The death of political correctness ("wokeness") in the USA is a thing to be celebrated. While out at dinner many years ago, a woman made the mistake of telling me she had a special child.
"Why, what can he do?", I asked. If you’re going to call someone special, I expect them to be some kind of prodigy, or have a unique ability, like being able to levitate. Mozart was a Special Child. So was Blaise Pascal, H.P. Lovecraft and Niccolo Paganini.
But no, this kid just had Down Syndrome. Nothing special in that. Thousands upon thousands of people have it worldwide. 1 baby in 700, in fact! Downright common, when you come right down to it, so the appellation special really doesn’t fit. He’s retarded, not special. Use the word; it’s a perfectly fine, descriptive word. No shame in that, happens in the best of families, etc. When did this culture become such a mealy-mouthed bunch of politically correct hypocrites that everything has to be softened. Special is such a vague word, but retarded is spot-on.
Now I know every parent thinks their child is just wonderful, the cutest thing, ad nauseum. A history professor I knew in college had a unique response to parents (or grandparents) that tried to inflict the latest family snapshots on him at cocktail parties. He had in his wallet a photo of Josef Stalin as a child. He’d show that, and let the audience coo over it for a moment before enlightening the audience about the accomplishments of the adult Josef. Genghis Khan, Hitler and Charles Manson were probably all cute kids too, when you think about it.
George Carlin addressed this topic so beautifully in his book, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? Look around the world, he says, and you will notice that about 99% of the people in it are a**holes. Yet every parent thinks their child is unique, special, different, etc. Face facts, chances are your kid is going to be one of the a**holes.
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