{"id":1400,"date":"2006-03-25T06:47:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-25T06:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/03\/in-defense-of-retardation\/"},"modified":"2006-03-25T06:47:00","modified_gmt":"2006-03-25T06:47:00","slug":"in-defense-of-retardation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/in-defense-of-retardation\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Retardation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other night, when I read at the Barnes and Noble in New York City, the young events manager was explaining to me about the noise generated by the air conditioning; he said it was, “retarded.” As always, when someone otherwise kind uses this term in this manner, I winced (inside) and cast about for an appropriate response. I said, laughing, “You know, to me that is not a bad thing.”<\/p>\n

He paused for a moment, looked appropriately embarrassed, and mumbled something sheepishly, maybe, “Oh, right, sorry” I don’t know, and the awkwardness passed. My mission had been accomplished: to point out in a light-handed fashion, the misuse of the word “retarded.”<\/p>\n

Being retarded has some really bad PR. It is like one of the worst things you can be, apparently, at least to many in the general public. Kids insult each other with it, second only perhaps to saying “gay” disparagingly.<\/p>\n

Having a child who tests in the retarded range, I have been feeling for years that I have to step in and get people to stop misusing the word “retarded.” I have written letters to ignorant, offensive talk show hosts. I have said to store clerks, “You seem like a nice person. Don’t use that word.” I have said to friends, even, “Let’s not use that word when what we mean is, ‘unskilled,’ or ‘socially awkward.’ Not as satisfying, sure, but that’s not my problem.<\/p>\n

Then I heard that there were organizations who had for years worked to improve the lives of the “cognitively disabled” and who were changing their names from using the term “retarded,” to something perhaps gentler, nobler, PC-er?<\/p>\n

That seems wrong to me. It’s just that “retarded” is so often misused. The burden should be on the abuser, not the victims.<\/p>\n

But frankly, there are so many of us who just wish that our children were not “developmentally delayed,” and so that any other name would smell just as sour. I remember going to an event to raise awareness for a certain approach to autism<\/a>, and one of the speakers talked about how their child was, at first, diagnosed as “mentally retarded!” Gasp.<\/span> But now, thanks to this approach, he was “high functioning.” (Never mind that, in the video of the child Before<\/span>, I observed that he actually played quite well, and at the time wished that Nat could even play as well as that!)<\/p>\n

So I thought of Natty, with his “undesirable” diagnosis, and for a split second, the Mother Bear in me nearly jumped up and clawed the speaker to death. And then, I swallowed, and calmed down.<\/p>\n

When fetal Nat was growing inside me, all I ever asked of God was that he be healthy and not a criminal. Maybe I should have asked for more, but I always like to prioritize and those two things were the bottom line. God is busy and may be a little ADD; you have to pick and choose what you ask of hm.<\/p>\n

The problem is not with the term or diagnosis of “retardation.” The problem is that some people are viewed as less-than by others. I think it is up to me as Nat’s advocate to set them straight. You misuse the term “retarded,” treat it like it is a bad thing, and you will hear from me. Growl.
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The other night, when I read at the Barnes and Noble in New York City, the young events manager was explaining to me about the noise generated by the air conditioning; he said it was, “retarded.” As always, when someone otherwise kind uses this term in this manner, I winced (inside) and cast about for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-mA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}