Welcome to Holland

March means different things to different people. Some look forward to St. Patrick’s Day and all things Irish. For others, they are getting revved up for three weeks of basketball craziness with March Madness. For many, just knowing that the promise of spring is on the way makes this month something worth celebrating.

For those of us connected to GiGi’s Playhouse, March brings a golden opportunity to teach, to advocate, and to shout from the rooftops for people who are near and dear to our hearts. World Down Syndrome Day is on March 21^st, or 3/21. The date represents 3 copies of the 21^st chromosome, which is the one defining characteristic shared by all individuals with Down syndrome. Beyond that, people with Down syndrome are just that – PEOPLE.

And yet, in 2026, we still find ourselves having to convince certain segments of the population that individuals with Down syndrome deserve a chance, that they are worthy of being included, that persistent stereotypes are not just outdated but wholly and completely offensive. There is a sign hanging in the Rockford Playhouse that reads, “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”

Down syndrome isn’t BAD, it’s just DIFFERENT. And, oh my, how boring the world would be if we were all the same. So, as we near World Down Syndrome Day on March 21^st, we share one of our favorite poems about Down syndrome. This piece, called “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsley, is a great way to explain to explain Down syndrome to those who have never really had personal experience with it. If you read it and it makes sense to you the way it makes sense to us, then jump on the advocacy train by passing it on to help someone else understand, as well!

Welcome To Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley

©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved. 

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes in and says, “Welcome to 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.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

 It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

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.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

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.