"Even in purely nonreligious terms, homosexuality represents a misuse of the sexual faculty. It is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality -- a pitiable flight from life. As such, it deserves no compassion, it deserves no treatment as minority martyrdom, and it deserves not to be deemed anything but a pernicious sickness."
"Tudi izven verskega pomena, homoseksualnost predstavlja zlorabo seksualne zmožnosti. Je patetičen in drugorazredni nadomestek za realnost -- usmiljenja vreden beg pred življenjem. Kot tak si ne zasluži sočutja, ne zasluži obravnave kot mučeništvo manjšine, in nanj bi morali gledati izključno kot na škodljivo bolezen."
That's from "Time" magazine in 1966, when I was three years old. And last year, the president of the United States came out in favor of gay marriage.
To je iz revije Time iz leta 1966, ko sem imel 3 leta. Lani je predsednik ZDA, javno podprl istospolne poroke.
(Applause)
[Aplavz]
And my question is: How did we get from there to here? How did an illness become an identity?
Moje vprašanje je, kako smo prišli od tam do tukaj? Kako je bolezen postala identiteta?
When I was perhaps six years old, I went to a shoe store with my mother and my brother. And at the end of buying our shoes, the salesman said to us that we could each have a balloon to take home. My brother wanted a red balloon, and I wanted a pink balloon. My mother said that she thought I'd really rather have a blue balloon.
Ko sem imel okoli 6 let, sem šel kupovat čevlje z mojo mamo in bratom. Po koncu nakupov, je prodajalec rekel, da lahko vsak od nas domov vzame balon. Moj brat si je zaželel rdeč balon in jaz sem si zaželel rožnatega. Moja mama je rekla, da bi v resnici verjetno raje imel moder balon.
(Laughter)
Ampak jaz sem ji zatrdil, da bi resnično raje rožnatega.
But I said that I definitely wanted the pink one. And she reminded me that my favorite color was blue. The fact that my favorite color now is blue, but I'm still gay --
Spomnila me je, da je moja najljubša barva modra. Dejstvo, da je modra danes moja najljubša barva, a sem še vedno gej --
(Laughter)
(smeh) --
is evidence of both my mother's influence and its limits.
Je dokaz o velikem vplivu moje matere in o mejah tega vpliva.
(Laughter)
(smeh)
(Applause)
(aplavz)
When I was little, my mother used to say, "The love you have for your children is like no other feeling in the world. And until you have children, you don't know what it's like." And when I was little, I took it as the greatest compliment in the world that she would say that about parenting my brother and me. And when I was an adolescent, I thought, "But I'm gay, and so I probably can't have a family." And when she said it, it made me anxious. And after I came out of the closet, when she continued to say it, it made me furious. I said, "I'm gay. That's not the direction that I'm headed in. And I want you to stop saying that."
Ko sem bil majhen, je moja mama govorila: "Ljubezen do svojih otrok je drugačna od vseh drugih občutkov na svetu." "Dokler sam nimaš otrok, ne veš, kako je." in ko sem bil majhen je zame največji poklon, da je to govorila o vzgajanju mene in mojega brata. In ko sem bil mladostnik, sem si mislil, da sem gej in da najbrž ne bom mogel imeti družine. In kadar je to rekla, me je prevzela tesnoba. In ko sem javno priznal, ona pa je še naprej govorila, me je to razbesnelo. Rekel sem: "Gej sem. To najbrž ni pot po kateri bom šel. in rad bi, da nehaš tako govoriti."
About 20 years ago, I was asked by my editors at the "New York Times Magazine" to write a piece about Deaf culture. And I was rather taken aback. I had thought of deafness entirely as an illness: those poor people, they couldn't hear, they lacked hearing, and what could we do for them? And then I went out into the Deaf world. I went to Deaf clubs. I saw performances of Deaf theater and of Deaf poetry. I even went to the Miss Deaf America contest in Nashville, Tennessee, where people complained about that slurry Southern signing.
