Adventures in Child-Rearing: The Sexual Life of a Child Growing Up With Down Syndrome

Abstract

The sexual development of one child with Down syndrome is detailed from his infancy through his adolescence. This paper confronts society's often held notion that a person labeled with mental retardation is asexual, amoral, or immoral, and incapable of learning how to make reasoned decisions about his own sexual behavior. It is written by and from the perspective of his mother, a disabled disability advocate and a former special education teacher, but includes references to others who have had an impact on the choices that might have affected his sexual development. Her son is quoted both from notes she has taken throughout his life and his memories in response to hearing the draft of this article read aloud at the age of nearly nineteen.