"The boy in the backseat had plenty to say in wide, skidding vowels that only his mother understood." This is how the writer introduces Wavey’s son to us in" The Shipping News". It sounds as if the boy is about one year old, since this is the way a normal one-year-old child is likely to talk. But Herry is not one year old. Herry had already started school. His bad speech was due to his handicap, Down’s syndrome.

Down’s syndrome is a severe handicap, also called Trisomy 21 or Mongolism. The chances of giving birth to a child with Down’s syndrome increase with the age of the mother. Wavey is about 40 years old when we meet her in the book so she had passed 30 or maybe 35 when her only son was born. Down’s syndrome is caused by a chromosome abnormality and results in mental retardation. The retardation is serious and persons with Down’s syndrome seldom achieve a mental age above 8 years old. Though Herry has started school he expresses himself so badly that it is difficult to understand him. It is obvious what he means when he shouts "Gove, gove" when pointing at the fishermen’s orange gloves, but what does he mean when he says "Vars" and looks at the blue iris in Mrs Buggit’s garden? This inadequate skill as regards conversation often makes Down’s syndrome children angry or sad because they have trouble in speaking up for themselves.

Wavey says she wants the boy "to have a descent life. The handicap is not his fault." Nowadays parents who have a child with Down’s syndrome are more concerned about its well being than a number of years ago. Today parents also know that it is not their fault that they get a handicapped child. Earlier it was a common belief that getting a mentally retarded child was a punishment from God, and people were ashamed of getting a child with Down’s syndrome. The child was often hidden away. In the middle of the last century huge residential homes for handicapped people were built in remote places, and retarded human beings spent their whole life in these places where the living conditions varied extremely.

Wavey is a typical mother of today. She has accepted her son as he is, lets him grow up in his home and sends him to school like other children. Unfortunately it is also typical that even in 1990 when this story is supposed to take place she has to struggle before her son gets the same rights as the other children as regards the right to go to school. "Things can be done. These children can learn, can be taught" Wavey stated to Quoyle. But when Herry had reached the age when it was time to start school no special education class existed in Killick-Claw. The authorities had organised teaching for the other children but not for the handicapped one. Therefore Wavey started to fight for her son. She borrowed books at the library to learn about Down’s syndrome, and how these children could develop. She even had the strength to get in contact with other parents with handicapped children and started a parents’ group. They succeeded in getting a special education class for their children.

When Quoyle married Wavey Herry became his stepson. How would Quoyle manage the job as being his father? The novel tells us nothing about Quoyle’s thoughts about this. Maybe he had very little knowledge about what hard work it is to bring up a child with Down’s syndrome. At this point in his life he was concentrated about his feelings for Wavey and the dream of belonging to a family with a wife in it. Bringing up a handicapped child brings a lot of unexpected love and joy to their parents but it is also very hard work. This is part of a poem written by a parent of a child with Down’s syndrome: