
CV NEWS FEED // A Catholic family with several special needs children opened up about the joys of raising a large family in a recent interview with the Knights of Columbus’ Columbia Magazine.
Jeff and Sonia McGarrity live near Denver, Colorado, with their eight children: Thomas, Seán, Jeffrey, Brendan, Cecilia, Augustine, RoseMarie, and Charlotte. Out of the eight, four have trisomy 21, commonly known as Down syndrome. Three of the Down syndrome children—Cecilia, RoseMarie, and Charlotte—were adopted.
According to the standards of modern culture, the decision to have a large family and adopt special needs children doesn’t make sense. But according to the McGarritys, their Catholic faith and pro-life mission gives them motivation to care for so many children and openly witness to the joys of special needs adoption.
Sonia said that she had the desire to adopt children with Down syndrome even while she was dating Jeff. After their marriage in 2002, two children, and a miscarriage, their third child was born with Down syndrome.
“‘Well, God put that desire in my heart and now he gave me Jeffrey,” Sonia told Columbia.
After their fourth child was born, Sonia had two more miscarriages. She and Jeff began seriously considering adoption.
“After going through the ‘hard learning curve’ of Jeffrey’s early years, they said to themselves, ‘Now that we have that figured out, let’s just open ourselves up and see what the Lord wants,’” Columbia reported.
The family adopted Cecilia, a baby girl with T21 in 2010. Shortly after, Sonia was pregnant again with Augustine, but the family adopted two more children with Down Syndrome in the following years—RoseMarie in 2015, and Charlotte in 2018.
The McGarritys believe that promoting adoption, especially adoption for special needs children, is an important way to combat abortion.
“We look at the parents who have chosen to place their children for adoption as heroes,” Jeff told Columbia. “The birth families are making the difficult decision in favor of life, often in the face of regular phone calls asking, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to terminate?’”
The McGarrity parents also said that their special needs children have so many gifts and unique traits that add to the joys of family life.
“My kids are going to play their instruments no matter what—whether they’re sharp or flat, they’re just going to play,” Sonia said. “They also don’t let their intellect or concern about what other people think about them stop them from expressing love in their own unique way. Rosie is very physically affectionate; Charlotte is a smiler — she just smiles and your heart melts. Jeffrey is unbelievably affirming: He’ll walk up to people and say, ‘You’re beautiful.’”
The McGarritys’ second child, Seán, said that he “wouldn’t ask for any other life.”
“The joy that kids with trisomy 21 have, the authentic joy and love, is incomparable. They really are the happiest people,” he said.
Jeff and Sonia sometimes feel pressured to give in other ways, like volunteering, but they said that it’s important to remember what their vocation is right now.
“Last night, I was trying to make the bed and Charlotte was crawling all over me,” Sonia said. “And I’m praying, ‘Jesus, I just have to imagine that this is you. And I’m just doing this for you.’
“And it gave me a different perspective on things, to say that maybe it’s OK that I didn’t raise my children volunteering at a food bank or doing service projects,” she continued. “Maybe we’re not all called to do that. Rather, we’re simply called to love and raise these children, all eight of them, and launch them to go out and become saints.”
