Dad To Dad 446 – David Aarestad of Champaign, IL An Adjunct Professor of Law at UIUC & Father Two, Including One With Down Syndrome

Transcript:

David Aarestad: You don’t close the door behind you when you’ve walked through it and you’ve managed to help things for your kid. You don’t stop at your kid. You try to help other people because there are a lot of kids out there like yours and they deserve every opportunity as well. So if you have something to teach, if you can help parents help their kids, then you’ve truly succeeded. That’s the legacy that matters.

David Hirsch: That’s our guest this week, David Aarestad, a lawyer and adjunct professor of law at University Illinois and father of two, including Sophia, 22, who has down syndrome. David is just one of the dads our host David Hirsch spoke to during the 2026 Special Fathers Network US tour and we’ll hear that conversation on this Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast.

David Hirsch: Dad to dad, you’re not on your own. We walk this road together, heart and whole.

David Hirsch: Now say hello to the founder of the Special Fathers Network and host of the dad to dad podc, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, I’m David Hirsch, host of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Two brief messages. First, I’m thrilled to announce our new book, Dads Raising Children with Special Needs and Disabilities. A Guide for 21st Century Dads is now available on Audible, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other sites. Second, the Special Fathers Network US tour, a month long 50 state 60 plus stop tour, took place from May 21 to June 21. Mission accomplished. It was quite a journey with hundreds of new connections which will have a ripple effect for months and years to come. Thank you to the following partners, Gigi’s Playhouses, John’s Crazy Socks, Rotary Club of Chicago and Special Olympics. Thanks also the 60 plus venue hosts, which included 12 Special Olympic State offices and 15 of the 62 Gigi’s playhouses. Special thanks to the RV crew mentioned here. In order of appearance, Zane Kooks, Andrew McDowell, Nelson Raskoon, Charlie Hirsch and Steve Harris. You guys were amazing. And special thanks to all those who offered their prayers and provided financial support. This was clearly a team effort.

David Hirsch: Through every season, in every stride, great dads are present.

David Hirsch: 247365 now let’s listen into this conversation between David Aarestad and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: For the record, we’re here at Urbana at the Urbana Country Club and it’s day 31 in stop 64 of the Special Fathers Network US tour, a month long 50 state 60 plus stop tour to strengthen Special Fathers Network and distribute complimentary copies of the new book Dads Raising Children with Special Needs and a guide for 21st Century Dads I’m very grateful to Lou Lye and Jim Fessler, longtime friends and fellow University of Illinois alumni, for coordinating and hosting today’s event. I’m thrilled to be talking today with David Aristat of Champaign, Illinois, who is a lawyer by education and training, adjunct professor of law at University of Illinois and father of two, including one with down syndrome. David, thank you for doing an interview for the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast.

David Aarestad: It’s my pleasure. Thank you so much for doing this. As a dad who did not have a lot of resources in this space when Sophia was young, this is very important. So thank you for doing it.

David Hirsch: You and your wife Karen have been married for 25 years and are the proud parents of two children, Bryn, 20, and Sophia, 22, who has down syndrome. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

David Aarestad: Well, I was born in D.C. at Walter Reed because dad was active military at the time. And then we moved out to California Bay Area, where he was stationed for a couple years. And that’s where my brother was born, my brother Tor, who’s just under two years younger than I am. And then when I was about three, dad went from active to reserve status. We moved out to Denver where he was a physician for many years. And he has since passed. He passed right at the beginning of pandemic, but likely not due to the virus.

David Hirsch: Okay, so what type of medicine did your dad practice?

David Aarestad: Radiation Oncology. So he was heavily involved in cancer.

David Hirsch: Did he actually work in the army for that or was it in private practice?

David Aarestad: He served in the DMZ in Korea, and he met mom when he was shipping back and she was shipping out to be a nurse in the Vietnam War. She also served in the Army. And I don’t know that he was doing cancer work in the dmz, but certainly he specialized later, and he certainly was a specialist in cancer at the time I was born.

David Hirsch: So how would you describe your relationship with your dad?

David Aarestad: Dad was great. He was always very

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David Aarestad: very busy, and when he was home, he was very present. We got the model of the work ethic, but also the model of the involved in the family.

