Dear Prudie: My MIL didn't disclose she has Huntington's Disease Because She Wanted Grandbrats

Say it with me, Hateful Childfrees:

Parenting Makes You a Better Person!

I question the LW's, or at least her husband's, ignorance of the disease.

Quote

It is obvious my mother-in-law has known something about this for more than a decade. Her own mother and several of her aunts died of it

So his grandmother and several great-aunts all died, probably going through a course that would appear repetitive in the symptoms, and the husband didn't scratch his head and think "there's some weird disease that runs in my family?"

Mehhhhh, I come from a family where the older members were very secretive about scandals, diseases and things they considered "shameful" (which were regarded as totally banal by us younger generations), but someone always dropped a bean that gave enough clues to figure things out.

With a disease as awful as Huntington's

Quote

Symptoms of the disease can vary between individuals and even among affected members of the same family, but usually progress predictably. The earliest symptoms are often subtle problems with mood or cognition. A general lack of coordination and an unsteady gait often follows. As the disease advances, uncoordinated, jerky body movements become more apparent, along with a decline in mental abilities and behavioral and psychiatric problems. Physical abilities are gradually impeded until coordinated movement becomes very difficult. Mental abilities generally decline into dementia. Complications such as pneumonia, heart disease, and physical injury from falls reduce life expectancy to around twenty years after symptoms begin. There is no cure for HD, and full-time care is required in the later stages of the disease.

and several family members who suffered through it, I have a hard time believing that it would remain a secret.

I agree with Dorisan. I think the LW, or at least her husband, are full of crap. A disease with long, debilitating and obvious symptoms that has been known to be passed genetically for decades is not something I believe could be kept a secret with all those family members dying of it. Even if grandmoo didn't share the information, the husband should have been tested to see whether he had the gene before breeding. The woman has a right to be mad at MIL, but she should be more mad at her husband. However, the LW sounds dumb as dirt herself (if any of this is true). I think it is either made up or a troll post.

Many breeders simply do not give a shit about relatives' disorders and pain until it may affect their own precious spawn.
At that point, they get all kinds of 'righteous' indignation.

How much help and care did they give to the suffering and dying relatives over all of those years?
Are they planning to be a significant support for their non-child relatives in future?

Maybe grandmoo was already suffering from "decline in mental abilities" and "psychiatric problems" and thus thought reproduction would be a great idea. One wonders how her son didn't catch on, but perhaps it is because baby-rabies is treated as normal by wider society instead of the disease it is.

I think it was possible they didn't know of HD. They may have thought it was some other kind of dementia.

What anger me is Dear Proudie's answer. I would be beyond angry and not likely to forgive or "let go". At.All.

_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.

Methinks it's time to cut grandmoo out of the grandloaf's life.

What a douchebag move! If you go through all the hassle and cost of having a kid, surely you want it to outlive you, not to do all the cuntwork with it and then have it die, because grandmoo wanted a DNA replicant to play with.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" ... what's one more once you've already got two shedding on the couch?"

Quote

not to do all the cuntwork with it and then have it die, because grandmoo wanted a DNA replicant to play with.

Huntington's disease usually starts to affect a person when they are in their 30's or 40's, so barring any other condition or accident the parents would raise the child.

But if Dud has the condition, he's not going to be able to raise the kid and the kid will grow up with a sick parent. Not to mention the anxiety of growing up and wondering whether you have the gene too.

And I agree that Dud was the typical clueless Breeder. I don't care whether something is officially genetic or not--I'd be investigating all of those things if I wanted to breed.

But most people don't feel that way. La-la-la-la, stick the fingers in their ears, don't tell me I can't have a baybee. Prudie's quote from the Huntington society confirms this:

Quote

only about 20 percent of adults at risk for the illness choose to find out if they are carriers. The society's guidelines for testing point out that in the absence of neurological symptoms, there is almost never a reason to test a young person for the disease, which tends to strike in middle age. Your husband may decide to be in that 20 percent as you contemplate having more children, but there is no rush about making that choice.

Translation: most people don't want to know, so they crank out loaves and hope for the best. Unconscionable.

IMO, Husband should be tested pronto so they know what they are facing. And if he has it, forget this bullshit about "genetic counseling" before they loaf again--he has no business having more kids if he's going to be dead before they are 20.

