Month: March 2011

retarded

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

When I hear someone casually use the word “retarded,” it makes me cringe, makes me uncomfortable.  It makes my skin crawl.  When I started my blog, I made a list of topics I wanted to blog about and this one has remained untouched 7 months later.  I don’t know how to approach the subject because I know people will think I’m too touchy.  Too sensitive.  Too PC.  I’m not, really, but this subject is something that is close to my heart.

I started reading a blog called Enjoying the Small Things with the entry linked up here – it’s the story of the author’s daughter’s birth.  It wasn’t until Nella Cordelia was born that Kelle knew her daughter had Down Syndrome.  Her story of that day and since is a beautiful one, both in pictures and words.  Hers is not a special needs blog, but a blog about a family in which there is a child who has special needs.  I’m bringing up Kelle’s blog because she wrote a great piece that inspired me to go ahead and express my thoughts about using the words “retard” and “retarded” in a derogatory way.  I encourage you to read said inspiring post about Down Syndrome Awareness here.

My first memory of using the word “retard” or “retarded” is also the last time I used it in a derogatory way.  I was 13 and I had just met the person who would become one of my best lifelong friends.  We were talking on the phone and I said something was retarded and there was a pause on the other end.  She said “my sister is retarded” and without thinking, I joked “yeah, mine is too.”  My friend explained to me that her younger sister had Down Syndrome and instantly I felt like the biggest fool with the biggest foot in the biggest mouth. 

From that moment on, I made a conscious effort not to use the r-word so flippantly.  Five years later, I found myself working as a front end manager in a grocery store.  Some of my favorite customers were staff and residents from nearby group homes for individuals with developmental disabilities.  They were regulars and it always brightened my day to talk to the regulars – especially the residents who had also begun to recognize me.  A couple of the staff must have noticed that I enjoyed interacting with the residents and suggested that I apply for a job with their agency.  Coincidentally, my friend had been working there for a few months loved it. 

I applied, got the job, and ended up working there for 4+ years (until I relocated to the midwest).  Caring for and spending time with individuals with severe mental retardation and various other physical and mental diagnoses became a passion of mine.  I was their friend and advocate.  These amazing people that I cared for and about were as much my friends and family as I was theirs.  I certainly spent more of my waking hours with them than I did anyone else.  My friend and I eventually moved in together and had several sleepovers with our favorite residents.  We took them to our homes for the holidays so they wouldn’t have to sit at the group home.  We included them in so many aspects of our lives outside of work.  It was a unique and special job. 

They drooled.  They limped.  They used wheelchairs.  They made a mess when they ate, if they could even feed themselves.  They wore incontinence briefs and sometimes had accidents in public.  They yelled at the movies and made a scene at restaurants.  They couldn’t talk. 

But guess what?

They taught me about trust and not just tolerance, but acceptance.  They reminded me that the greatest joys are found in seemingly insignificant things.  They showed me how much can be said without words.  They exemplified inner beauty.  More than anything, they taught me about judgment.  Judging and being judged.  Being non-judgmental.

Back when I worked with these wonderful people on a daily basis, I was hardcore.  Anytime anyone said “that’s retarded” or “you’re such a retard” or called someone Corky, I made a scene.  Sometimes I just got mad, but most of the time I tried to explain why it is no longer okay to use these words, references, etc. to make a point. 

I heard a lot of excuses and but-but-buts when I tried to correct people.  Here are some faves:

But-but-but-but, I wouldn’t say that to their face.  Besides, I have a cousin that has Downs!  This makes it twice as bad.  First of all, if you wouldn’t say it to his or her face out of respect, why would you say it behind his or her back?  And if you have a cousin or uncle or nephew or gerbil with Downs, then you should know better, jerk!  How would your cousin feel if he knew you were making fun of him behind his back?

Well, I didn’t reeeally mean you/he/she is a RETARD.  I meant you’re dumb/silly/stupid, etc.  Well, then.  Let’s have a vocabulary lesson.  “Retard” is a verb, not a noun.  Retard means “to delay the development or progress of (an action, process, etc.)”  If you mean to say dumb, stupid, or silly, say dumb, stupid, or silly. 

Oh, I don’t mean anything by it.  Don’t take it so personally.  I do take it personally.  Know why?  Because I spent 40 hours a week for four and a half years with the people that you are making fun of when you use that word and it feels like a personal attack against people that I love.  When you say it, you aren’t complimenting anyone or anything.  You are perpetuating a societal culture of intolerance towards individuals with developmental disabilities. 

We have allowed this dehumanization to go on long enough.  The terminology keeps changing because we insist on using whatever term is used to describe people with disabilities and make a joke out of it.  In the early 1900s, the terms moron, idiot, and imbecile were used to describe different levels of mental retardation.  No one associates those terms with people with disabilities anymore because they are all slang for unintelligent, dumb, stupid, etc. 

I think a lot about what we are teaching our kids when we, as parents, use words like “retard” and “retarded.”  If a child hears these words repeatedly used in a derogatory fashion, they will assimilate them into their own vocabulary and thought process.  Retard = bad/negative/dumb/stupid, etc.  (The same goes with calling things or people “gay” in a derogatory fashion, but that’s another topic for another day).  It only makes sense to me that the association teaches children to be intolerant/fearful/unaccepting when they are exposed to someone who is developmentally delayed.  Who drools, limps, uses a wheelchair, can’t talk, and still has accidents when they are 15 years old.  Someone who makes a scene at the movies or the mall. 

