My Own Open Letter – but this one’s to Piers Morgan

Dear Mr. Morgan,

I wanted to thank you for hosting Ann Coulter on your program this past Friday evening, as well as John Franklin Stephens and Tim Shriver, concerning Ms. Coulter’s recent use of the “r-word” in a tweet about President Obama. I had been thinking and worrying and writing about this issue all last week, and it was helpful to hear four new perspectives.

Ms. Coulter appeared to become irritated, even agitated, when she thought you presumed to know what she was thinking when she used the r-word in the tweet. So I will not attempt to do the same thing, to read her mind, but based on what I know of Ms. Coulter’s work and the way she describes herself, I think your assumption that she knew exactly how provocative she was being by choosing that word, is likely reasonable.

I have considered writing Ms. Coulter, and I may still do so, but my concern is that I would put forth considerable effort to be balanced, fair, and gracious (i.e., not expressing exactly how angry I am about this) only to have my efforts ignored, or even ridiculed on Fox News. I thought about telling her about my son David, who is 2 ½ years old and has Down syndrome, or even attach a photo, but given her reactions to your questions I am hesitant to give her any information about my family, or to send her a photo of my beautiful son only to have it appear on TV along with an angry rant about how unreasonable I, and others like me, are to find her use of the word “retard” offensive. My son is too young to understand anything about this right now, but seeing his face on television along with anything but an apology would be more than his father and I could bear.

You didn't really think I was done, did you?

(See post/e-mail above)

(Even I am kind of sick of thinking about this, so I think I will take a break)

In case you don't know anything about this:

http://piersmorgan.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/26/john-franklin-stephens-on-his-open-letter-to-ann-coulter-use-me-as-a-symbol-of-adversity/

for the interview with JF Stephens and Tim Shriver

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/27/coulter-stands-by-use-of-controversial-word-to-describe-obama/?hpt=hp_t2

for the interview with Ann Coulter

Matt and I have actually not talked about this a lot, mostly because we’ve been really busy over the past week with work and church and childcare. But we did discuss it a little yesterday, and raised the following points:

1. I had really hoped the phrase “politically correct” had died a natural death several years ago, but it appears to have been resurrected. To me, to gripe about some new term and label it the politically correct term, is to (1) completely dismiss the issue, (2) give a reason to never expand your mind or consider that there might be a way of speaking that is better or preferable to the way we’ve always said it, and (3) expect carte blanche to say whatever you want, without ever thinking about it.

Marriage Advice, Somali Warlords, and I'll Have Some Ambivalence, Maybe

I’ve just started reading two different books – this usually doesn’t work out too well, as I typically don’t finish at least one of them, but the first is so dense that I need the other to balance it out:

1. God and Human Dignity, edited by R. Kendall Soulen and Linda Woodhead. This is one of the more scholarly books I have tried in quite awhile. There are 18 chapters written by various theologians and ethicists; right now I’m planning to read just two, “Human Dignity in the Absence of Agency” by Hans Reinders (about severe disability) and “Cruising Toward Bethlehem: Human Dignity and the New Eugenics” by Kendall Soulen, the editor (discusses prenatal testing).

Thus far I am two pages into the Introduction and have had to stop to look up two words already: elide (to leave out of consideration, OMIT, CURTAIL, ABRIDGE) and eschatological (a belief concerning death, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of mankind). False modesty aside, I have a huge vocabulary, so I’m thinking this is not a good sign for the rest of the book.

David's Daily Stuff

David taking a break from yesterday's project - moving all his pants from the drawer to sections of the ladder for Simon's top bunk bed. Each time he threw pants and landed them inside a section, this was a cause for great celebration.

Drinking well from a cup

The mirror his CBRS lent us - he loves checking himself out!

Matt is dying for him to get his hair cut; I am always hesitant but it may be time.

Yeah, maybe it's time.

Often Imitated, Part 2

1. More great David-imitation: (a) From watching brother coughing into his elbow, David has learned to fake-cough into his elbow. Doubly funny because Simon is usually fake-coughing to start with. (b) Hilarious: fake snoring. Simon used to fake snore when we put David to bed, when he was having a hard time transitioning from crib to toddler bed. I have no idea why he started this, but he believed it helped/distracted David so he could settle down, and after awhile we were inclined to agree. Now David will dive onto a pillow or blanket on the floor, close his eyes, and snore.