Pred 20 leti, so me moji uredniki pri New York Timesu prosili, da napišem članek o "kulturi gluhih". To me je presenetilo. Biti gluh je bilo zame zgolj bolezen. Ti ubogi ljudje, ne morejo slišati, kaj lahko naredimo za njih. Potem sem pričel spoznavati kulturo gluhih. Šel sem v klube za gluhe, videl predstave teatra za gluhe in poezije za gluhe. Šel sem celo na tekmovanje Miss Amerike gluhih v Tennesse, kjer so se ljudje pritoževali, nad popačenim južnjaškim znakovanjem.
(Laughter)
[smeh]
And as I plunged deeper and deeper into the Deaf world, I became convinced that Deafness was a culture and that the people in the Deaf world who said, "We don't lack hearing; we have membership in a culture," were saying something that was viable. It wasn't my culture, and I didn't particularly want to rush off and join it, but I appreciated that it was a culture and that for the people who were members of it, it felt as valuable as Latino culture or gay culture or Jewish culture. It felt as valid, perhaps, even as American culture.
Bolj, ko sem spoznaval svet gluhih, bolj sem postajal prepričan, da je biti gluh kultura in da tisti, ki so pravili: "Nismo smo brez sluha, smo člani neke kulture," sporočali nekaj pomembnega. To ni bila moja kultura, in nisem se ji pretirano želel pridružiti. Vendar pa sem cenil, da je kultura in da je njenim članom tako pomembna kot kultura mehičanov ali kultura gejev ali kultura židov. Morda celo enako pomembna kot ameriška kultura.
Then a friend of a friend of mine had a daughter who was a dwarf. And when her daughter was born, she suddenly found herself confronting questions that now began to seem quite resonant to me. She was facing the question of what to do with this child. Should she say, "You're just like everyone else but a little bit shorter?" Or should she try to construct some kind of dwarf identity, get involved in the Little People of America, become aware of what was happening for dwarfs?
Potem je prijateljica mojega prijatelja rodila pritlikavo hčerko. Ko je bila njena hčerka rojena, se je nenadoma pričela spraševati o vprašanjih, ki so mi začela zveneti zelo znano. Spraševala se je, kaj naj s tem otrokom. Naj mu govori: "Tak si kot vsi ostali, le nekoliko manjši?" Ali naj mu pomaga zgraditi nekakšno pritlikavo identiteto. Se udejstvuje z Malimi Ljudmi Amerike", se seznani s tem, kar se dogaja na področju pritlikavcev.
And I suddenly thought, "Most deaf children are born to hearing parents. Those hearing parents tend to try to cure them. Those deaf people discover community somehow in adolescence. Most gay people are born to straight parents. Those straight parents often want them to function in what they think of as the mainstream world, and those gay people have to discover identity later on. And here was this friend of mine, looking at these questions of identity with her dwarf daughter. And I thought, "There it is again: a family that perceives itself to be normal with a child who seems to be extraordinary." And I hatched the idea that there are really two kinds of identity.
Naenkrat sem pomislil, večina gluhih otrok se rodi slušečim staršem, ti starši jih navadno poskušajo ozdraviti, ti gluhi ljudje nekje v mladostništvu pričnejo odkrivati skupnosti." Večina gejevskih otrok, se rodi hetero staršem. Njihovi starši pogosto želijo, da bi delovali v, po njihovem mnenju, navadnem svetu, geji morajo zato svojo identiteto odkrivati pozneje. In tu je bila moja prijateljica, ki se je spraševala o enakih vprašanjih, glede svoje hčerke. In mislil sem si, zopet smo tukaj: Družina, ki se dojema kot običajna, z otrokom, ki je neobičajen. In prišel sem do zamisli, da obstajata dve vrsti identitete.
There are vertical identities, which are passed down generationally from parent to child. Those are things like ethnicity, frequently nationality, language, often religion. Those are things you have in common with your parents and with your children. And while some of them can be difficult, there's no attempt to cure them. You can argue that it's harder in the United States -- our current presidency notwithstanding -- to be a person of color. And yet, we have nobody who is trying to ensure that the next generation of children born to African-Americans and Asians come out with creamy skin and yellow hair.
