Fascinating article: Arthur Miller's secret son

[Perry White]

http://www.vanityfair.com/fame/features/2007/09/miller200709?printable=true&currentPage=all

Arthur Miller's Missing Act
For all the public drama of Arthur Miller's career—his celebrated plays (including Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, his social activism—one character was absent: the Down-syndrome child he deleted from his life.

He wasn't mentioned in his autobiography and was never publicly acknowledged. The LA Times was the only major US newspaper to mention him in his obit.

 

[Killick]

Dammit! There is to be no outing on the board. Now, apologize to JDV, Mr. White.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Damn, that was one hell of an article.

I guess "the moralist of the past American century" who believed in the "fierce belief in man's responsibility to his fellow man—and [in] the self-destruction that followed on his betrayal of that responsibility" couldn't handle the idea of raising a child like that.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

That was a hell of a good read.

 

[Shark_Juumper]

I currently work with children and adults with special needs. Even today, many times the best decision some families can make is to turn their child over to someone or some agency that can provide the love and emotional support the biological parent can't or won't provide. It's ironic that there used to be a social stigma about keeping your special needs child and now there is a stigma about giving up your special needs child.

 

[markvid]

Stigma about giving them up?
Yes, it's yours, love it like you would otherwise.
Sorry, I think walking away from the child is the lowest thing to do.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

Miller was hardly alone:

Sam Snead also had a special needs child that he seldom talked about. The kid lived in a special home up north somewhere, while the rest of the family stayed at the family farm in Va.


Edit: After reading Vanity Fair article: Arthur Miller is a slimy cocksucking hypocrite. I hope he's spends coutnless hours in hell listening to the wails of abandoned children.
Money - especailly funds left after your dead - is no substitute for the love of a parent.

 

[Mayfly]

I took a class on American Drama, and one of our assignment was to read Arthur Miller. Reading "The Price" was interesting, but I couldn't get too into it, and seeing it only confused.

 

[imjustagirl2]

Holy hell. That was fantastic.

 

[Shark_Juumper]

Yes, it's yours, love it like you would otherwise.

Keep in mind that people like Daniel Miller are the best possible outcomes. Imagine taking care of a 42-year old child who never grew out of the digging in his diaper. Or a 300-pound Autistic teenager with uncontrollable tantrums.

 

[Jones]

That's a terrific story.

One thing I wonder: The first subtitle, The Power of Denial -- I read that as The Power of Daniel, and I wonder if the word was used specifically as a kind of mindtrick, or if it was an accident.

It's a little shivery, how predictive that boy's name seems to have been.

 

[sportschick]

Yes, it's yours, love it like you would otherwise.

Keep in mind that people like Daniel Miller are the best possible outcomes. Imagine taking care of a 42-year old child who never grew out of the digging in his diaper. Or a 300-pound Autistic teenager with uncontrollable tantrums.

My aunt was forced to put my cousin, who has fragile X syndrome, in a home when he was about 15 after he threw her down the stairs, breaking her arm, during a tantrum (his IQ was about 35-40 and he was nonverbal). The decision to keep or give up a child who will never be self-sufficient is not an easy one, and I wouldn't wish it on someone I hated.

 

[markvid]

I see what you mean, SC, I know some people wouldn't have the means to care for them, but to refuse to acknowledge they exist?
Wrong.

 

[sportschick]

I see what you mean, SC, I know some people wouldn't have the means to care for them, but to refuse to acknowledge they exist?
Wrong.

Oh, I agree with you there. Just pointing out that keeping a child with severe disabilities brings a host of other issues into parents' lives.

 

[markvid]

Absolutely, but it seems to me, Miller wanted to just say the kid isn't perfect, it never happened.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Yes, it's yours, love it like you would otherwise.

Keep in mind that people like Daniel Miller are the best possible outcomes. Imagine taking care of a 42-year old child who never grew out of the digging in his diaper. Or a 300-pound Autistic teenager with uncontrollable tantrums.

Yeah, but when you ship the kid off when he's a baby you aren't even making an effort to find out how bad it'll be.

 

[Hed bust]

Pretty miserable performance by father Miller.
At least (and this in no way sanctions his behavior, in my book) he left the kid a bunch of money.

 

[finishthehat]

Yes, it's yours, love it like you would otherwise.

Keep in mind that people like Daniel Miller are the best possible outcomes. Imagine taking care of a 42-year old child who never grew out of the digging in his diaper. Or a 300-pound Autistic teenager with uncontrollable tantrums.

Yeah, but when you ship the kid off when he's a baby you aren't even making an effort to find out how bad it'll be.

Not to mention that when they're babies, they're not all that different from other infants (I've got a niece with Down's Syndrome, now 22 years old).