David Hirsch: That’s very fortunate. So when you think about your dad, are there any lessons or takeaways that come to mind?

David Aarestad: He was much more patient than I am. I could have learned better on patience. There’s a funny story. We had a cabin up in the mountains of Colorado. I grew up outside of Denver for the most part, and we shared it with two other families, and it was up on a mountainside and down below was a creek and there were beavers there. And dad did not appreciate the beavers damming the creek. So whenever we were up there every day he’d be at war with the beavers. He’d be tearing apart their dams in the morning, he’d get up and they were rebuilt in the night. So he definitely was determined.

David Hirsch: So did the beavers win or did your dad win?

David Aarestad: Oh, beavers won. Okay, you can’t win. You can’t win that. No, I mean, he didn’t want to harm the animals. So that was not on the table. So the beavers definitely won.

David Hirsch: So I’m wondering what other type of father influencers you had, starting with your grandfathers.

David Aarestad: Well, my father’s father died when I was pretty young. He immigrated by himself as a teenager from Norway. Knowing what I was like as a teenager, the fact being on a boat and coming over at that age is really impressive. I was a bit of a screw up as a teenager. So what my grandfather did, speaking very little or no English, and he was a farmer and a Lutheran pastor. And then he died when I was probably 14.

David Hirsch: Okay.

David Aarestad: And then I knew my maternal grandfather far better. He was a Norwegian Lutheran, but in Minnesota, when he and my grandmother were older, they became snowbirds and they would winter down in Arizona and they would come through Denver on their way. So we saw them going to and from Minnesota, Arizona twice a year. So we knew him a lot better.

David Hirsch: So the good news is you knew both of your grandfathers firsthand?

David Aarestad: Yes, I’ve been pretty lucky in my education in public schools through high school, and I went to Bates College for undergrad and then I spent a couple years at Indiana Graduate School for Political Science and then Georgetown Law. And I’ve had a lot of good professors on the way. But the one educator that made the biggest difference in my life was somebody I had my freshman year of high school. His name was Mr. Koble. He taught Western Civilization. And he was amazing. He was a Yale grad, incredibly intelligent, knew his material and he demanded the best from us. He was fantastic.

David Hirsch: I love it. So you had a number of law positions right in your career. I’m wondering, where has your career taken you?

David Aarestad: Well, I clerked right out of law school in D.C. trial court. And when that was up, I was dating Karen long distance. She was working in in England at Oxford, and she was sick of long distance. So I went over there without a job lined up and no real connections in the legal community there. So I was sending Out a lot of blind resumes and one of the top British firms at the time it was known as Herbert Smith, was starting a new U.S. practice group and they appreciated my longtime engagement with international law. I discovered to my absolute shock, I loved it. And I might have stayed there but for the fact that Sophia was born and 24 hours after she was born was diagnosed as having a rare form of down syndrome. And Karen and I deciding that we wanted to raise her near family. The NHS has a lot of high aspirations about support. But after we moved back to Denver where I had my, I found a job at a Denver, sorry, the Denver branch of a Philly firm. Sophia got more support in a single week than she would get in a calendar quarter in the uk.

David Hirsch: So what is Sophia’s diagnosis and how did it come about?

David Aarestad: One of the nurses noticed that her reactions weren’t what they expected at the 24 hour mark and so she push the doctors to examine it. So the first they decided to test, they did a blood test to determine if she had down syndrome. And after a few months we met with a geneticist. I described this geneticist in terms that are not acceptable on a PG broadcast. So I will allow all of your listeners to fill in with condemnatory expletives to describe. And this is not

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David Aarestad: uncommon for people you talk to a lot of parents with down syndrome or other. I’m sure it happens with other conditions as well that are identified early by genetic markers that the doctors have a poor track record and many of them have a poor track record in conveying what is coming. And that was our experience. And so this person, after telling us all the worst possible outcomes that we could expect, concluded by saying, and you might hear about how these kids are cheerful and friendly and they’re such a joy to be around, but I gotta tell you, some of them can be right wankers.

David Hirsch: Wow.