Obstajajo navpične identitete, ki se prenašajo skozi generacije iz staršev na otroke. To so stvari kot etničnost, narodnost, jezik in pogosto veroizpoved. To so stvari, ki so skupne med starši in njihovimi otroci. In čeprav so nekatere od teh težke, ne obstajajo poskusi, da bi jih ozdravili. Lahko trdimo, da je v ZDA težje -- kljub našemu trenutnemu predsedniku -- biti temnopolta oseba. A kljub temu nihče ne poskuša doseči, da bi bila naslednja generacija črnih in azijskih otrok rojena s kremnato kožo in rumenimi lasmi.
There are these other identities which you have to learn from a peer group, and I call them "horizontal identities," because the peer group is the horizontal experience. These are identities that are alien to your parents and that you have to discover when you get to see them in peers. And those identities, those horizontal identities, people have almost always tried to cure.
Obstajajo tudi druge identitete, katerih se naučimo od svojih vrstnikov. Imenujem jih vodoravne identitete, ker so sovrstniki vodoravna izkušnja. To so identitete, ki so tuje tvojim staršem In ki jih odkrivaš, ko jih vidiš pri vrstnikih. In te identitete, te vodoravne identitete, so ljudje skoraj vedno poskušali ozdraviti.
And I wanted to look at what the process is through which people who have those identities come to a good relationship with them. And it seemed to me that there were three levels of acceptance that needed to take place. There's self-acceptance, there's family acceptance, and there's social acceptance. And they don't always coincide.
In želel sem si ogledati, na kakšen način ljudje, ki imajo te identitete, vzpostavijo dober odnos z njimi. Zdelo sem mi je, da so trije nivoji sprejemanja ki se morajo zgoditi. To so samo-sprejemanje, sprejemanje v družini in sprejemanje v družbi. In ti ne sovpadajo vedno.
And a lot of the time, people who have these conditions are very angry, because they feel as though their parents don't love them, when what actually has happened is that their parents don't accept them. Love is something that, ideally, is there unconditionally throughout the relationship between a parent and a child. But acceptance is something that takes time. It always takes time.
In pogosto so ljudje v takšnih stanjih zelo jezni, ker čutijo, kot da jih njihovi starši nimajo radi, v resnici pa jih njihovi starši zgolj ne sprejemajo. Ljubezen je nekaj, kar idealno obstaja brez pogojev v celotnem odnosu med staršem in otrokom. Ampak sprejemanje je nekaj, kar potrebuje čas. Vedno potrebuje čas.
One of the dwarfs I got to know was a guy named Clinton Brown. When he was born, he was diagnosed with diastrophic dwarfism, a very disabling condition, and his parents were told that he would never walk, he would never talk, he would have no intellectual capacity, and he would probably not even recognize them. And it was suggested to them that they leave him at the hospital so that he could die there quietly.
Eden izmed pritlikavcev, ki sem jih spoznal, je bil Clinton Brown. Ko je bil rojen, so ga diagnosticirali z diastrofično pritlikavostjo, zelo hudo boleznijo, in staršem so povedali, da ne bo nikoli hodil, govoril, da ne bo imel umskih sposobnosti, in da jih najverjetneje ne bo niti prepoznal. In predlagali so jim, naj ga pustijo v bolnišnici da lahko tam umre v tišini. Njegova mama je rekla, da tega ne bo storila
His mother said she wasn't going to do it, and she took her son home. And even though she didn't have a lot of educational or financial advantages, she found the best doctor in the country for dealing with diastrophic dwarfism, and she got Clinton enrolled with him. And in the course of his childhood, he had 30 major surgical procedures. And he spent all this time stuck in the hospital while he was having those procedures, as a result of which, he now can walk.
Svojega sina je vzela domov. In čeprav ni imela izobrazbe ali finančnih sredstev, je našla najboljšega zdravnika v državi za obravnavo diastrofične pritlikavosti, in dala Clintona v njegovo oskrbo. V svojem otroštvu, je imel 30 večjih kirurških posegov. In ves čas je preždel v bolnišnici medtem ko je imel te posege, zaradi katerih lahko danes hodi.
