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Colin Farrell is moving his son James into full-time care while both parents are still healthy. He’s doing it now, on purpose, out of one fear: if both of them were suddenly gone, James would be handed to the state, with no one who loves him to decide where he goes. James was born with Angelman syndrome. It comes down to a single gene, sitting on a stretch of our DNA called chromosome 15. We each carry two copies of it, one from our mother, one from our father. In the brain, the body uses only the mother’s copy. The father’s copy gets switched off. With James, the copy from his mother doesn’t work, so his brain has no working version at all. The condition brings serious developmental delays, problems with movement and balance, and seizures. James is nonverbal and will need care for the rest of his life. Kids who have this condition smile and laugh a lot, often for no reason anyone can see. The doctor who first described it back in 1965 called them “puppet children,” after an old painting of a laughing boy. The father’s copy of that gene is still there in most people with Angelman, and it works fine. It’s just switched off. For years, scientists have been building drugs to flip it back on, and several are now being tested in people. In one early study, 97% of patients on the higher doses showed clear improvement, with gains in communication, thinking, and movement. America’s drug regulator has fast-tracked more than one of them. Nothing is approved yet. There’s a catch worth knowing. In animal studies, this gene did its most important work very early in life, which raised a fear that older patients would be harder to help. But the early human trials have reported gains across a wide range of ages, including adults. James is 22. What he might gain, if anything, no one can promise yet. This is also why Farrell started a foundation in 2024. He keeps pointing at the same problem: in a lot of places, the help a disabled kid gets mostly vanishes the day they turn 21. The special classes stop. The support shrinks. The family is left holding a lifetime of care with far less behind them. Setting James up now, somewhere his parents picked and can visit, is how Farrell is facing the thing every parent in his shoes dreads: the day they’re no longer around to do the caring themselves.