Here is a quick list of 7 things to do:

1. Celebrate

   Congratulations.  You’ve just had a child, and he or she is a beautiful child.  Sure, there will be some extra stuff for you to deal with, but when is there ever a guarantee — with any child — that you won’t have some extra stuff to deal with?  Your kid is wonderful and will make you a better person.  Celebrate.

2. Read this

   This is the article that started it all for us.  Written by Amy and it’s awesome.  It might give you a new perspective.

3. Learn sign language

   Right away.  Don’t wait.  Seriously:  do it now.  Signing Time videos are the easiest way we’ve found.

4. Learn more

   A lot more.  Browse the “Down syndrome” section of links on the right-hand side of this page — especially the DS Health link.  You’ll be amazed at how little most people know about DS — especially doctors and other people who should know better.  And you’ll need that knowledge.

5. Reach out to others

   You need help.  Everyone does.  The best help comes from other parents with kids with DS.  Find your local group and get involved.  The NDSS website is a good place to start.  And reach out when you meet or see other people — especially other people with kids with DS.

6. Fight the R-word

   It’s a word that demeans our children.  Even if it’s casually used, and not used in a way that’s directed toward you or your family, please step in and ask the person to stop using the word in that way.  When used casually, its meaning is based on a fundamental comparative insult to people with special needs.  Help stop it.

7. Celebrate

   Congratulations.  You’ve just become a better person — and not just for your child.  You are now a true activist, and you’re making the world a much better place.  Celebrate.

For the intellectually disabled and their families, it’s just as bad as the “N”-word.

By Maria Shriver

August 22, 2008

This has been a year filled with teachable political moments. Racism, sexism, ageism and “change” have been debated at kitchen tables and water coolers across America. But this last week, those gathered around my kitchen table have been consumed with another discussion, one that is not Democratic or Republican — it’s the “R-word” debate.

The “R-word” stands for “retard.” For the 6 million to 8 million Americans with intellectual disabilities and their families, this word and its hurtful use is equal to the impact of the “N-word” on an African American.

The reason it’s kitchen-table fodder is because of the Dreamworks film “Tropic Thunder,” which topped the box-office charts when it opened last weekend and which will attract many more moviegoers this weekend. In the R-rated film, which I’ve seen, a character named Simple Jack is a caricature of a person with a developmental disability. In one of the scenes, the character played by Robert Downey Jr. chastises Ben Stiller’s character for “going full retard,” and the “R-word” is repeated many times.

As a journalist, I respect the right to freedom of speech, and my kids will tell you I laugh the loudest when we see a comedy. But as the niece of someone who had a developmental disability, and as a member of the board of directors of Special Olympics International, I know how hurtful the “R-word” is to someone with a disability. I know why “Tropic Thunder’s” opening was met by protests on behalf of the intellectually disabled.

Listen to actor Eddie Barbanell, who serves on the Special Olympics board with me, and he will tell you in very emotional terms how the use of that word has made him feel rejected, stupid, demeaned.

Or you can talk to Special Olympics athlete Loretta Claiborne, who speaks on behalf of millions when she describes how the “R-word” has been used to mock and degrade her. She asks all of us to stop using this word without regard to its effect on the hearts and minds of people with disabilities.

There is an old saying: “Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me.” Even when I chanted it as a child, I never believed it. Words do hurt — they break people’s spirits, they break people’s dreams, they break people’s hearts.

Kids will see “Tropic Thunder,” no matter the rating, and when they leave the theater and go out to their schools, their homes and their communities, they’ll call each other the “R-word” because they think it’s funny. They’ll do it without any idea or regard to how it makes a person with a disability feel.

Too many in the intellectually disabled movement cannot speak out for themselves. It is up to their families and those of us who advocate on their behalf to explain that calling someone by the “R-word” is no longer acceptable and is anything but funny.

It’s not acceptable in a movie theater; it’s not acceptable on a playground. It’s not acceptable that college coaches use it to chastise athletes. It’s not OK to use it in a classroom or a boardroom.

