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Chapter 5 70 However, by the time Jason turned eight, regular children caught up with him and went past him. 13 For Emily, and for Jason too, this was an ‘unbelievably horrible readjustment’. 14 During that time Emily wrote the text ‘Welcome to Holland’ which describes how someone plans to go on a wonderful vacation to Italy, but the plane lands, unexpectedly, in Holland. Although one can learn to appreciate Holland, it is not, and will never be, Italy, and it is not the vacation one had expected to have. 15 This is how she felt being Jason’s mother. Emily was disappointed, because her efforts did not result in Jason leading the flourishing life she imagined. ‘Emily said with a mix of enormous pride and terrible regret: “Jason has no peers”’. 16 In his twenties, Jason suffers from two depressions, and Emily ‘reflected with concern on her original attempt to make Jason the highest functioning DS kid in history’. 17 Would she have done it differently, knowing what she knows now? She recognises that lower functioning Down’s children are often happier, but as she says, ‘his intelligence has enriched our relationship so much and I would never want to give that up’, and it is clear that Jason, too, takes pleasure in using his mind. 18 5.2 H UMAN FLOURISHING AS AN IDEAL AIM OF PARENTING ; WHAT DOES IT IMPLY FOR PARENTS ? Philosophers of education John White, Harry Brighouse, Kristján Kristjánsson, and Doret de Ruyter defend human flourishing as an, or even the ideal aim of education. 19 Human flourishing can be understood as autonomous, wholehearted and successful engagement in worthwhile relationships, activities and experiences , in which ‘success’ is defined in the broadest sense of achieving what one has aspired to achieve. 20 In this context ‘education’ is mostly understood as formal education, i.e. the work schools and teachers do, but it also includes parents. The aforementioned scholars thus argue that also for parents human flourishing is an ideal aim of the upbringing they provide. 13 Ibid., p. 172. 14 Idem. 15 See the last sentences from Emily’s text ‘Welcome to Holland’: “(..) 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, go away … because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss. But … if you spend the rest of your life mourning the fact that you didn’t go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland’ (Solomon 2012, p. 168). 16 Solomon 2012, p. 174. 17 Ibid., p. 176. 18 Idem. 19 E.g. White 2011; Brighouse 2006; Kristjánsson 2015, 2016; De Ruyter 2007, 2012, 2015. 20 See White 2011, and see chapter 2 for a conceptual analysis of human flourishing.