While he was there, they sent tutors around to help him with his schoolwork, and he worked very hard, because there was nothing else to do. He ended up achieving at a level that had never before been contemplated by any member of his family. He was the first one in his family, in fact, to go to college, where he lived on campus and drove a specially fitted car that accommodated his unusual body.
In medtem ko je bi tam, so mu poslali učitelje za pomoč pri učenju. In zelo trdo je delal, ker ni imel nič drugega za početi. In na koncu dosegel je raven, ki si je nihče v njegovi družini ni predstavljal. Bil je prvi v svoji družini ki je šel študirat, živel je v kampusu in vozil posebej prilagojen avto, ki je ustrezal njegovemu nenavadnemu telesu.
And his mother told me the story of coming home one day -- and he went to college nearby -- and she said, "I saw that car, which you can always recognize, in the parking lot of a bar," she said.
Njegova mati je pripovedovala, da je neki dan prihajala domov - obiskoval je bližnjo univerzo - in rekla je: "Videla sem njegov avto, ki ga takoj prepoznaš, na parkirišču nekega bara," (smeh)
(Laughter)
"In mislila sem si, oni so visoki 1,8 metra, on je visok 1 meter.
"And I thought to myself, 'They're six feet tall, he's three feet tall. Two beers for them is four beers for him.'" She said, "I knew I couldn't go in there and interrupt him, but I went home, and I left him eight messages on his cell phone." She said, "And then I thought, if someone had said to me, when he was born, that my future worry would be that he'd go drinking and driving with his college buddies ..."
Dva piva za njih, so štiri piva za njega." Rekla je: "Vedela sem, da ga ne smem motiti, zato odšla sem domov in mu pustila 8 sporočil na njegovem telefonu." "In potem sem pomislila, če bi mi nekdo rekel, ko se je rodil, da me bo skrbelo, kako bo popival s svojimi študentskimi kolegi --" (aplavz)
(Laughter)
(Applause)
And I said to her, "What do you think you did that helped him to emerge as this charming, accomplished, wonderful person?" And she said, "What did I do? I loved him, that's all. Clinton just always had that light in him. And his father and I were lucky enough to be the first to see it there."
In rekel sem ji: "Kaj misliš, da si storila, da je lahko postal tako prijetna in uspešna oseba?" In rekla je, "Kaj sem storila? Rada sem ga imela, nič drugega. Clinton je vedno imel to iskrico v sebi. Njegov oče in jaz sva samo imela srečo, da sva jo prva videla."
I'm going to quote from another magazine of the '60s. This one is from 1968 -- "The Atlantic Monthly," voice of liberal America -- written by an important bioethicist. He said, "There is no reason to feel guilty about putting a Down's syndrome child away, whether it is 'put away' in the sense of hidden in a sanitarium or in a more responsible, lethal sense. It is sad, yes. Dreadful. But it carries no guilt. True guilt arises only from an offense against a person, and a Down's is not a person."
Sedaj bom citiral še eno revijo iz 60-ih let. Tokrat iz leta 1968 -Atlantic Monthly, glas liberalne Amerike - avtor je pomemben bioetik. Rekel je: "Nobenega vzroka ni za občutek krivde pri odstranitvi otroka z Downovim sindromom, tako v smislu, odstranitve v zavod ali v bolj odgovornem, smrtnem pomenu. Žalostno je, ja -- grozljivo. Vendar ne nosi nobene krivde. Resnična krivda vzide samo iz napada na osebo, in nekdo z Downom ni oseba."
There's been a lot of ink given to the enormous progress that we've made in the treatment of gay people. The fact that our attitude has changed is in the headlines every day. But we forget how we used to see people who had other differences, how we used to see people who were disabled, how inhuman we held people to be. And the change that's been accomplished there, which is almost equally radical, is one that we pay not very much attention to.
Veliko je bilo napisanega o izjemnem napredku, ki smo ga naredili pri obravnavi homoseksualnih ljudi. Dejstvo, da se je naš odnos spremenil, je vsak dan v naslovnicah. Ampak pozabljamo, kako smo nekoč gledali na ljudi z drugimi posebnostmi, kako smo nekoč gledali na prizadete ljudi, za kako nečloveške smo jih imeli. In sprememba na tem področju, ki je skoraj enako radikalna, ni bila deležna tolikšne pozornosti.
