forever human, whatever it takes

Maybe it’s a bit stale and maybe a bit cranky, but I’m a little tired of seeing the endless parade of letters praising the Amarillo Globe-Republican for its soft-focus special section “Forever Parent, Forever Child.” I have a person in my family with a—I’m going to say “disability” because I really don’t feel like being Pollyanna-istically politically correct, and the disability was never diagnosed particularly well. Members of my family are in similar situations to those depicted in the AG-R special section.

But whether you want to be politically correct or not, word choice remains important and the choice of the words “child” and “parent” were extraordinarily poor. It’s offensive to suggest that a person with a mental disability remains a child and it’s wrong to relate to them specifically as a child. The relationship between such a person and his or her caregiver is unique and not easily described by such lazy comparisons.

Granted, some parents of the disabled do work to make sure that their daughters or sons remain children in an unhealthy dance of dependency. But more of them work and sacrifice to help their sons or daughters reach the highest level of independence possible within their own barriers. The section itself depicted some such parents, but their hard work was negated by a dreadful headline. And it wasn’t my understanding that this “special section” was meant to pay tribute to “parents” who had personality disorders to complement their “children’s” disabilities.

Part of the problem is the headline-writer’s apparently shallow definition of the word “parent.” Parents are not defined by young, dependent offspring. Parents remain parents even when their children grow up to be independent adults. When the offspring grow up but cannot become independent, both parent and dependent are often locked into a relationship that is unique, difficult, challenging, occasionally rewarding in its own ways, but certainly not easily understood by simple comparisons like “Forever Parent, Forever Child.”

SPACEDARK