Yesterday, my students were reading a short story about a teenage girl working a summer job where she has to supervise a mentally disabled man as part of her duties. The girl thinks that it is, like, a total bummer, dude, and like, no one will want to, like, hang around her if she has this RETARD shadowing her all the time.
About half of my students cracked up at the use of the word “retard.” Many of them snorting and snickering and repeating the word to themselves and each other for several minutes after they read it. I’m used to my teenagers being immature and inappropriate about anything that is even remotely “gay,” and I’ve also grown shockingly accustomed to the horrifying slurs the students sling on a daily basis in that regard. However, I felt my heart break into a million pieces when I heard the cruel, heartless laughter of these kids taking joy in the word “retard.”
I wanted to tell these teenagers that so many disabled or mentally challenged people would trade ANYTHING for their normally functioning brains and average or above average intelligence, but they were WASTING this gift by being small-minded bigots. So many of my perfectly capable “normal” students are getting all Fs in their classes, and have been since middle school. And it isn’t because they have any kind of disability like the man in the story we are reading. It’s because they are wasting the gift of normalcy. When they were placed as purple, squalling infants into their mothers’ arms at birth, those mothers thanked God for the healthy, perfect little children they’d received. And look what those kids are doing with that gift. Performing “far below basic” and laughing about retards.
But I didn’t lecture them. In my twelve years of experience, I have given many such lectures, and felt my blood pressure rise and my adrenaline flooding my muscles as I observed their self-satisfied smirks. Nothing is more entertaining to some kids than seeing their teachers get all red-faced and angry over something. Some of them are even sweet enough to surreptitiously videotape it and post it on YouTube.
I understand that much of this is just immaturity. I’m not going to let it drag my soul down to the bowels of Hades, like it often threatens to do. I realize, also, that my being a mother and imagining this cruelty directed at my child is the real root of my anger and dismay.
When I was pregnant with V, every morning the severe developmentally disabled class would walk and wheel by my classroom during first period. It was a loud group, due to the tapping of canes, whir of powered wheelchairs, and unintentional sounds this type of child makes. Before I had my amnio, I would wonder, “Is this the future for my child? If so, how will the other children treat him/her?” The class I had back then was more respectful, or perhaps more mature. No one ever made any comments or really even acknowledged the distraction.
On my way to work today, I thought of our short story and how it affects me so differently than them. It truly underscores how we bring ourselves to our reading and that every text affects every person in a slightly, or profoundly, different way based on who that person is.
Then my thoughts drifted to Olga, the girl with Down Syndrome who I blogged about in “A Worthy Cause Needs our Help.” And though I am not a Christian, I do believe in God, and I prayed right there in my car while waiting to turn left at a light. “Please, God, give Olga a family. Please don’t let us only get her halfway there.” I thought of Steven Spielberg and Kirk Cameron, not normally thought of together for sure, and how they have adopted numerous children with special needs because they have the means to care for them. I believe Mia Farrow has done the same. What amazing people these are. And add to that list all of the unknown, non-celebrity families who have taken disabled children into their homes. I thought of Olga’s birth mother, and what made her abandon that baby girl to what was almost certain to be a horrific life of neglect. Did she have a choice, or did some person force her? Did she believe that her child was useless and damaged, less than human and not worthwhile? Did she love that baby or feel nothing toward it? And now, does she think about her and wonder about her, or pretend that she is dead or never existed?
And the next thing I knew, my make-up for the day was completely ruined by my tears of grief over this little girl’s life so far. I thought of what I as “Mommy” mean to my daughter and how Olga doesn’t have that. But I still hold out hope that the rest of her life can be wonderful. I know this is a departure from the usual theme of my blog, but if you can find the time to pray up a family for Olga, I think that my blog will have come to far more good than I ever dreamed it could have when I was just wise-cracking about bitches I hate.
Although, don’t worry, I won’t stop doing that.
Please go to babynumber10.blogspot.com to donate money to Olga’s adoption fund. Apparently, there is no shortage of people willing to adopt children with special needs. There is only a shortage of money (paraphrased from Reece’s Rainbow).
