Maggie Grace

I belong to a list serve for parents of children with Angelman's Syndrome, what my Joshua has. One of our parents, while searching for blogs written by fellow parents of children with AS, instead found a blog written by a female student who attends Wash U in St. Louis on a full writing scholorship. The mother was outraged and hurt by what this young woman wrote, it was truly hateful and disturbed, she then sent a link to the blog through the list serve and, needless to say, parents who read it were flabbergasted by what this young woman had to say about our children. Below is an article that was written for the St. Louis post, the author does a wonderful job, I think, better than I could, of telling exactly what happened from there.

Here is the article:





Matthew was born with Angelman syndrome. He was mentally retarded. He was prone to seizures. As is typical of children with the genetic disorder, his movements were jerky and marionette-like. When he was 12 years old, he got up in the middle of the night and went into the living room. He opened a footrest on a reclining chair and put his head in. His jerky movements apparently caused the footrest to clamp down on his neck. Efforts to extricate himself only made matters worse. He suffocated.

Are you having fun yet?


Matthew's sister wrote an account of her brother's death for a Web site created for the siblings of children with Angelman syndrome. The Web site was set up so these siblings could talk with other kids who are confronting the same problems. It is not easy to live with a disabled sibling. And so Matthew's sister posted her note. She said her brother was still an important part of her life.

A student from Washington University came upon the Web site. She linked the site to her personal blog and she wrote: "Welcome, gentle readers, to a special installment, designed to raise awareness of Angelman's syndrome - the world's most hilarious form of mental retardation." She put in a warning: "Stop here if you can't stand retard jokes."