David Aarestad: Which is devastating on top of all the other issues that he presented us with. And none of this was true in our experience with Sophia. Sophia, she has what’s called mosaic down syndrome. So 95% of the people with down syndrome that you will meet have what’s called trisomy 21, which means they have three copies of the 21st chromosome instead of two. And the interaction by the of the third chromosome generates a lot of the physical and mental variants that you will see and notice when you interact with these kids. But all these kids are different, just like all of us are different. When she was born she had 2/3 of her cells were trisomy 21 1/3 were not, and we don’t know which is which because of the high percentage of trisomy that would indicate that she was. Initially, she had down syndrome, and then in cell division, some of the cells dropped the extra chromosome and then replicated, and some did not. I have met a person with mosaicism who was. I think one in six was trisomy 21, which suggests that she was neurotypical. And then somewhere along the line, one of her cells in division was sticky and kept a third.

David Hirsch: Fascinating. On a percentage basis, what percentage of those that have down syndrome have mosaic down syndrome?

David Aarestad: 1.5.

David Hirsch: 1.5. So very small percentage. Yes. And when you got that news, that devastating news and not such a friendly way, what were some of the fears that you and Karen had?

David Aarestad: We were scared because we didn’t know so much, and we didn’t. We knew what we didn’t know. We also didn’t know what we didn’t know because there’s so many questions. The biggest hurdle we had was everyone calling us and saying how sorry they were for us. The call I always will remember is my little brother calling and congratulating us. And when you are drowning, that can be the lifeline that really helps you get through it.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, a lot of parents describe their experience when there is a diagnosis, it’s like a mourning. Right. Everybody’s not celebrating, you know, congratulations on having a child, but there’s like, this mourning of the expectations that you had, the death, if you will, of those expectations, and it can be devastating.

David Aarestad: Yeah.

David Hirsch: Was there any meaningful advice you got early on that helped put you on a better path?

David Aarestad: I’m looking at my wife. I’m trying to think. We just kind of found our own better path.

David Hirsch: Yeah, we.

David Aarestad: We pushed through. We leaned on each other a lot. Leaned on family. One of the stories. I love this. So the first few years of Cliffia’s life, I was putting in long hours at the firm. Denver is not a hub for international securities work. So I was trying to make myself as reliable and indispensable as possible. And there was one story. The neighborhood we moved into had a. An HOA with a clubhouse and a pool and a kiddie pool. And one story I loved was when Sophia was just, I think, in preschool, maybe kindergarten. But they were at the. At the pool, in the kiddie pool. And there was this older kid, an elementary school kid, who was, like, splashing and really disturbing all the small kids. And Sophia just walked right up to him and said, you’re mean, and got the kid all defensive and got him. She got him to stop. It’s like that kind of courage. I love that story about Sophia.

David Hirsch: Yeah, I love it. Thank you for sharing. So not to focus on the negative, but what have been some of the bigger challenges you’ve gotten related to the down syndrome? Mosaic down syndrome.

David Aarestad: Probably the biggest challenge was in the school system where she had lots of people who were friendly to her, but she didn’t have a lot of friends

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David Aarestad: that were typical. She has a lot of friends in the disability community, but there were, I could count on the fingers of one hand over the years the kids that were genuinely friends and would just call her to call her.

David Hirsch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a great dad coin. Thank you. Now back to the conversation.

David Aarestad: In high school, she decided to join cheerleading. And Knotts did cheer. They had a special cheerleading group for people with disabilities. She wanted to be on the regular team. And her freshman year, they were a. They were the second place team or something. They went to nationals. Their chief squad did. Barely made it by the skin of the teeth. Out of the Colorado. Out of Colorado. And they got seventh place nationally.

David Hirsch: Wow.

David Aarestad: She was the only kiddo with a disability on the squad. But it was a bit bittersweet because the competition was down at Walt Disney World and I had to follow because that’s when my dad died.

David Hirsch: Oh, geez. Yeah. Well, it sounds like she found her friend group. Then on the cheerleading squad, she had

David Aarestad: they again, they were friendly. They weren’t friends. Everyone’s friendly to her. They treat her well. But then they don’t think to engage her outside of the designated scopes of interaction.

