There are lots of words in the world

I'm a pretty good time right now. I have returned to my penchant for sobbing over any good and decent act of humanity. Last night I wept copiously over Joe's facebook post:

And when I say, "wept copiously", I truly mean it. Sobbed. Tears streaming down my cheeks. Granted, ever since having Hannah in my life I have been more prone to get emotional about anything related to Down's kids, but this was pretty extreme, even for me. I believe Joe caught me on video, with my eyes squeezed shut, tears pouring, saying to my belly, "Don't call anyone a retard, we will teach you better than that. And you won't even want to because you'll love your Aunt Hannah." I can't really speak to the authenticity of that as a quote, due to the mild hysteria, but it was something like that. 

(By the way, do I not have the most adorable, awesomest husband in all the land?!)

Every parent has dreams for their kid and probably a lot of them share our dream of having a child that is kind and cares for others. Not because they feel obligated because of beliefs or anything like that, but because we, as a family, takes time to think of every person as someone special and deserving of love and respect. 

I grew up watching South Pacific. I could probably sing you almost every word of every song even though it's been years since I last saw it. But, it wasn't until I read an article in which Dan Savage inserted a video clip of the brief and poignant song, You've Got to Be Taught, that I realized how much that musical is trying to teach people. If you're not familiar with the musical, it centers around American soldiers stationed in the South Pacific and two of the white American characters struggle with racism. When a Frenchman expresses his confusion and disgust about this to one of the Americans, he replies (via song of course, as any of us would):

You've got to be taught to hate and fear
You've got to be taught from year to year
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught....
You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
to hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught

I want to believe that as long as I never say anything to teach my children to hate, I'm safe. But, I'm not. It's beyond not saying something hateful. It's not doing something hateful. Not making a snide comment, getting road rage, being overly sarcastic or just plain uncaring. It's not just that I need to be careful to not teach hate, I have to be care to teach love.

People, there are lots of words in the world. Maybe you think calling something "gay" or "retarded" is not a big deal, but it's a big deal to someone. Take a minute and think about what you are making those words synonymous with, for example, "You are being such a retard" or "that's so retarded." What you're really saying is "stupid." That person or this situation is stupid. So tell me, would you go up to my sister-in-law or any other developmentally delayed person and say, "Hey, you're stupid."  No? Then pick a new word to describe things you think are stupid instead of equating words that describe the state of real humans with a negative meaning. Heck, just use stupid! I picked one for you! Hurray!