Quote
bell_flower

Quote

not to do all the cuntwork with it and then have it die, because grandmoo wanted a DNA replicant to play with.

Huntington's disease usually starts to affect a person when they are in their 30's or 40's, so barring any other condition or accident the parents would raise the child.

But if Dud has the condition, he's not going to be able to raise the kid and the kid will grow up with a sick parent. Not to mention the anxiety of growing up and wondering whether you have the gene too.

And I agree that Dud was the typical clueless Breeder. I don't care whether something is officially genetic or not--I'd be investigating all of those things if I wanted to breed.

But most people don't feel that way. La-la-la-la, stick the fingers in their ears, don't tell me I can't have a baybee. Prudie's quote from the Huntington society confirms this:

Quote

only about 20 percent of adults at risk for the illness choose to find out if they are carriers. The society's guidelines for testing point out that in the absence of neurological symptoms, there is almost never a reason to test a young person for the disease, which tends to strike in middle age. Your husband may decide to be in that 20 percent as you contemplate having more children, but there is no rush about making that choice.

Translation: most people don't want to know, so they crank out loaves and hope for the best. Unconscionable.

IMO, Husband should be tested pronto so they know what they are facing. And if he has it, forget this bullshit about "genetic counseling" before they loaf again--he has no business having more kids if he's going to be dead before they are 20.

I can't understand that.

I am heterozigote for another genetic condition. I have ALWAYS known, and my parents have ALWAYS told me to screen any potential partner to avoid the 1/4 chance of a ill child. All this bullshit about the "right not to know" never entered the equation. I had a DUTY to know and to make sure my (in the end inexistent, but potential) children to be healthy.

Exactly so. No, if you have the gene of Huntington Disease YOU DON'T FUCKING BREED.

Jesus. What is wrong with those people?

_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.

The story at http://curehd.blogspot.com/2011/12/kates-untested-baby-huntingtons-disease.html is about a moo named Kate who knows she has Huntingtons and still decides to have a child without testing it. She already knows she won't live to raise this child and is lining up grandmoo to raise it. All due to the delusion that god won't give you more than you can handle.

When others point out that this moo is endangering her child she whines about feeling judged.

Quote
krausyaoj
The story at http://curehd.blogspot.com/2011/12/kates-untested-baby-huntingtons-disease.html is about a moo named Kate who knows she has Huntingtons and still decides to have a child without testing it. She already knows she won't live to raise this child and is lining up grandmoo to raise it. All due to the delusion that god won't give you more than you can handle.

When others point out that this moo is endangering her child she whines about feeling judged.

She is being judged. Rightly so. If you are an idiot, I'll judge you as one.

Did this idiot breed in the end?

_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.

Yes, this idiot moo had her baybee. She does not have a job becase she is too ill, nor is she married, but she did get grandmoo to agree to raise it. Many of these familes complain about the suffering caused by the disease and plead for money to support them and research for a cure. But when it comes to breeding, then suddenly the disease is not so bad and they will just roll the dice.

When responsible parents abort defectives loaves they get judged about how life with a terrible disease is better than no life.

A related story at http://curehd.blogspot.com/2011/12/angel-fighting-for-cure-huntingtons.html where a parent has Huntingtons, tests and aborts the first defective loaf and then the second is tested and found free. A bunch of breeders complain that the parents should have accepted whatever they got and not been responsible and choosing.

Quote
krausyaoj
Yes, this idiot moo had her baybee. She does not have a job becase she is too ill, nor is she married, but she did get grandmoo to agree to raise it. Many of these familes complain about the suffering caused by the disease and plead for money to support them and research for a cure. But when it comes to breeding, then suddenly the disease is not so bad and they will just roll the dice.

When responsible parents abort defectives loaves they get judged about how life with a terrible disease is better than no life.

A related story at http://curehd.blogspot.com/2011/12/angel-fighting-for-cure-huntingtons.html where a parent has Huntingtons, tests and aborts the first defective loaf and then the second is tested and found free. A bunch of breeders complain that the parents should have accepted whatever they got and not been responsible and choosing.

At least this one did the quasi-responsible thing.

I want to puke when I read "I am so glad I had XX even if his/her short life was horrid because it filled ME with joy!"
Yeah. And we are the selfish ones.

_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.