"Welcome to Holland" is an essay, written in 1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley , about having a child with Down Syndrome, though it is applicable to many other birth defects, and is given by many hospitals and child-care professionals to new parents of special-needs children.

The essay, written in the second person, employs a metaphor of excitement for a vacation to Italy that becomes a massive disappointment when the reader's plane lands instead in Holland.

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

The metaphor is that the trip to Italy is a typical birth and child-raising experience, and that the trip to Holland is the experiencing of having and raising a special-needs child.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

In the end, however, an effort is made to express that the "trip" is still well worth it:

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

External links

• "Welcome to Holland" on the Down Syndrome web page
• "Welcome to Holland" on our-kids.org