Hopefully, the lesson intended by the author in the short story we are reading in class will enlighten and change my students. One can certainly hope.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
Drama-rama
I have a propensity for drama. I get it from my mother’s side of the family. Those old hens were never happy unless they were fighting among themselves or tearing someone else to shreds. I used to have a best friend who was constantly surrounded by drama, and I always managed to be heavily involved. Usually, my favorite start to a conversation is, “Have you heard the latest gossip?”
Today, I had an opportunity to create tension and drama. To be the one with “the news.”
I had a regular obstetrician appointment today. If you’ve never been pregnant, this is how these appointments go down: you bring in a little cup of pee, have your blood pressure taken, and step on the scale. You dip a little test strip in the pee to check for protein (pre-eclampsia) and sugar (gestational diabetes), breathe deeply and slowly hoping for a nice low blood pressure reading, and cry a little on the inside when you see your weight going up. Later on in the pregnancy, you will probably cry on the outside too. I had trace amounts of protein in my urine (probably not drinking adequate water says my nurse), blood pressure of 112/60, and a four pound weight gain.
And then the moment I’d been counting down to eagerly for weeks. The doctor came in with the pocket Doppler device, and it was time to hear my baby’s heartbeat for the first time. We chatted about my pregnancy symptoms and the weather as she squirted the ultrasound goo on my belly, and then we both got quiet to listen. And we didn’t hear anything. She ran the little wand all over my belly, and still nothing. She put the Doppler up to her ear and tried again. And again. Just static.
Very relaxed, she put the Doppler aside and wiped the gel off of my belly. “It’s still too early, I guess. But if you want, we can go to ultrasound.” I imagined the kind of worrying I could squeeze in to my days and nights during the next eight days before my nuchal translucency scan at the perinatologist’s office, and immediately said, “Yes, let’s do that.”
And then I had to wait twenty minutes for the machine to be free.
Sitting in the waiting room, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and began to dial my husband. this was big news. Drama to share. I imagined the conversation from my end. “Honey, I’m waiting for an ultrasound. Dr. O can’t find a heartbeat.” Then I pictured his side of the conversation. I pictured his eyes getting big and his chest constricting with fear and pain. He was home with V, probably playing a game or giving her a snack. If there was bad news to share, I’d wait and do it in person when I got home. And if the news was good, I wasn’t going to get him all freaked out for nothing.
So I started a text to my sister Beezy. I saw the words appear on the tiny screen of the shitty phone I’ve been using since I found out Blackberries don’t drink coffee. “Waiting for ultrasound. Doctor didn’t see heartbeat.” Backspace, backspace, backspace. Delete, delete, delete. Why would I do that to my sister? For a moment of drama? To be the center of attention for a few minutes? To send cortisol shooting through her already taxed body, causing damage to her tissues? Lame.
I closed my phone, put it in my pocket, and sat quietly holding my own emotions. I think that is where I struggle. I’m not skilled at being a container for my own difficult feelings. I need to shoot them out at people and watch them bounce off so that I can deal with them (or not). This is growth for me. This is blooming. I chose to suffer alone and spare loved ones pain in lieu of getting relief for myself from the tension of waiting.
Dr. O put the ultrasound wand on my belly and instantly smiled. She turned the monitor so I could see it, and there s/he was. A tiny little human being with a fluttering heart. I even saw the umbilical cord pulsing in the background. S/he has tiny little legs that kick and itty bitty arms that wave and flail. My little blastocyst has been very, very busy since I last saw it.
I feel I bloomed a little today. I didn’t give way to needless drama. I told Odie and my sister about it, of course, but I carefully prefaced the story with, “Everything is perfectly fine, but I had a scary moment at the doctor.”
And in Odie’s case, I handed him a grainy black and white picture of what I’m pretty sure is his son.
*The comments on this were hilarious. Um, I’m certain that the baby is Odie’s. What I’m not sure about is the gender.
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