A Potty Mouthed Post

*Contains language, you should be used to this by now if you're a regular reader of my blog. Also, does this kind of crap only happen to me? Please tell me no. Please. 

 
After speech therapy today, Bailey headed to the really great park down the road from the school to kill some time before picking up Morgan. There are three major home school co-ops in our area and Tuesdays and Thursdays are meet up days at the park, so Bailey's usually guaranteed to have kids around his age to play with. So far, I've had incredibly good experiences with the local moms. I mean, really good experiences. However, today... well, today's encounter with one mom had me alternately scratching my head, making me want a drink, and also making me question why it's not legal to revoke someone's ability to have offspring.

It started off innocently enough at the swing sets. Bay was happily swinging along. I was taking pictures of him and pushing him. She walks up with her girls, we chat, like moms do. Trade information. Parks are like one big networking party, I think. She mentions she home schools. "No shit," I think, "we're at the park, on a Tuesday at 1:45pm and your girls are mostly over the age of four." She asks if Bay is my only child. Bay answers for me, "I have an older brother, Morgan. He's eight. He has Autism. He's awesome!"

This catches her and another mom's interest. The other mom, it turns out, has a child with Down's Syndrome. The moms, I'll call the NT only mom, "Deluded," and the SN mom, "Yes," and I chat for a while by the swings and then go our different ways after our kiddos. Yes' boy is a bit of a daredevil and Deluded has four kids, all girls, were wrecking havoc. I ran into Yes' son with Bailey over by a climbing wall. I offered assistance and he very emphatically said, "I got this." It was too cute. He and Bailey were like monkeys on that thing.

I wandered back to the sitting area and encountered Deluded and Yes again. Deluded proceeded to begin asking me about Morgan. Rather, she asked me about Morgan and "his Autism." I get this a lot, so I tried speaking in general terms, you know- I don't separate the diagnosis from the child, he's awesome, he's into trains, very social for the most part, loves math, etc. What she did next floored both Yes and I.

Deluded: "Have you ever considered home schooling him?"

Me: "Well, sort of. I mean, we're talked about it, but have decided not to because the school system here has really worked for us.  He's doing well and until that changes..."

D: "We actually have several children with autism (note the person first language? yeah...) in our co-op and since they've began to homeschool, they've shown zero signs of regression. I mean, you can't even tell they were once kids with autism. You should really try this!

Me: "Are you being serious?" I cast a dubious look at Yes... She caught it and giggled.

D, looking about as fanatical as a cult member with a strange gleam in her eyes: "Yes! You should try it! You know that with home school, vitamins, and an interactive diet, you can actually reverse autism? These moms swear by this approach. They don't really even do much therapy other than some doctors in New Orleans."

Me: "Those wouldn't be DAN! doctors... now would they? And just what kind of 'interactive diet' are we speaking of?"

Guys, that gleam? That cult-like gleam? Ah, hell... it was bad. Very, very bad.

D: "I don't know the doctors' names. They  might be named Dan. I don't know. But the interactive diet is key, very key. You have to follow it specifically <pronounced 'pacifically'> and it works. I've seen these kids go from barely functioning to, like I said, you wouldn't even be able to look at them and tell they have autism."

Okay, I was over asking questions and messing with her. I mean, she didn't even know I was messing with her! What's the point? I thanked her <sort of> for the information. I was befuddled, really, and slightly amused. I don't ascribe to a special diet for Morgan, really, for "his" Autism. I definitely don't buy into the DAN! approach.

Then, shit got real.

D: "So, all you have are two boys?"

Me: "Yes."

D: "I'm confused, though. Your older son is the one with autism, right? You had another one even though <whispered> you knew it was possible to pass it on again? Did you just not want to try again because of autism?"

Me, "accidentally" kicking sand at her: "Sorry about that! No, my uterus said 'Time's up!' and turned in it's time card. It developed endo and adenomyosis. Gosh, looking back... it must have known about the A-card, ya know?!" <giggle>

Yes, by then, was laughing her ass off. She told me later that I had dealt with that a lot better than she would.

We were lapsing into thankful (for me) silence for a minute when one of Deluded's girls came running up. That's when the Very Bad happened. A little boy had thrown sand at her. Yeah, it's a playground. Deluded went over to the sandbox to, I guess scold the kiddo. Yes knew that's where her kid was, too, and followed. I couldn't find Bay, so I went, too.