One of the families I interviewed, Tom and Karen Robards, were taken aback when, as young and successful New Yorkers, their first child was diagnosed with Down syndrome. They thought the educational opportunities for him were not what they should be, and so they decided they would build a little center -- two classrooms that they started with a few other parents -- to educate kids with DS. And over the years, that center grew into something called the Cooke Center, where there are now thousands upon thousands of children with intellectual disabilities who are being taught.
Ena izmed intervjuvanih sta bila tudi Tom in Karen Robards, mlada in uspešna Newyorčanoma, ki sta bila presenečena, ko se jima je, prvorojeni otrok rodil z Downovim sindromom. Ugotovila sta, da izobraževalne možnosti zanj niso bile zadostne, zato sta se odločila, da bosta zgradila manjši center -- dve učilnici, ki sta jih odprla z nekaj drugimi starši -- da bi izobrazila ljudi z D.S. Skozi leta je ta center zrastel v nekaj, kar se danes imenuje Cooke Center, kjer danes uči tisoče in tisoče umsko manj razviih otrok. V času od nastanka zgodbe v Atlantic Monthly,
In the time since that "Atlantic Monthly" story ran, the life expectancy for people with Down syndrome has tripled. The experience of Down syndrome people includes those who are actors, those who are writers, some who are able to live fully independently in adulthood.
se je pričakovana življenjska doba oseb z Downovim sindromom potrojila. Med osebami z Downovim sindromom so igralci, pisatelji in nekateri, ki so kot odrasli zmožni živeti povsem neodvisno.
The Robards had a lot to do with that. And I said, "Do you regret it? Do you wish your child didn't have Down syndrome? Do you wish you'd never heard of it?" And interestingly, his father said, "Well, for David, our son, I regret it, because for David, it's a difficult way to be in the world, and I'd like to give David an easier life. But I think if we lost everyone with Down syndrome, it would be a catastrophic loss."
Robardova sta igrala veliko vlogo pri tem. In vprašal sem ju: "Ali obžalujeta? Si želita, da vajin otrok ne bi imel Downovega sindroma? Si želita, da zanj ne bi nikoli slišala?" In zanimivo je oče odgovoril, "Za David, najinega sina, obžalujem, kajti za Davida, je to težek način bivanja v svetu. in želim si, da bi Davidu lahko omogočil lažje življenje. Vendar bi bilo izguba vseh z Downovim sindromom katastrofalna izguba. in Karen Robards mi je rekla: "Strinjam se s Tomom.
And Karen Robards said to me, "I'm with Tom. For David, I would cure it in an instant, to give him an easier life. But speaking for myself -- well, I would never have believed 23 years ago when he was born that I could come to such a point. Speaking for myself, it's made me so much better and so much kinder and so much more purposeful in my whole life that, speaking for myself, I wouldn't give it up for anything in the world."
Za Davida, bi v trenutku želela ozdravitve, za lažje življenje. Vendar za mene, ne bi nikoli verjela pred 23 leti, ko se je rodil, da bi lahko prišla do te točke -- mene osebno, je naredil veliko boljšo in veliko nežnejšo in veliko bolj osmišljeno v mojem življenju, da se mu jaz osebno ne bi odpovedala za vse na svetu."
We live at a point when social acceptance for these and many other conditions is on the up and up. And yet we also live at the moment when our ability to eliminate those conditions has reached a height we never imagined before. Most deaf infants born in the United States now will receive cochlear implants, which are put into the brain and connected to a receiver, and which allow them to acquire a facsimile of hearing and to use oral speech. A compound that has been tested in mice, BMN-111, is useful in preventing the action of the achondroplasia gene. Achondroplasia is the most common form of dwarfism, and mice who have been given that substance and who have the achondroplasia gene grow to full size. Testing in humans is around the corner. There are blood tests which are making progress that would pick up Down syndrome more clearly and earlier in pregnancies than ever before, making it easier and easier for people to eliminate those pregnancies, or to terminate them.
