Always Human

My son isn't happy all the time. 

Shocking, I know. It's one of those "facts" everyone knows about Down Syndrome, right? People with Down Syndrome are sweet and gentle, and they're always happy. Basically angels, incapable of doing wrong: innocent babies forever. 

This has been a difficult false assumption  for me to counter personally, because in our case, Troy is indeed very sweet and gentle, and spends a lot of time being happy. The things he loves best in life are people, music, and ice cream, and he spends most days surrounded by the first two, and has fairly frequent encounters with the third. So yes, Troy has a generally happy disposition, but to say Troy is happy because of something about his DNA makes about as much sense as saying everyone who's 5'2'' is gorgeous, witty, and a bottomless well of wisdom. Just because it's true in MY case (cough cough) doesn't mean I can speak for everyone who shares that psychical characteristic. 

I know that if anyone makes a comment about how "they" (speaking of people with Down Syndrome as an entire group) are "always happy", that person is not meaning to be hurtful. But it is. I don't get offended at the person speaking, because they honestly don't know differently and probably have never been told differently. But it makes me so, so sad, because I see it as a symptom of our society's deeply-rooted belief that people with Down Syndrome are less human than people without. 

That's a shocking and offensive thing for me to say. How dare I accuse well-meaning people who are just being friendly of such things? 

Please, let me explain. 

To look at a person, and assume that you know everything you need to know about them after .2 seconds, cheapens their humanity. It puts them into a tidy little box that you can understand. To put them into a tidy little box labeled "Always Happy", and "Sweet and Gentle" might make you feel very generous and "Not Like Those Prejudiced People", but you are still taking an entire person and making them completely 2D in your mind.

I'll bet you treat your dog as more human than that.

My son is fully human, with full range of human emotions. He is capable of generosity and selfishness, joy and sorrow, love and anger. He is made by God in the image of God, and that is more than enough. Saccharine comments and patronizing assumptions will only keep him "less than" in the eyes of society, and that doesn't do him any favors. 

If all of this still hasn't convinced you, let me know and I'll post a video of Troy when the ice cream runs out. "Always Happy", indeed.