David Hirsch: Gotcha. Thank you for emphasizing that. So I’m sort of curious to know what these challenges have had on Sofia’s brother, your marriage, or your extended family, for that matter.

David Aarestad: Sophia’s brother Brynn does show some of the traits that we understand are very common for siblings of people with disabilities and that they become overachievers. He is at the Colorado School of Mines, which is one of the top engineering schools in the country. He will not be with us this summer because he was a ta. He’s just finishing Up Taing. And he’s about to begin some novel research with a professor of seismology where he’s going to use quantum computers to program and analyze global plate tectonic movements using quantum technology. He’s doing this between his sophomore and junior years of college. He will graduate with his bachelor’s in three years and graduate with his master’s in the four.

David Hirsch: He does sound like a classic overachiever. Does he take after you or carrot?

David Aarestad: I don’t know if he gets it from either of us. He is more driven than I think, certainly than I was.

David Hirsch: That’s pretty impressive. So the impact on your marriage and then on your extended family.

David Aarestad: It’s common that having a child, special needs puts a unique stress on a marriage, and it certainly puts stress on ours. With the early days, we never knew what. Because she had Mosaic, we never knew what manifestations we could expect from her disability. One of the stresses is that you don’t know what you don’t know. And each of us navigates that in our own way. And that can be a source of conflict because one person sees something the other does not. And trying to harmonize those views in a loving fashion when you are so scared all the time can be difficult.

David Hirsch: Yeah, yeah. Thanks for being so transparent and open about that. I’m thinking about supporting organizations. I’m wondering what organizations has Sophia benefited from or perhaps your family has benefited from?

David Aarestad: That’s a long list. And actually, if you don’t mind me prefacing my own background, that will help contextualize some of this. Sure. As I indicated earlier, Denver is not a hub for international securities work. And so in 2008, when the markets collapsed, I was laid off. When I had to scramble looking for a job. Karen had been working part time, but that wasn’t gonna. Her salary could not carry us. So we both began scrambling, looking for some form of employment that would be able to sustain our family. Now, Sophia

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David Aarestad: was in kindergarten, Bryn was in preschool. And we felt at that age, especially given Sophia’s needs, one of us would stay home and the other would be the primary breadwinner. And Karen got a job offer at a salary point that would allow me to stay home, which was, for my ego, a bit of a blow. I had to be there for my family, but not in a way that my upbringing prepared me for. But I did throw myself into it. So I started volunteering and Sophia schools. And in my final year at the firm, we became connected with an amazing woman named Michelle C. Whitten, whose parents helped found an organization now known as the Global Down Syndrome Foundation. And my Sophia has a friend in her, Sophia, who’s one month older, who has down syndrome. And I became involved in the predecessor, Energy to Global, and I became involved in the schools, and I became a board member of what was then known as the Mile High Down Syndrome association, but has since rebranded and become the Rocky Mountain Down Syndrome association. Because their footprint is much bigger than just the Denver area. As a matter of fact, they’ve been supporting people in Saudi Arabia, for example. I heard you mentioning people in the DAOS network coming from overseas. And that’s when you have something that provides real, meaningful support to people. They appreciate it, and they come. The Rocky Mountain Downstream association had groups to just bring families together, share stories, share narratives. But of all of them, perhaps the biggest difference maker was an organization known as Adams Camp. This was founded in the 80s. It was families of kiddos with different disabilities that wanted to have something in the summer that was helpful and supportive to their kids, but also to their families. They would go up into the mountains and they would have intensive wraparound therapies in numerous disciplines, while parents could have time together sharing stories and successes and failures and worries and joys. And then they created an organization around this, and we took Sophia there. I should say Karen did, because this is back when I was working all hours at the law firm, and we saw more development in one week than we saw in a year.

David Hirsch: Wow.

David Aarestad: What they did was so meaningful. And then they have another program, which is their. Their bread and butter program, called their Mountain Camp. It takes place at the ymca, at the YMCA the Rockies, which is near Winter Park, Colorado, right there in the mountains. You go up and you stay there, and your kiddo will have a real camp experience.

David Hirsch: They’ll.

