James Gould wouldn’t give up his son for the world, but said he can understand the desperation likely felt by an Algonquin mother who abandoned her severely disabled 19-year-old daughter at a Tennessee bar.

“The stuff I’ve read online and the few people I’ve talked to have said, ‘She’s crazy! Why would a parent do that?’” Gould said. “Of course, that’s my initial reaction, too. But I think that people who have no exposure to people with disabilities have no sense of what it’s like.”

Gould’s 19-year-old son, David, is disabled and was a classmate of Lynn Cameron’s in School District 300. A district spokeswoman said Lynn’s mother, Eva Cameron, removed her from Jacobs High School last month.