“Tropic Thunder” is giving Claiborne, Barbanell and many other individuals and organizations that serve those with special needs — the Special Olympics, the National Down Syndrome Society, the Arc, the American Assn. of People with Disabilities, Parent to Parent-USA — a teachable moment. They are ready to join with the entertainment industry to change minds. Dreamworks’ decision to include a public service announcement with DVDs of “Tropic Thunder” is an important first step, but far more needs to be done.

Just as important, parents must talk to kids at our kitchen tables about how we have felt when someone called us stupid, idiotic or lame. Because once we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, certain names just aren’t that funny any more.

I often quote the Hopi prayer that tells us not to look outside ourselves for a leader. It tells us that we are the ones we have been waiting for. We can exchange one “R-word” for another: respect. We can teach our children that name-calling hurts.

Let’s makes the “R-word” as unacceptable as the “N-word.” Think of all we can accomplish if we work together.

It’s one thing in this political season that shouldn’t require a water-cooler debate.

Maria Shriver is the first lady of California.

Gifts video on YouTube

I want to tell you a quick story before I start. I was walking
through hallways, not minding my own business, listening to the
conversations around me. As I passed the front door on my way to my
English classroom, I heard the dialogue between two friends nearby.
For reasons of privacy, I would rather not give away their race or
gender.

So the one girl leans to the other, pointing to the back of a young
man washing the glass panes of the front door, and says, “Oh my gaw!
I think it is so cute that our school brings in the black kids from
around the district to wash our windows!” The other girl looked up,
widened her slanted Asian eyes and called to the window washer,
easily loud enough for him to hear, “Hey, Negro! You missed a spot!”
The young man did not turn around. The first girl smiled a bland
smile that all white girls – hell, all white people – have and
walked on. A group of Mexicans stood by and laughed that high pitch
laugh that all of them have.

So now it’s your turn. What do you think the black window washer
did? What would you do in that situation? Do you think he turned and
calmly explained the fallacies of racism and showed the girls the
error of their way? That’s the one thing that makes racism, or any
discrimination, less powerful in my mind. No matter how biased or
bigoted a comment or action may be, the guy can turn around and
explain why racism is wrong and, if worst comes to worst, punch `em
in the face.

Discrimination against those who can defend themselves, obviously,
cannot survive. What would be far worse is if we discriminated
against those who cannot defend themselves. What then, could be
worse than racism?

Look around you and thank God that we don’t live in a world that
discriminates and despises those who cannot defend themselves. Thank
God that every one of us in this room, in this school, hates racism
and sexism and by that logic discrimination in general. Thank God
that every one in this institution is dedicated to the ideal of
mutual respect and love for our fellow human beings. Then pinch
yourself for living in a dream. Then pinch the hypocrites sitting
next to you. Then pinch the hypocrite that is you.

Pinch yourself once for each time you have looked at one of your
fellow human beings with a mental handicap and laughed. Pinch
yourself for each and every time you denounced discrimination only
to turn and hate those around you without the ability to defend
themselves, the only ones around you without the ability to defend
themselves. Pinch yourself for each time you have called someone
else a “retard.”

If you have been wondering about my opening story, I’ll tell you
that it didn’t happen, not as I described it. Can you guess what I
changed? No, it wasn’t the focused hate on one person, and no it
wasn’t the slanted Asian eyes or cookie cutter features white people
have or that shrill Hispanic hyena laugh (yeah, it hurts when people
make assumptions about your person and use them against you doesn’t
it?).

The girl didn’t say “hey Negro.” There was no black person.
It was a mentally handicapped boy washing the windows. It was “Hey
retard.” I removed the word retard. I removed the word that destroys
the dignity of our most innocent. I removed the single most hateful
word in the entire English language.

I don’t understand why we use the word; I don’t think I ever will.
In such an era of political correctness, why is it that retard is
still ok? Why do we allow it? Why don’t we stop using the word?
Maybe students can’t handle stopping – I hope that offends you
students, it was meant to – but I don’t think the adults, here can
either.

Students, look at your teacher, look at every member of this
faculty. I am willing to bet that every one of them would throw a
fit if they heard the word faggot or *** – hell the word Negro -
used in their classroom. But how many of them would raise a finger
against the word retard? How many of them have? Teachers, feel free
to raise your hand or call attention to yourself through some other
means if you have.