Are you teaching your child to walk out of their way to avoid that person at the mall?  Or are you teaching them to smile and say hello?  I want to teach my kids from an early age that there are all kinds of people in the world and their abilities and disabilities make them no more or less human than one another.  It’s important to me that my kids know that they are not superior and have no right to make fun of another child because he or she has disabilities and walks or talks different and has to be in a special class at school. 

It’s my dream that my kid is the one that stands up for children with special needs and goes out of their way to talk to them, not to avoid them.

When did I start caring or worrying about being too PC or offending someone that has offended me?  At some point, I think I got tired of fighting a losing battle and decided it wasn’t always my battle to fight.  So now, most of the time, when someone says the “r” word, I just cringe and think to myself “I wish she/he wouldn’t say that anymore.”  Here I am, fighting the good fight once again.  If you use the word in ordinary conversation (like so many others do), please make an effort replace it with a word that better reflects what you really mean.  Is that too much to ask?

hopeful,
~C~

sleep

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

I can honestly say that I think I have been more tired this week than at any other time in my life.  Pretty soon I’ll have reminders of just how tired I was back when Theo was a newborn, and I’m sure this week won’t seem so bad.  But for right now, I’m saying that this week takes the cake for all-time worst sleep.  Every day I have woken up hours before the alarm went off and was not able to go back to sleep.  I have barely been able to keep my eyes open at work and since I can’t really spend a lot of time away from my desk, there’s little I can do to combat the sleepiness.  Being this tired is miserable.  Seemed like it was better when I at least had a cute, tiny baby to reference as the reason for the deprivation.

It is so bad that I had to tell the babysitter that I’d bring Theo today because I knew I’d be in no position to be able to watch him on so little rest.  I’m exhausted.  It’s so frustrating because I go home and I am dead tired and I lay down and my mind is spinning a million miles a minute.  It takes me 30 or 45 minutes to fall asleep and then a few short hours later, I’m wide awake.  I don’t know if it’s the pregnancy, or if it has something to do with the diabetes, but man.  I hope next week is better.  The reason I said it might have something to do with the diabetes is because I have to eat so often that I’m pretty much always drinking something.  Normally I try to stop drinking anything a few hours before I got to bed so that I won’t wake up fifty times to pee.  Not anymore.  I’ve always got a drink nearby.  So I’ve been waking up to pee and then I’m not able to go back to sleep.  Fine, if that happens 6 hours into my sleep.  Not fine when it happens 3-4 hours into my sleep four days in a row. 

Oh sweet sleep, I miss you.

~C~

boygirlboygirlboygirl

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

girlboygirlboygirlboy

back and forth.  back and forth.

Sometimes my mind/heart/gut tells me it’s one or the other and within a matter of days, I’m entirely convinced of the opposite.  99% of my friends and family say it’s a girl, but isn’t that just because I already have a boy?  And how are they supposed to have any clue what it is when I, the mother who is carrying the baby inside my very own body, have no clue?  This is very confusing stuff, people. 

I have NO. CLUE.  Not even a hunch.

I am going to be completely surprised either way (and that’s the point, right!?).  I think the dada thinks it’s a girl because he won’t talk about boy names hardly at all.  We are really hurting to come up with a boy name for this mystery baby.  The girl name was easy, although we’ve wavered here and there.  We literally have nothing for a boy name.  Nothing!  The kid is going to come home with a terrible name like… well, I won’t say because undoubtedly whatever I blurt out will be the name of someone’s favorite man and I will stick my fat foot in my mouth.

But you get the point.

I don’t know what the gender of this baby is, but here are my thoughts based on nothing at all, old wives’ tales, online quizzes, and total strangers’ opinions.

Why I think it’s a boy:
1.  Because although I feel different during this pregnancy, I don’t feel that different and “they” say that every pregnancy is different anyway.
2.  The heartbeat is always 130s-140s, and so was Theo’s.
3.  I am carrying low.  The baby feels high, especially when I’m sitting for hours and hours and he/she is kicking and pushing up into my ribs.  But when I look in the mirror, more of what I actually see is low. 
4.  I didn’t notice much of a difference in the amount of morning sickness/nausea I experienced at the beginning.  Supposedly if it’s a girl, I would have been sicker.  The nausea was different, but not distinctively worse. 

Why I think it’s a girl:
1.  *TMI warning* (back away from the screen if that scares you at all).  I never had a period between babies so I couldn’t calculate my due date based on that.  (That’s right girls, I haven’t had a period in almost 2 years and likely won’t have one for much longer than that…don’t be jeal, this kind of luxury comes at a price!).  I do know exactly when we conceived and when I calculated my due date by that, it should have been 5 days earlier.  That makes me think girl because I know that boy swimmers move fast and die young.  Girl swimmers are slow and resilient.  Therefore, the girl swimmer would/could have fertilized days after the conception date, resulting in a later due date.
2.  I am carrying more like a watermelon than a basketball.  Maybe it’s too early carry to the baby like a basketball though because I think I eventually got to that point with Theo, but right now the bumpage looks more elongated.  Seems like this would have more to do with how the mama’s built or how the baby’s positioned than the gender of the baby.  Right?
3.  I have been moodier and more emotional/irrational/irritable during this pregnancy.  But that could be totally environmental, as there is a lot more stress and anxiety surrounding this pregnancy. 
4.  Odds.
5.  My pillow points south when I sleep (really!?).

So the only things that make good medical sense are the heartbeats and the conception/fertilization date scenario.  And they seem like equally valid cases, so I’m back to square one.  I know that we skipped finding out the sex for a reason, but it’s just fun sometimes to try to make a prediction so that when the time comes, I can say “I told you so.”  I’m still glad that we didn’t find out, but I wish someone would make my husband talk about boy names, just in case. 

wonderin’,
~C~