My thoughts on this

Jan,

I would say that the sad truth about this matter is that none of us truly "gets" anything until we have lived it.

I understand the position you are in with everyone commenting on Nash being on the cover of the magazine, and you not knowing how to respond. Whether to just say "thank you" or educate the person on the whole story behind the cover. What I can say is that in my situation, with my son Ben, whenever I have felt compelled to educate someone on disability awareness, it has a tendency to back fire on me. It is as if there is some invisible line, that once you cross it, you are doing more harm than good. I start to get all fired up and go on and on, and the person who is on the receiving end of all this, someone who really just made an innocent comment to begin with, starts to look at me like I am crazy or something. So then what good am I really doing for him? Of course you being an attorney might be able to communicate things more effectively. It seems strange to say that too much advocacy or advocacy done in too strong a manner might be counter productive, but it definitely seems that way to me. I was told once that "people are just making polite conversation and comments" about my son Ben, and to assume that the world wants to be educated and informed is offensive and rude on my part, and that nobody wants to be lectured to. I guess that is how I came across to people, as if I was lecturing to them on disability issues. But maybe you could handle this better than I did.

Trying to explain why this cover was so offensive to the down syndrome community to someone who has never lived this siutation might just be too much for the person to grasp, and it is easier just to say "thank you" and move on. I am not sure how much people really want to know.

Again, you are probably much more adept at explaining yourself than I am! Thank you so much for sharing this experience with all of us. I have learned a lot.

Sincerely,

Susan