More than Adrift

We walk into a crowded room, Kait’s still too small arm wrapped around Josh. She’s waited for weeks for the Badger Ball; an annual formal event that the Wisconsin Badger Athletics department hosts for Special Olympic athletes in Wisconsin. There is loud music, unabashed dancing, sugary food and real friends, all that Kait could ask for.                 Every year, I reflect on the changes in my life, in her life especially…. My first born, the child who came and made me a mama before I was ready, who knit Reid and I together as a family. It wasn’t even two hours after she was born, my brain and body still slow from the medicine and the labor, that I first heard Down syndrome, that the words mental retardation were used, the first time I saw the doctor look at me with pity, for her, for us. Within twenty four hours, before I knew how to nurse a child, I had books in my hand about raising a child with...

Yesterday, my 11 year old shared with me some new phrases going around school, peers insulting kids by saying they're a "try hard" or calling them sweaty when they do something well (sweaty from working so hard.) This year, being his first year in public school, Drew didn't realize that being good at math is something that other kids would mock. At home, we sometimes reward the kids when they hit certain education goals at school but mostly, we expect them to do their best at everything, and do well because we know they are capable of doing well. When I see Drew at basketball practice, he might not make every (*cough* any) layup, but we expect that when his coach says to run, he's running his hardest. I see this aversion to trying hard play out among his peers in every aspect of these kids' lives. There is one boy in Drew's grade that is just exceptionally talented in basketball. And his peers make fun of him for being good and refuse to play...