The R-Word

       Mary has Smith-Magenis Syndrome, a rare spontaneous genetic deletion syndrome. She was diagnosed through genetic testing just before her first birthday, and at that time she was one of approximately 800 people diagnosed worldwide. It is estimated to occur in 1 of 25,000 births, and thus massively underdiagnosed. The site www.prisms.org is a great place to learn more.

     Basically, SMS is something that just happened to Mary while she was developing in utero, for no known reason. Only my daughter would have something so exotic; I find myself explaining her condition to medical professionals on a regular basis.  I find it easiest to compare it to Down's syndrome, minus the heart problems, plus even slower development. Although Mary looks a lot like a blond me at her age (though much prettier, IMHO), she shares facial features with other kids like her. The photo gallery on prisms.org shows dozens of kids who look like they could be related to her. Still, she is the prettiest, of course.

     So ... the R word. The polite thing to say is developmentally disabled or intellectually disabled. On an IEP you might see MR/DD. As a medical term, mentally retarded is useful, but, even for an insensitive Republican like me, retarded is just not ok. One exception is when I'm explaining her disability to older people - it just seems to click better. When I hear it being tossed around casually, I prickle. Especially when the person saying it is someone who knows and loves Mary, but just hasn't gotten that word out of their vocabulary yet. I can sympathize, to a degree. I had to stop myself from making short-bus jokes, too.

     When we call something or someone "retarded," we're really just saying that they're stupid. I used to say "faggy," when I really meant "wussy." A simple substitution is all that is needed here, kids. When a couple of co-workers were throwing the term around recently, I piped up. After the third useage of the word, I said, "My four year old actually is retarded, and she wouldn't do something that stupid."

     Dead silence.

     

     Followed by, "Oh my god, I feel so bad now." But my goal was not to shame these people - rather, I wanted to let them know, in a semi-funny way, that the word just isn't acceptable anymore. It's slightly nicer than getting all preachy, and the message is sent. 

     So try stupid, moron, idiot, dumbass, et cetera. Please just leave the R-word out of it.