Keston Ott-Dahl's two youngest daughters, six-year-old Jules and one-year-old Delaney Skye, were sitting on the couch together watching Frozen.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
On this particular viewing of the movie, which Keston estimates was the thirtieth, she noticed that Jules had stopped her customary singing and had tears in her eyes.
"When I asked her what was wrong and why she wasn't dancing, she said: 'Delaney can never be a princess, we can never be like Elsa and Anna.' And I said: 'Of course you can.' She said: 'No, there are no princesses like Delaney.'"
Delaney Skye, now eighteen-months-old, is, according to Keston, a "way cute" girl who is "right on target" with her development milestones. She also has Down syndrome.
"I realised that Jules was right and there really is no positive representation in children's features of people [with Down syndrome]," said Keston.
The incident sparked Keston and her partner Andrea, who live near San Francisco, to start an online petition to encourage Disney to feature a hero or heroine with Down syndrome in one of their movies.
The petition has received more than 82,000 signatures online since it was started in October.
"We thought maybe we could get a thousand signatures and that'd be crazy, but we had 1000 signatures in an hour," said Keston.
After starting the petition Keston and Andrea received thousands of emails and messages from people who said they would love to see a Disney film representing the experience of a child with Down syndrome.
"One person said: 'This would be so good, because I remember when my son saw a kid with Down syndrome on Sesame Street and he was so excited. He yelled: "There's someone like me" and pointed to the TV,'" said Keston.
"Delaney's too young, but she will know someday. The kids are very aware that they're not represented and that there's nobody like them on TV."
In the petition, Keston writes that while Disney provides "wonderful moral lessons that teach our children to be good people" the company "comes up short in one critical area. Its movies have almost no representation of disabled people", whom, she added, are often bullied and misunderstood.
"Kids with Down syndrome are two and three times more likely to be bullied in school than a typical child. The thing is, if you educate a child at a small age, and Disney is in a beautiful position to do this, they will grow up without discrimination in their heart toward children who are different to them," said Keston.
Keston adds that if she had seen films featuring characters with Down syndrome while growing up she is certain it would have made her a more understanding adult.
"I absolutely do. I would have been a better person," she said. "My experience was all bad. When I grew up people with Down syndrome were institutionalised and I ended up working briefly in one of these institutions and I had a very bad impression of what Down syndrome meant," she said.
When Keston first learnt that the baby her partner Andrea was carrying had Down syndrome, she was terrified.
"I decided to educate myself – what is Down syndrome? I found out that today, they drive cars, they have jobs, they get married. We know a girl who swam the English Channel, they are actors, they are motivational speakers. I was just dead wrong; I was ashamed. I don't like saying it, but I discriminated against people... I was an ass."
Keston hopes that the petition and a film from Disney will help others to be more understanding and to realise, as she wrote on the petition, that: "Children with Down syndrome are princes and princesses too."
Disney responded to the petition presented by Keston and Andrea in late November, saying "The Disney brand has always been inclusive, with stories that reflect acceptance and tolerance and celebrate the differences that make our characters uniquely wonderful in their own way."
They added that they "remain committed to continuing to create characters that are accessible and relatable to all children".