down Syndrome. Son Brock, 14, is in eighth grade at Savage Middle School and will attend Beyer next school year.

Like Barajas, her wish for Down syndrome awareness is that people look past the disorder and see that Brock is “just like everybody else – he just takes a little while longer to learn – and he loves everybody.”

Brock has been blessed to have “big boys” in his life – students who are good role models and care for him, Blakeley said. People with Down syndrome are “well aware of affection and people out there accepting them. They want to be loved just like everybody else.”

Brock enjoys going to church, bike riding, playing the drum in band and going to the Escalon cattle auction, where all the auctioneers know him and include him in the bidding. “He loves to bid,” his mom said. “He buys one of everything. I mean he doesn’t really, but ...”

The Modesto-based Society for disABILITIES gives people with Down syndrome and many other conditions a variety of opportunities to live rounded lives. Executive Director Marci Boucher hopes others understand that disabilities don’t define a person. Just through her group, “they water ski, they snow ski, they can play baseball and soccer.”

World Down Syndrome Day, with its Lots of Socks campaign, “gives us a chance to be able to convey the importance of acceptance, inclusion and the value of people who have Down syndrome.”

This story was originally published March 21, 2017 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Socks get conversation started on Down syndrome awareness."