Yep, it was Yes' kid.

Deluded, in what I suppose was meant to be a show of "this is how informed I am" told her child to not get mad at Yes' child. That the little boy "has a very bad illness called Down Syndrome and cannot help the way he acts... he just can't control himself." Well... hell.

Yes flew off the handle, crying, and called Deluded a bitch. "Bravo," I thought. Deluded said that she was merely trying to inform her child how to, get this, "treat the poor mentally challenged children of the world."

That's when I lost my shit, brought down the bitch hammer,  and called Deluded an "abelist twat."

Because, you know, sometimes everyone is a potty mouth.

Yes and I swapped numbers.

Teaching bigotry

Growing up in the South, I was exposed to a lot of bigotry. It was both overt and covert in terms, but my mother always taught me that human beings are not to be judged by the color of their skin. Instead, it is what is in their hearts one should look to in order to find the real essence of their beings.

That being said, the man I called my stepfather was a by the textbook stereotypical southern male who had grown up pre and post Jim Crow laws in Nashville. I grew up hearing the hated "n-word" in my home, along with other slurs against humanity. From that, I could have been taught to be a bigot. However, I knew it was wrong. My mom still instilled in me to make my own decisions about my friends and I did. I kept, and keep, a very diverse group of friends and tend to look at the world through the view that everyone - no matter their skin color, race, religion, or neurology - is equal and good, deserving of the same rights as every other person. Bigotry is taught.

Raising children in the 21st century South can be tricky, from what I can tell. Both of my kids have been taught by my husband and I from birth on that all people are created equal. However, when you send your children out into the world, even if it's onto your front doorstep, you don't know if those ideals will hold. What is said at the dinner table and agreed upon might just disappear when playing with friends who look just like them.

We live outside of New Orleans, a very culturally diverse area. Our neighbors are white, black, Creole, Venezuelan, Brazilian, Mexican, Indian, Native American (Houma Indians, to be exact in most cases), and so forth. We moved here from the mountains of Appalachia, where there is culture, but not so much diversity. My kids had probably only ever remembered seeing a handful of people whose skin colors were different from theirs in real life before moving here. Morgan, upon getting into the car after his first day of school here, told me he had met "the most beautiful girl in the world!" I asked what was she like, meaning personality, looks, etc. He told me she, "is smart, pretty, laughs a lot... and she's brown, Mama." I about drove off of the road, because I've never thought to describe someone by a Crayola color.

However, to my literal thinker, this was a legitimate way of describing someone. I was worried because I didn't want him to be punished or wronged in some way for his way of describing someone. I had to sit my son down and explain to him the different ways of categorizing people. To do so felt... bigoted. Up until then, I had been raising my kids to be well, color blind, I'd thought. I've raised them, I thought, to see beyond color or any sort of differences between themselves and others and just see people. To only see good and bad. 

Was I doing something wrong?

I spoke with my neighbor, a preacher with two biracial kids, who told me that from what he could tell, I was doing the correct thing. However, I might need to actually explain how we all got here, to this point, to my kids. But how, I wondered to him, do I explain sensitive things such as slavery, Jim Crow, and desegregation to Morgan? I don't want my son to only have what he takes from school as the only watered down context. He pointed out to me that I don't have hate in my heart and I'm fighting a type of desegregation fight with special needs inclusion. So, I went on.

I might be going about all of this in the wrong way, but I teach my children that each of us are of equal worth. It does not matter what race one is... or if you speak English or speak at all. It shouldn't matter if you live in a nice suburb or in a ghetto in New Orleans (which, I will readily admit, I lock my doors going through- we were lost going through there last Saturday... right down the road from where a little girl had been shot a week before. It was scary, okay?).  Both of the kids know to not be afraid of wheelchairs or braces- those are orthopedic jewelry. They don't look down on people for being poor because they, to the best of our knowledge, don't know what that is... for now.

I've also let them know, in true Southern mama fashion, that I'll snatch 'em bald headed if I ever catch a slur on their tongues because that's not right. You are graced with however you are made. You make the best of it. It is your choice to either wallow in circumstances, work with them, or rise above. Of course, we have been dealt a luckier hand than most. I realize this. That is also why I teach my children that it is always important to give back- I'm still working that one out.

Bigotry is taught. Hatred is taught. We hate what we do not understand or what we fear. 

I am afraid of quite a bit. I cannot say that I personally hate anything other than fear and bigotry.