{"id":74,"date":"2010-03-03T09:37:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T09:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/our-daughter-penny-and-the-word-retarded.html"},"modified":"2010-03-03T09:37:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T09:37:00","slug":"our-daughter-penny-and-the-word-retarded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/our-daughter-penny-and-the-word-retarded.html","title":{"rendered":"Our Daughter Penny and the Word Retarded"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

When Penny was three-weeks old, I was on the phone, telling the story of her birth to a friend. I had gone over all those details so many times by that point, it was a relief to ask her the question, \u201cHow are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

She talked about their kids, and then moved on to the frustration of having a husband who couldn\u2019t remember to recycle. \u201cI mean,\u201d she said, \u201cwhat is he, retarded?\u201d<\/p>\n

She kept talking, but I didn\u2019t hear anything else. All I could think was, No. Your husband with a college degree and a Masters in History is not retarded. But my daughter is<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It happens all the time. I\u2019m at dinner and someone drops a fork: \u201cI\u2019m so retarded!\u201d Or, on a bus with a group of kids who are jostling, laughing, teasing each other: \u201cYou\u2019re such a retard!\u201d Or, listening to a speaker\u2014a CEO of a Fortune 500 Company\u2014address a roomful of high school students: \u201cYou have to remember that when I was a freshman in college I was retarded,\u201d he said, in reference to his attitude toward members of the opposite sex. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

The doctors who gave us the news that Penny had Down syndrome offered two guarantees: low muscle tone and mental retardation. Mental retardation. It\u2019s a medical diagnosis intended to help evaluate a person\u2019s ability to navigate the world. Ideally, labeling someone \u201cmentally retarded\u201d guarantees support\u2014therapeutic, medical, social, educational, vocational support\u2014from the community. And yet, rather than remaining within the clinical context, these words have become a casual term of self-deprecation and derision.<\/p>\n

The Special Olympics has designated today, March 3, as a day to promote awareness about the hurtful use of \u201cthe r-word.\u201d At www.r-word.org<\/a>, over 77,000 people have pledged to \u201csupport the elimination of the derogatory use of the r-word from everyday speech and promote the acceptance and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The Special Olympics has been criticized for trying to ban a word (see \u201cThe Case Against Banning the Word Retarded\u201d<\/a>), and plenty of people shrug their shoulders at what seems to be one more sign of rampant political correctness. And yet, language at its best conveys something true about reality. Early on in Penny\u2019s life, we made the switch from calling her a \u201cDown\u2019s baby\u201d to a \u201cbaby with Down syndrome.\u201d Her existence as our child came first. Her diagnosis came second.<\/p>\n

And when it comes to the word retarded, the same point holds. I could argue that my friend didn\u2019t mean anything when she used that word to describe her husband. It was just a way to express frustration. She certainly didn\u2019t mean to hurt us. But about a year after Penny was born, that same friend and I were having dinner. She\u2019d gotten to know our daughter. She had heard about the joys and struggles and complications that can come with a diagnosis of mental retardation. At dinner, her eyes filled at one point and she reached across the table. \u201cI\u2019ve used the word retarded all my life, and I\u2019m really trying to get it out of my vocabulary. I\u2019m sorry for anytime I\u2019ve said it to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was all I needed. Not for every word out of her mouth to become politically correct. But for her to want her language to reflect her understanding of the world, which included an understanding of our family. I needed her language to reflect her heart. <\/p>\n

The Special Olympics campaign is not about banning a word. It\u2019s about caring for people. People who laugh and play and cry and struggle. People like our daughter. People like Penny. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}