Živimo v trenutku, ko je družbeno sprejemanje teh in podobnih bolezni v velikem porastu. A vendar živimo tudi v trenutku, ko je naša sposobnost izničiti takšne bolezni dosegla raven, ki si je nikoli prej nismo zamišljali. Večina danes rojenih gluhih dojenčkov v ZDA, bo dobila polžev vsadek, ki ga vstavijo v možgane in povežejo s prejemnikom, in ki jim omogoča približek sluha in ustni govor. Sestavina, ki je bila testirana v miših, BMN-111, je uporabna pri preprečevanju delovanja ahondroplazničnega gena. Ahondroplazija je najpogostejša oblika pritlikavosti in miši, ki so dobile to sestavino in ki imajo ahondroplaznični gen, vseeno zrastejo do polne velikosti. Človeško testiranje naj bi se pričelo vsak hip. Napredek je tudi pri krvnih testih, ki lahko med nosečnostjo prepoznajo Downov sindrom jasneje in hitreje kot prej, s čimer je vedno lažje za ljudi, da izničijo tovrstne nosečnosti, ali da jih prekinejo. Naredili smo torej tako družbeni kot zdravstveni napredek.
So we have both social progress and medical progress. And I believe in both of them. I believe the social progress is fantastic and meaningful and wonderful, and I think the same thing about the medical progress. But I think it's a tragedy when one of them doesn't see the other. And when I see the way they're intersecting in conditions like the three I've just described, I sometimes think it's like those moments in grand opera when the hero realizes he loves the heroine at the exact moment that she lies expiring on a divan.
In verjamem v oba. Verjamem, da je družbeni napredek izjemen in navdihujoč in čudovit, in enako mislim tudi o zdravstvenem napredku. Mislim pa da je tragedija, ko eden ne prepozna drugega. In ko vidim, kako se prepletata v boleznih, kot so tri, ki sem jih ravno opisal, včasih mislim, da gre za enega od tistih trenutkov v operi, ko junak ugotovi da ljubi junakinjo natanko v trenutku, ko ona umira na divanu. (smeh)
(Laughter)
We have to think about how we feel about cures altogether. And a lot of the time the question of parenthood is: What do we validate in our children, and what do we cure in them?
Moramo razmisliti o tem, kaj si na splošno mislimo o zdravilih. Pogosto je vprašanje starševstva, kaj podpiramo v naših otrocih, in kaj v njih zdravimo?
Jim Sinclair, a prominent autism activist, said, "When parents say, 'I wish my child did not have autism,' what they're really saying is, 'I wish the child I have did not exist and I had a different, nonautistic child instead.' Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure: that your fondest wish for us is that someday we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces." It's a very extreme point of view, but it points to the reality that people engage with the life they have and they don't want to be cured or changed or eliminated. They want to be whoever it is that they've come to be.
Jim Sinclair, priznani aktivist avtizma, je rekel: "Ko starši rečejo, 'želim si, da moj otrok ne bi imel avtizma,' kar v resnici pravijo je, 'želim si, da otrok, ki ga imam, ne bi obstajal in da bi imel drugega, ne-avtističnega otroka.' Preberite to še enkrat. To slišimo, ko obžalujete naš obstoj. To slišimo, ko molite za zdravilo -- da je vaša največja želja za nas, da bi nekega dne prenehali obstajati in da bi si tujci, ki bi jih lahko ljubili, nadeli naše obraze." To je zelo ekstremen pogled, a vseeno kaže na dejstvo, da se ljudje spopadajo z življenjem, ki ga imajo in da si ne želijo biti ozdravljeni, spremenjeni ali uničeni. Želijo si biti, kdor koli že so postali.
One of the families I interviewed for this project was the family of Dylan Klebold, who was one of the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre. It took a long time to persuade them to talk to me, and once they agreed, they were so full of their story that they couldn't stop telling it, and the first weekend I spent with them, the first of many, I recorded more than 20 hours of conversation.
