Not so fast...."(Warning: Sad story)"
At one time didn't Trips father claim that Sara Palin called her baby "My little retard ".
Years after the fact that I baby sat a child that was diagnosed in the late 1960's as "retarded" and all the go around with the mother as I suspected the baby was deaf, in the early 1980's I finally caught us with her.
Now here is the Sad story. The Mother suspected there was a problem with her child early on-----this happens today in fact. The child's father was in the military so the child was seen by military baby doctors for months and they all came to the conclusion the child was retarded, yes that was the word used back then. Nothing to do but eventually have her placed in a facility to care for her.
The child's mother was a young woman, very smart going to college and having no family around just accepted the words of the doctors. She kept the baby clean and fed but because she had been told the child had little understanding or knowledge of others the baby spent its first year or so in a crib with just a bottle thrown to them and diaper changed.
When I started sitting for the baby the first thing I noticed was her cry, very odd, not the normal cry for a baby, then the fact that the baby was not use to being held, rocked, and did not respond to noise. The mother told me the doctors told her it was because she was not paying attention. A tub bath scared the crap out of the child and picking her up from behind caused her to flail.
Her home life was very quiet, mine was a ruckus's of kids, dogs, cats and birds. Music, TV radio and the phone ringing at all times of the day and night. Only baby I have ever seen that did not respond to sudden noise.
So I as a very young mother at the time not really knowing shit from shinola knew there was more going on then retardness, only one answer as the baby would watch with attention all of us and reach out for things [ she loved the red toys ]
Her mother and I would argue about the baby, mothers side was the experts knew what they were doing and I with nothing but a mothers instinct had to except the Prognoses.
We were transferred soon after and for years I wondered about that baby until 14? years later I ran into a family that served with the child's father and was able to catch up on the baby.
Mother and father had divorced but I got the mothers address and wrote to her. She had remarried a civilian and the baby had gone into his health care insurance. Up shot was the child was indeed deaf, in a school learning sign language and the mother had such anger towards the military doctors that had as she said robbed her baby of its first 3 years. [ Nothing about her acceptence of the experts openion, just excuses for what and how she treated the baby. ]
I was a bit upset with her, she was older then me, smart, yet she herself had been all to ready to go along with the experts and give her a reason to ignore the child and go on her happy way of partying and doing what she wanted to do. Damn one does not treat a dog this way.
Last time I spoke with her, I knew the child would now grow into a functioning adult and could now put the issue to rest. Or so I thought.
Today I wonder about all the kids being labeled this or that, all the Special Schools for kids with problem behavior. Why are the parents turning the kids over to the experts and not investigating on what is wrong themselves. Why are parents all so ready to claim it is the kids fault mentally or physically that there are problems and sit on their butts and put the problem on others and refuse to admit that they may be part of the problem.
Michell must be in her 30's today, grown woman perhaps married with her own children----- However I still see that lost and abandoned baby I knew, and know there are allot more like her out there.