That’s what I thought. Clearly, this obviously isn’t a problem
contained within our age group.

So why am I doing this? Why do I risk being misunderstood and
resented by this school’s student body and staff? Because I know how
much you can learn from people, all people, even – no, not even,
especially – the mentally handicapped.

I know this because every morning I wake up and I come downstairs
and I sit across from my sister, quietly eating her Cheerio’s. And
as I sit down she sets her spoon down on the table and she looks at
me, her strawberry blonde hair hanging over her freckled face almost
completely hides the question mark shaped scar above her ear from
her brain surgery two Christmases ago.

She looks at me and she smiles. She has a beautiful smile; it lights
up her face. Her two front teeth are faintly stained from the years
of intense epilepsy medication but I don’t notice that anymore. I
lean over to her and say, “Good morning, Olivia.” She stares at me
for a moment and says quickly, “Good morning, Soeren,” and goes back
to her Cheerio’s.

I sit there for a minute, thinking about what to say. “What are you
going to do at school today, Olivia?” She looks up again. “Gonna see
Mista Bee!” she replies loudly, hugging herself slightly and looking
up. Mr. B. is her gym teacher and perhaps her favorite man outside
of our family on the entire planet and Olivia is thoroughly
convinced that she will be having gym class every day of the week. I
like to view it as wishful thinking.

She finishes her Cheerio’s and grabs her favorite blue backpack and
waits for her bus driver, Miss Debbie, who, like clockwork, arrives
at our house at exactly 7 o’clock each morning. She gives me a quick
hug goodbye and runs excitedly to the bus, ecstatic for another day
of school.

And I watch the bus disappear around the turn and I can’t help but
remember the jokes. The short bus. The “retard rocket.” No matter
what she does, no matter how much she loves those around her, she
will always be the butt of some immature kid’s joke. She will always
be the butt of some mature kid’s joke. She will always be the butt
of some “adult’s” joke.

By no fault of her own, she will spend her entire life being stared
at and judged. Despite the fact that she will never hate, never
judge, never make fun of, never hurt, she will never be accepted.
That’s why I’m doing this. I’m doing this because I don’t think you
understand how much you hurt others when you hate. And maybe you
don’t realize that you hate. But that’s what it is; your pre-emptive
dismissal of them, your dehumanization of them, your mockery of
them, it’s nothing but another form of hate.

It’s more hateful than racism, more hateful than sexism, more
hateful than anything. I’m doing this so that each and every one of
you, student or teacher, thinks before the next time you use the
word “retard,” before the next time you shrug off someone else’s use
of the word “retard”. Think of the people you hurt, both the
mentally handicapped and those who love them.

If you have to, think of my sister. Think about how she can find
more happiness in the blowing of a bubble and watching it float away
than most of us will in our entire lives. Think about how she will
always love everyone unconditionally. Think about how she will never
hate. Then think about which one of you is “retarded.”

Maybe this has become more of an issue today because society is
changing, slowly, to be sure, but changing nonetheless. The mentally
handicapped aren’t being locked in their family’s basement anymore.
The mentally handicapped aren’t rotting like criminals in
institutions. Our fellow human beings are walking among us,
attending school with us, entering the work force with us, asking
for nothing but acceptance, giving nothing but love. As we become
more accepting and less hateful, more and more handicapped
individuals will finally be able to participate in the society that
has shunned them for so long. You will see more of them working in
places you go, at Dominicks, at Jewel, at Wal-Mart. Someday, I hope
more than anything, one of these people that you see will be my
sister.

I want to leave you with one last thought. I didn’t ask to have a
mentally handicapped sister. She didn’t choose to be mentally
handicapped. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I have learned
infinitely more from her simple words and love than I have from any
classroom of “higher education.” I only hope that, one day, each of
you will open your hearts enough to experience true unconditional
love, because that is all any of them want to give. I hope that,
someday, someone will love you as much as Olivia loves me. I hope
that, someday, you will love somebody as much as I love her. I love
you, Olivia.

Soeren Palumbo is a senior honors student at Fremd High School in
Wheeling, Illinois, and big brother to Olivia. During Writer’s Week
(in March 2007), he gave the following speech to a gymnasium full of
his high school peers and faculty and received a standing ovation.