In Which I May Offend Many of You

Hey, remember Karen from The Naked Ovary? I’d link, but she closed up shop a while back. To refresh your memory, Karen had one of the really popular infertility blogs that turned into an adoption blog and one of the things she used to write about A LOT was the language of adoption.

When I read those posts, I remember thinking, Dude, this girl needs some Xanax. Karen’s lovely, she really is. I wish her only good things and happiness, but it made me a little crazy that she was offended by things like “Adopt a highway.” NO ONE, really NO ONE is saying that “adopting” a highway is the same as adopting a child, but what should we call it? Sponsor a highway? Mightn’t that offend or belittle all the 12-steppers? I don’t know.

Anyway. I have thought about Karen a lot lately as I navigate the language of disability. And I read this bit of glurge that is currently making the rounds of the Interweb, and I still think that sometimes we just need to get over ourselves.

Case in point: The School says that their curriculum is for students with average to above average learning potential with communication and language “differences.” Dude. Communication differences? What, like they sign or write or burp their words? Language differences? What, like French? Hebrew? Italian? They don’t mean differences. They mean DELAYS. Or DISABILITIES. CALL A SPADE A SPADE.

Remember in the fifth grade when you would say to your friends, “Oh my GOD is she wearing jeans WITHOUT doing the little cuffy thing? That is SO GAY.” I miss those days. Not the cuffy thing, because frankly, that was a little gay. In the fifth grade sense of the word. And that’s what I miss. The way we could say things and not overthink them.

In February, I was at the library. (That sounds bad. I am at the library every week.) But when I was at the library in February, I saw a board promoting Black History Month. Except that it was titled African American Heritage Month. DUDE. WhatEVER.

I am not offended by recognizing that D. is delayed. I am not offended by the term “special needs.” In fact, I think it’s pretty accurate.

I get irritated when people say things like, “We’re the ones with the disability. If everyone in the world could sign, then deaf people wouldn’t have any problem. If we all made the effort to be more helpful and understanding, children with Down’s syndrome could be productive members of society.” Yes, and if ice cream grew on trees, I wouldn’t have to schlep across town for a decent cone of 31 flavors.

I think what irritates me the most is that I think that on some level, parents who are that hung up on language are doing their children a disservice. By not recognizing a delay or disability, by not acknowledging it, they are perhaps not doing everything possible to help their children. If I treated D. the same as my other kids, for example, he would NOT thrive. He would NOT be able to get things in his own time. He NEEDS more help. He NEEDS intense language therapy.

My aunt and uncle have a son, my cousin. He has fetal alcohol effect. My aunt has, many times in conversation with strangers mentioned that fact. She says, “My son has fetal alcohol effect.” My father is constantly horrified by the way she says it. “How about saying ‘My adopted son,’” he says again and again. “So that people don’t think she drank her way through the pregnancy.”

I get it, though. It doesn’t occur to her to say it that way because she doesn’t think about it in those terms. Because the fact that he is adopted ceased to be a big deal from the moment he came home. They have plenty of other big deal issues, but adoption? Such a non-starter.

Anyway. Words. Yeah, I’m a writer and all, and I get that words have power, but I don’t think that I need to give them power over me. I think it’s a lot more important to forget about the damn words and just work on getting my kid to talk.