Dad's Powerful Twitter Thread Shows the Reality of Down Syndrome

UK dad Jason Kneen brightened up a lot of Twitter feeds after sharing sweet photos of his daughter, Rosie. The now viral thread provides a candid take on what it’s like to raise a child with Down syndrome. He admits you’ll have your fair share of bumps along the way, but mostly, “it’s 100 percent this,” he says sharing snapshot of Rosie adorably cheesing for the camera.

After the super-cute pictures of the little girl instantly went viral (because have you seen that face?!), the dad decided to dig a bit deeper into the personal side of his family’s experience.

“I was totally not ready for a child like Rosie,” he admits. “It was a shock when she was born and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t take it well initially.”

He was overwhelmed by the amount of information from doctors, booklets, and manuals, and hated what felt like was a constant reminder of “what’s wrong and going to go wrong.”

“It’s devastating to hear how your child’s life has already been predicted and mapped out. All children are different—how can any one predict their future,” the dad asks. “Quickly, I realized that any child can be slow to talk, slow to walk, have learning difficulties, and any child can be brilliant and wonderful and amazing.”

The sweet girl and her family have been dealt some difficult cards, even landing in the hospital on certain occasions. Sometimes it’s even meant Rosie and her dad had to be away from the rest of their family to get the proper medical treatment. But through it all, Rosie has remained the sweet, happy-go-lucky girl she always is, and it’s only strengthened the bond between the two.

Despite Kneen’s empowering message, there are still some heartless people in the world who have a hard time accepting the little girl and others with the genetic disorder. To that, the dad has only one thing to say: “Rosie will grow up to be a million times the human you could ever aspire to be.”

We couldn’t agree more.

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