which_chick | (no subject)

One of the things that was interesting about the Apple Blossom Festival (official name of the thing Heather and I attended yesterday) was that I saw two Down Syndrome children (quite young -- like less than 5). This is worthy of note because they've been getting kind of thin on the ground now that we have pretty solid prenatal testing.

Yes. I went to eat funnel cake and look at apple blossoms and I came back with "Dang, there aren't many little kids with Down Syndrome out there anymore." It's not like they were ever hugely common, but they're practically invisible these days. I cannot help that my brain does this. It'd be nice if I went and brought back "Wow! Apple blossoms! Funnel cake!" but what I really brought back was how damn *odd* it was to see a Down Syndrome kid these days. The funnel cake was good. The apple blossoms were pretty. But, yo, kids with Down Syndrome, and that's something I don't see often these days. (I live in a very rural, conservative area of the country where if one opts to abort chromosomally-different hildren, one certainly does not admit to that fact in public. If they're going to be born anywhere, it'd be here.)

When was the last time you saw a child (under ten, approximately) with Down Syndrome? Bonus points if you don't work in education or the medical profession. Please also answer if your answer is "I cannot remember" or "I don't look at the world for stuff like that, you twisted intellectual freak."