Joe Stromondo and Leah Smith are parents to two healthy babies. The husband and wife were both born with dwarfism. In an interview with the Today Show, Joe and Leah share how their lives are filled with love and happiness.
Joe and Leah met on the social networking site MySpace. The couple eventually married and had two children, Hazel (2 years old) and Silas (newborn). Both Hazel and Silas are average size children.
“We believe in diversity. Whether it was diversity of having a little person or diversity of having average size kids, we were really open to it.”
Leah states there was an assumption that the couple would want their children to be of average size. However, Joe and Leah believe in diversity. Diversity could mean having an average size child or a child who has dwarfism.
Joe says that as parents there are things that the couple has had to figure out. He states, “You know there are things that we have had to figure out, like a changing table being a foot taller than I am. I think that fosters creativity, that fosters the ability to problem solve, the ability to be flexible.”
Leah says while she is a ‘mama bear’ and wants to protect her kids she also knows that life is difficult. She wants to teach her children to handle obstacles in life with moxie and ease.
The husband and wife credit their ‘can do’ attitude to how their own parents raised them. “My dwarfism, as far as I could tell didn’t lower (my parents) expectations as far as what I could accomplish and what kind of life was possible for me,” says Joe.
“Both of us recognize that the biggest difficulty of being a little person isn’t our bodies, but it’s other people’s responses to them.”
Joe and Leah wish to teach their children to appreciate and love their bodies no matter what!
Be sure to click on the original post to watch the interview with Joe and Leah!