Fair enough -- this is why I like discussing these things with you, because you have an educated perspective that I don't have, and I learn a lot from these discussions about my own unconscious biases and assumptions. I hope you don't mind talking them through with me, even if I display my ignorance and assumptions quite a lot -- you are certainly educating me on these issues.
I did poke around the parents' website, but I wonder if maybe they cleaned it up, because I didn't see the more problematic stuff you talk about, although it's also totally true that I didn't poke around it much. (Because, okay, I could be convinced there are physical issues with menstruation, but WTF, sexual predators?? I agree that, in addition to being deeply problematic, MAKES NO SENSE.)
I also agree that the undertones of "this makes us uncomfortable" are highly HIGHLY skeevy. I must say though that there's some of "if she were smaller our lives would be easier" that in the practical sense does resonate with me, though... I have a 30lb kid who frequently has to be picked up, and it totally makes sense to me that once you start getting larger it just... gets really difficult. While agreeing it's wrong to do things to your kid because it would make your life easier, I... understand it, too, , although I think my attitude towards this is deeply, deeply colored by being a parent of a small child who has been, as I said, on the order of a small animal. I have frequently done things that made my life easier but were not always the best thing for her, except in the sense that having a sane mother is better than having an insane one. I went back to work because I needed to work to stay sane, even though we don't require the money, and it would undeniably be better for her to have me at home with her. There have been times where I let her cry in her crib because I could not muster the energy to deal with it. Last week I went on a business trip and her sleep schedule got really screwed up and she was desperately unhappy because of it for a week. And yes, these are stupid trivial examples not even on the same scale as altering your child's body, but I can imagine it scaling up.
Anyway. This is not to deny that she is, as you say, a victim of her parents' lack of support and/or our chronic societal lack of support. She is. I'm on board with that. But I also can't judge the parents, partially because it's hard for me to disentangle the extremely-skeevy-creepy reasons from the not-quite-so-creepy ones, but also because I don't honestly know how much support I would be capable of giving to a child in such a situation. (I hope I'm not being ableist here; I would feel the same if I had triplets with no disabilities, for example -- I believe I would seriously think about giving one away. I simply do not know how many physical and emotional reserves I have as a matter of giving-constant-care.) I think all I'm saying here is that yes, I see that there are deeply screwed up ablist isssues, but I think there could also be other non-ablist issues coming into play. (And again this is from the point of view of someone who has not been following the case as it's going on, and has only read stuff that I imagine was specifically designed to make them look good, so I may be giving more credit than is due.)
And yes... if societal care and mores were adequate, this wouldn't be an issue. (In the triplets example, for instance, if I had to give a triplet away, there is a substantial societal bias against giving away a non-disabled kid, and because of this I could be reasonably sure that the kid wouldn't be institutionalized, whereas this wouldn't be true for a severely disabled child.) ...I think this is a good can of worms to open. It's certainly made me think about it, anyway.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
momijizukamori and
no subject
Date: 2011-07-21 04:48 pm (UTC)I did poke around the parents' website, but I wonder if maybe they cleaned it up, because I didn't see the more problematic stuff you talk about, although it's also totally true that I didn't poke around it much. (Because, okay, I could be convinced there are physical issues with menstruation, but WTF, sexual predators?? I agree that, in addition to being deeply problematic, MAKES NO SENSE.)
I also agree that the undertones of "this makes us uncomfortable" are highly HIGHLY skeevy. I must say though that there's some of "if she were smaller our lives would be easier" that in the practical sense does resonate with me, though... I have a 30lb kid who frequently has to be picked up, and it totally makes sense to me that once you start getting larger it just... gets really difficult. While agreeing it's wrong to do things to your kid because it would make your life easier, I... understand it, too, , although I think my attitude towards this is deeply, deeply colored by being a parent of a small child who has been, as I said, on the order of a small animal. I have frequently done things that made my life easier but were not always the best thing for her, except in the sense that having a sane mother is better than having an insane one. I went back to work because I needed to work to stay sane, even though we don't require the money, and it would undeniably be better for her to have me at home with her. There have been times where I let her cry in her crib because I could not muster the energy to deal with it. Last week I went on a business trip and her sleep schedule got really screwed up and she was desperately unhappy because of it for a week. And yes, these are stupid trivial examples not even on the same scale as altering your child's body, but I can imagine it scaling up.
Anyway. This is not to deny that she is, as you say, a victim of her parents' lack of support and/or our chronic societal lack of support. She is. I'm on board with that. But I also can't judge the parents, partially because it's hard for me to disentangle the extremely-skeevy-creepy reasons from the not-quite-so-creepy ones, but also because I don't honestly know how much support I would be capable of giving to a child in such a situation. (I hope I'm not being ableist here; I would feel the same if I had triplets with no disabilities, for example -- I believe I would seriously think about giving one away. I simply do not know how many physical and emotional reserves I have as a matter of giving-constant-care.) I think all I'm saying here is that yes, I see that there are deeply screwed up ablist isssues, but I think there could also be other non-ablist issues coming into play. (And again this is from the point of view of someone who has not been following the case as it's going on, and has only read stuff that I imagine was specifically designed to make them look good, so I may be giving more credit than is due.)
And yes... if societal care and mores were adequate, this wouldn't be an issue. (In the triplets example, for instance, if I had to give a triplet away, there is a substantial societal bias against giving away a non-disabled kid, and because of this I could be reasonably sure that the kid wouldn't be institutionalized, whereas this wouldn't be true for a severely disabled child.) ...I think this is a good can of worms to open. It's certainly made me think about it, anyway.