2. Covering his mouth with his hands while he’s giggling. This is something his speech therapist started with him, and it’s really cute. He also seems, in the last month or so, to have rediscovered that he has this belly – often pulling up his shirt, checking to make sure his belly button is still there (I guess). He loves everyone else’s belly button too, especially brother's.

3. Dance moves have improved – now whenever he hears music, he begins waving his arms back and forth as if he is at a concert. He also uses above-mentioned belly as a drum, and kicks his feet.

Part 4, of 4

Some other thoughts about the “people on welfare” discussion:

1.  I’ve written mostly about the unkind remarks people make, and the criticism that some folks offer about the ways in which people who receive governmental assistance choose to spend their money and live their lives. Some folks would assert that when you pay your own way, you can spend as you choose, but when you depend on someone else, you rightly open yourself up to closer scrutiny – people have the right to examine, question, and criticize/ridicule the ways in which you spend your allotment. I’m not sure I agree with that basic tenet (again, just think about how you would feel, if it were you), but let’s say you’re right. There’s (a) questioning things in your head, and there’s (b) saying things out loud – unfortunately for a lot of people (certainly not limited to this issue), there’s not a lot of difference between the two. It’s the “saying out loud” part that I’d ask folks to reconsider first, and we can deal with the rest later.

I asked in my first post on this matter, before you actually/out-loud criticize someone’s life and choices, that you take a moment to consider carefully what you are about to say, and your goal in saying it. If you believe in your heart that everyone “on welfare” should “get off it,” then are snide, unkind and just plain mean comments, within the hearing of the person you are talking about, really the best way to go? If this is something you are passionate about, then take your passion and park it in front of the NC House of Representatives or US Congress, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. As both a mental health specialist and a, you know, person, I promise you that shaming and disapproving looks by strangers are generally not the way to inspire anyone to do anything differently.

Often Imitated

David’s development has really taken off lately – nearly every day he’s doing something new and different. Several of his therapists told me this would happen once he began walking, that major progress in one area is usually associated/correlated with big progress in other areas. The thing we are enjoying most is all the ways in which he’s imitating us, showing us he has been paying plenty of attention to the way we do things in our family.

David’s main chore is helping with laundry. This usually consists of me taking the wet clothes out of the washer, shaking them out, and then resting them on the open dryer door for David to push them the rest of the way in. He is diligent in this duty, if something doesn’t go in right away he keeps giving little pushes until it does. Occasionally he punks out before the load is done, but as you can imagine we have plenty of laundry at our house and sometimes I wish I could quit before it’s done. He also helps me get the dry clothes out of the dryer into the basket for folding. Lately he has begun taking small items like washcloths and disappearing around the corner with them, coming back empty-handed. Follow-up reveals he has gone to the living room and put them on the arm of the couch or the chair, and smoothed them out, because that’s exactly what Daddy does when he’s folding. He also helps quite a bit with unloading groceries, sitting on the floor and handing me boxes of cereal or pasta, or cans of veggies, for me to put on the higher pantry shelves. He’s not easily daunted, either: he can pick up one of those 48 oz bottles of apple juice and carry it a short way, and even a gallon of milk he can drag for a little while.

He’s a great little problem-solver; yesterday he began trying to climb up on his little Elmo stepstool. He has previously used it to sit on and has not offered to try to stand, but yesterday it was pushed against a wall, and he used that to brace and balance himself while he took all these steps up and down – his own little step aerobics class. It was so great to see him experimenting with different places to put his hands.

These things may seem little, but David continues to provide regular reminders of how much work goes into everything, for him. You notice lots of stuff you never had to before. 

Humility

(just a couple near the end)

I’ve wanted to share this for awhile, not necessarily related to all my other posts of late, but a reminder that we don’t really know what’s going on for folks until we ask them.

I had a client (social work) a good while back, a single mom with one teenage son. We’d worked together for several months to line up some services for him, she did a lot of the work and phone calls, and we (my agency) were ready to close her case. This happened on my last scheduled home visit.

We chatted for a while and then I pulled out some required paperwork, this evidence-based risk assessment we’d begun using. One of the questions was about a history of childhood sexual abuse of the parent(s). Based on my knowledge of the mom’s general history, I had already guessed the answer to that question was yes, but she hadn’t brought it up. During this home visit I asked the question. She hesitated and answered “yes,” and then this entire story spilled out, years of humiliation and abuse at the hands of her brother and a m ale cousin who lived with them. She said she’d told her mother several times, and (for whatever reason) the mother did not intervene.