"He must have an extra Chromosome..."

Being a server I often reach the table in the middle of conversations that I'm not interested in hearing but that's just what happens sometimes! A few weeks ago I was waiting on three girls who were waiting for a guy to join them. I went to the table a couple of minutes after his arrival and as I approached the table I heard him say..."he's an idiot..he must have an extra chromosome..hahaha!!". My first instinct was to smack him in the forehead like they do on the V8 commercials, but I need my job. Then I realized that I was standing at the table just staring at him and they were all staring at me and I had forgotten why I was even at the table. I was going through the files in my head for a snappy response, but I had nothing.
I have heard many many many references about being mentally retarded, slow, and idiot and so on..but this I had NEVER heard. Every time I have asked someone not to use the word retard their response is either OK or their excuse is they didn't actually mean they thought the person was a retard but everyone uses the word and blah blah blah... But to say "he must have an extra chromosome" when really the person he is referencing doesn't have a chromosome issue is an ignorant and naive statement.
This uneducated person has no idea the weight his statement carries. As a mamma bear I wanted to lay into him and tell him about the last two and a half years I've had. The couple of times I thought I was going to lose my son, the 100's of doctors visits we have had and continue to have, the surgeries I have sat through waiting patiently to hear that he is ok and hopefully his life will be improved in some way because of it, the hundreds of hours I have spent working with him at home and with early intervention in hopes that he will walk/talk, run to me, reach for me, tell me he loves me with his own little voice, I wanted to tell him about Sammie's super big sister who has watched her precious little brother at Boston Children's Hospital on more than one occasion hooked up to hundreds of wires, machines, and other things we can't possibly understand unless your a nurse or doctor. Tell him how she rubbed his head will he was sedated for days so that he wouldn't feel the pain of the 3 inch incision from where they opened his chest and took his heart out to fix it. How my entire family and thousands of other people have spent their own time thinking about and praying for my little miracle. And that would have been just the beginning of the lesson for this young man.
Then I would get a bit more scientific on him and tell him that my son was born with a genetic syndrome that I'm positive he has never heard of and while he is actually missing the tip of his first chromosome and does not have an extra chromosome...I can relate to the parents of children with Down's. Their stories are very similar to mine.. My son's genetic anomaly occurs in every 1 to 5,000/10,000 births, neither his father nor I are carriers of the syndrome (meaning neither one of us has a trans location) this was a random occurrence for us. Most of these genetic "mistakes" end in a miscarriage because the fetus knows that something is wrong, but some how in Sammie's and other cases the chromosome miraculously caps itself off and the pregnancy continues. There is sooo much information being transferred when a baby is created that it's amazing that so many of us come out with all the information in order!
I ask that you pass this blog on or think about it the next time you or someone you know makes such a harsh statement. I'm still beating myself up for not saying anything to that guy. I can't expect that all people will empathize with my reasoning and I'm often surprised that people will want to argue theirs when it comes to their use of vocab.
My little peanut is developmentally delayed. Mentally retarded is no longer used in the medical field because of its negative connotations. My little guy will receive services of some sort his entire life. My little guy will ride the short bus to school because it is safer for him. My little guy will carry stigmas with him his whole life even though it's not his fault. His chromosome deletion does not make him an idiot. In fact, it's quite the opposite. He works 10 times as hard to learn and do something new! The fact that he is capable of learning even though he is missing information that would make things easier for the "normal" person proves that he is in no way an idiot.
Next time I will smack that guy or whoever in the forehead. Hey, if they can do it to people for not eating their veggies then why can't I do it to people for being rude?!