David Aarestad: If they can go canoeing, they’ll go canoeing. They tailor make it for your kiddo. So there’s. If there’s movement challenges and movement limitations, they’ll have a camp for those kiddos where they have a real camp experience for your kid, where your kid is at. But they will also do this with therapeutic supports. They’ll have physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, art therapists, music therapists, all wrapped around your kid. And then at the end of the day, when your kids are delivered back to you and you have your nights with your whole family, the therapists get together, they talk about all the kids in their care, and they talk about successes, failures, and what they’re going to try to do for the next day. And everything is organic. And developed day to day.

David Hirsch: I’m thinking about advice now and I’m wondering what advice comes to mind for young parents.

David Aarestad: There are two things I would say about this. One is, and we found this out too late, your iep, keep it forever. Because it is. It’s the key that opens doors later. And I didn’t realize this, so I had to go hunting for our last iep. But what I recommend is my mantra every single time I went into an IEP meeting was to tell them and push them, saying our kids will live up to or down to our expectations. And that is what I pushed. It was hard. It was exhausting. Always pushing for this and demanding more. I’m not going to lie to you. It was useful to be a lawyer and having them know I was a lawyer because it. Because they were more cautious around me. But by being in the classroom, which is a flexibility

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David Aarestad: some parents won’t have, but by being a volunteer there and being a volunteer for the teacher’s needs. I wasn’t there for Sophia. I was there for the class. Class. And they saw I was doing everything I could to help the class. And then I became the co chair of the school’s accountability committee, which is required under Colorado law. IEP meetings can be very confrontational, but they are an opportunity if both sides can meet on this, to be creative and find different solutions. But it takes both sides working together. And I did act in a pro bono fashion helping families navigate schools after I was laid off. And sometimes you don’t always have people approaching IEP meetings with goodwill.

David Hirsch: Well, if I could paraphrase what you’ve said, it’s really important for both parents to be involved in the IEP process, not just letting the moms take the charge or lead. And you do need to be an outspoken advocate for your kids.

David Aarestad: Absolutely.

David Hirsch: And expect the best.

David Aarestad: Actually, I would stress what you just said. Both parents, because men and women approach things differently. And having both voices, because Karen was there at all the IP meetings too, and her voice was heard. And so having both male and female perspectives to problem solving was immensely helpful to our child. To Sophia, who I would add graduated from high school on time, got into a competitive college program not as a special ed student, but as a regular student.

David Hirsch: Very impressive. So why is it you’ve agreed to be a mentor father as part of the Special Fathers Network?

David Aarestad: For the same reason I served on the Special Education Advisory Committee to the State of Colorado. Because you don’t close the door behind you when you’ve walked through it and you’ve managed to help things for your kid. You don’t stop at your kid. You try to help other people because there are a lot of kids out there like yours and they deserve every opportunity as well. So if you have something to teach, if you can help parents help their kids, then you’ve truly succeeded. That’s the legacy that matters.

David Hirsch: Absolutely. So let’s give a special shout out to Jim Fessler, our mutual friend, for helping connect us.

David Aarestad: Absolutely. Jim’s the best.

David Hirsch: If somebody wants to contact you, what’s the best way to do so?

David Aarestad: Probably my home email. It’s just my name. Davidarsteadahoo.com My last name is kind of funky. It’s spelled A A R E S like Sam, T like Tom, a D like David.

David Hirsch: I’ll be sure to include that in the show notes so it’ll make it as easy as possible for somebody to follow up. David, thank you for your time and many insights. As a reminder, David is just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, Please go to 21st centurydads.org thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Data Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads foundation is a 501c3 not for profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax optimal contribution? I would really appreciate your support. David. Thanks again.

David Aarestad: Thank you for your time and thank you so much for doing this.

David Hirsch: Dad to the dad. You’re not on your own. We walk this road together, hard and home.

David Hirsch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21st

David Hirsch: centurydads.org and if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com groups and search dad to dad. Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to david01dads.org the dad

David Hirsch: to dad podcast theme was written and performed by Shane Madden. The show was produced by me, Tom Couch. Tune in again next week for another intriguing conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast.

David Hirsch: Through every season, in every stride, great dads are present. 247-365-24-7365.

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