Dad’s Emotional Video Defending Down Syndrome Sparks Overwhelming Support
— -- A Canadian father is receiving support around the globe after posting a video of himself defending children with Down syndrome.
Robb Scott, 41, of Truro, Nova Scotia, created the video on Feb. 20 after he said he overheard another father in a video store explaining to his son what Down syndrome was.
"The video was really more for me because I felt like 'OK, I dealt with this poorly and the only way I could feel better is to at least express positively what I feel,'" Scott told ABC News today. "[I thought] maybe a couple of people will see it and share it and it will help them think differently."
Scott said the boy in the video store asked about Down syndrome after picking up a movie, "Where Hope Grows," a film that features a character born with the genetic condition.
"[The boy] asked his dad what Down syndrome was and he asked it in the most honest, genuine way," Scott said. "His dad was not being malicious. He was searching for the words and I could see he was trying to find the right things to say [but] he said 'It's an illness of people not knowing anything.'
"This child was genuinely asking, 'What's Down syndrome?' and this child is a blank slate," he added. "I let him understand it for something it wasn't. I let his father define it for him and that hit me hard. This was a child a child that's my sons age and I could've corrected him, not in a rude way, and I didn't."
In an effort to explain how he felt about the situation, Scott, whose son Turner, 5, has Down syndrome, said he went back to his car and made a video.
"Down syndrome is literally one of the most beautiful things that's ever happened in my life," Scott said in the video. "It's fun, it's brilliant, it's amazing, it's funny, it's kind, it's loving, it's cuddly...they're great teachers, people with Down syndrome. It's not an illness."
Scott posted the emotional footage on his Facebook page where it received over 870,000 views.
"I'm trying to understand what it is that people have reacted to about this video," he said. "Somehow it's reached beyond just people with Down syndrome. It struck a cord and it's blowing me away."
