Welcome to Holland: A Poem Every Autism Parent Should Read

This poem is a rite of passage for any special needs parent, and I felt it deserved a place on my blog. Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley beautifully captures the emotions that come with an unexpected journey—grief, adjustment, and ultimately, appreciation for a different kind of beauty. When I first read it early in our diagnosis, I felt truly seen for the first time.

It put words to feelings I didn’t know how to express and gave me a perspective I still hold onto today. Even now, we come back to it as a reminder that while our journey may look different, it is still filled with love, meaning, and moments of joy.

So to my fellow parents who are now in Holland—not Italy, Paris, or Hawaii—welcome. I've been in Holland for three years now, and while there are still moments when I grieve the trip we didn’t take, I’ve realized those moments come when I’m comparing rather than truly seeing the beauty of where we are. When I step back and live in gratitude, I recognize just how incredible this journey is. And what we do have? It’s quite marvelous. I trust, deep down, that we were given the children we were meant to have.

My son teaches me something every single day. Autism parenting can be one of the most transformative experiences of a lifetime—if you allow it to be. Holland will never be Italy, but I promise you, it’s still absolutely extraordinary.

Welcome To Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley

©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved.  Reprinted by permission of the author.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

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, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.