Model and actress Amanda Booth has become known for her work as an advocate for people with special needs. Her 9-year-old son Michah has Down syndrome and nonverbal Autism, and she just shared a touching post in honor of Down Syndrome Awareness Month. The video was of Micah taking his first steps at 15 months old. Over the footage, she asked people to “imagine the moment your child was born a fleet of doctors came to your side providing a list of things they won’t do” and to “unlearn the need to define everything and everyone.”
“Down Syndrome occurs randomly and at the moment of conception,” she captioned her post. “During cell division a copy of the 21st chromosome that is supposed to fall off just sticks around instead. At one moment in time I would have imagined ‘what are the odds?’ as a ‘I hope not’ but now it’s a ‘how did I get so lucky?’!”
She said she and her husband Mike Quinones “proclaim this almost daily.”
“When our boy is so sweet at nine as he tenderly grabs our face. When I see a neurotypical at the store being an entitled dick to their parents. When I imagine Micah being 16 and watching movies with us on a Friday night instead of driving drunk after a party. When he’s 20 and my heart doesn’t sink when the phone rings expecting to hear he’s OD’d. When he’s 30 and it won’t have been a month since I’ve heard from him.”
“This is getting dark but I hope you get my point,” she continued. “There is so much the doctors tell you that your child won’t do the moment they’re born as a negative. Maybe they should tell you congratulations and then say all of these things they won’t do instead… Happy month to the loves of our lives, the greatest people we’ve ever known – our Down Syndrome community!!!”
Followers were incredibly moved by the post, filling her comments with love, heart emojis, and messages about how relatable it was.
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“Also have these same thoughts! We are lucky! They are magical in their own right! 💙💛”
“Oh I can so relate to your words 🙏 …There are so many positive things which could be pointed out when receiving a Down syndrome diagnosis….The first days for us were horrible. There was not one positive thing Someone told me in the hospital. Now one year later I already have so many positive things to say✨”
Booth has pushed for more diversity in the fashion and modeling industry, stressing the importance of representation for people with Down syndrome and disabilities.
“Let’s put them in an advertisement so people with Down syndrome get to walk past storefronts and say, ‘Oh, that person looks like me [and think] either A, ‘I want to be a model too’ or B, ‘I want to shop here because I feel invited to,’” she told People. “And then people who don’t have Down syndrome and walk by a store, maybe that’s their first time ever seeing someone with Down syndrome and it will get them to talk with their parents and say, ‘Oh, this person looks different than me, what’s going on here?’”
It may be something a teen who landed on her post may have wondered. And it’s something Booth hopes people will ask openly, instead of thinking they should look away
“For so long, the disabilities community was shunned because people thought that’s what you should do. ‘Don’t stare, don’t whisper. Don’t talk about this person with a limb difference. Don’t talk about this person who wears their disability on their face, like Down syndrome,’” she said. “Now, as parents, we’re like, ‘No, let’s talk about it. Hey, are you curious?’ Like, ‘Hey, kid at the park, come and ask me why my kiddo is stimming or doing these different things and I can tell you about autism and you can learn something.’”
Before you go, check out these celebrity parents who have opened up about raising kids with disabilities.
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