Shake that Tush on the Catwalk

OK, for those of you who know me you know my youngest son has Down Syndrome. His story is for another day but this has been niggling at my brain since I saw the blog, so I decided I had to write it down. If you are a FB friend you cannot miss the cross posts I have been posting about www.noahsdad.com.
Noah has Down Syndrome, and apparently unlike me, they get the Sunday paper, complete with weekly ads. In the paper a couple weeks ago Target ran an ad that included a model with Down Syndrome. Take a minute and go to the following like and read it. http://noahsdad.com/target-down-syndrome/

As i read this I went back to when Colin was a little baby and I was getting an email or a mailer from Babies R Us, like every other day. Seriously, every other day. And as I looked at all the cute, smiling baby models I notice something, none of them had a "handicap." No DS babies, no babies wearing helmets, etc. It just reaffirmed to me that advertisers or the general public does not see "different" as "appealing" or "likely to induce a purchase." It saddened me. Babies and children with DS are SOOOO stinking cute! See..( i hope the photos added, not tech savvy like some people)

(smiling in his sleep)

And they get even CUTER the older they get ....

(his girlfriend has DS too!)

Now you cant tell me this kids aren't so precious they wouldn't sell oodles of what they we marketing, yet the rest of society hasn't had the privilege of knowing these kids. And if the trend keeps up of terminating pregnancies of mothers whose early test indicate an increased likelihood of DS (notice I said increased likely hood, as far as I know an amnio is the only way to tell with 100% accuracy) the DS population will soon decrease dramatically.

It is heartwarming to see that advertiser such as Nordstrom and Target have expanded their idea of beautiful and acceptable to include kids like mine. Colin makes me proud to be his mom every day and I wish there were more ways for me to showcase his talents, and he has them by the truckload. Come on modeling agencies, this is a challenge to you to start signing more models with disabilities. Make kids like Colin the norm in advertising not the exception. He is my light and I want him to shine.