Ena izmed družin, ki sem jih spraševal pri tem projektu, je bila družina Dylana Klebolda, ki je bil eden od morilcev v Columbinskem pokolu. Dolgo časa sem jih prepričeval, naj govorijo z mano, ko so pristali, so bili tako polni svoje zgodbe, da niso mogli nehati pripovedovati. Prvi vikend ki sem ga preživel z njimi, prvi izmed mnogih, sem posnel več kot 20 ur pogovora. V nedeljo zvečer smo bili vsi izmučeni.
And on Sunday night, we were all exhausted. We were sitting in the kitchen. Sue Klebold was fixing dinner. And I said, "If Dylan were here now, do you have a sense of what you'd want to ask him?" And his father said, "I sure do. I'd want to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing." And Sue looked at the floor, and she thought for a minute. And then she looked back up and said, "I would ask him to forgive me for being his mother and never knowing what was going on inside his head."
Sedeli smo v kuhinji. Sue Klebold je pripravljala večerjo. In rekel sem: "Če bi bil Dylan sedaj tu, imate občutek, kaj bi mu želeli reči?" In njegov oče mi je rekel, " Seveda vem. Želel bi ga vprašati, kaj za vraga je mislil, da počne." Sue je pogledala v tla in pomislila. Nato je pogledala nazaj in rekla: "Jaz bi ga prosila za odpuščanje, da sem bila njegova mati in da nisem nikoli vedela, kaj se plete v njegovi glavi."
When I had dinner with her a couple of years later -- one of many dinners that we had together -- she said, "You know, when it first happened, I used to wish that I had never married, that I had never had children. If I hadn't gone to Ohio State and crossed paths with Tom, this child wouldn't have existed, and this terrible thing wouldn't have happened. But I've come to feel that I love the children I had so much that I don't want to imagine a life without them. I recognize the pain they caused to others, for which there can be no forgiveness, but the pain they caused to me, there is," she said. "So while I recognize that it would have been better for the world if Dylan had never been born, I've decided that it would not have been better for me."
Ko sem imel nekaj let pozneje z njo večerjo -- eno izmed mnogih skupnih večerji, ki sva jih imela -- Mi je rekla: "Veš, ko je zgodilo, sem si najprej želela, da se ne bi nikoli poročila in imela otrok. Če ne bi šla v Ohio in srečala Toma, ta otrok ne bi obstajal in ta grozna stvar se ne bi zgodila. Vendar sem sčasoma začutila da ljubim otroke, ki sem jih imela, da si ne želim zamišljati življenja brez njih. Prepoznavam bolečino, ki so jo povzročili in ki nima opravičila, a za bolečino, ki so jo povzročili meni, je," mi je rekla. "Razumem, da bi bilo bolje za svet, če se Dylan ne bi rodil, vendar sem se odločila, da to ne bi bilo bolje zame."
I thought it was surprising how all of these families had all of these children with all of these problems, problems that they mostly would have done anything to avoid, and that they had all found so much meaning in that experience of parenting. And then I thought, all of us who have children love the children we have, with their flaws. If some glorious angel suddenly descended through my living-room ceiling and offered to take away the children I have and give me other, better children -- more polite, funnier, nicer, smarter --
Presenetilo me je, kako so vse te družine imele otroke s toliko problemi, za katere bi večina od nas storila vse, da bi se jim lahko izognili. in da so vsi našli toliko pomena, v tej izkušnji. In potem sem pomisli, vsi, ki imamo otroke, ljubimo otroke, ki jih imamo z njihovimi napakami. Če bi se angel nenadoma spustil skozi strop moje dnevne sobe in ponudil, da odvzame moje otroke in mi ponudil druge - vljudnejše, zabavnejše, prijaznejše, pametnejše --
(Laughter)
bi objel svoje otroke in molil, da ta grozljiva prikazen izgine.
I would cling to the children I have and pray away that atrocious spectacle. And ultimately, I feel that in the same way that we test flame-retardant pajamas in an inferno to ensure they won't catch fire when our child reaches across the stove, so these stories of families negotiating these extreme differences reflect on the universal experience of parenting, which is always that sometimes, you look at your child, and you think, "Where did you come from?"
In konec koncev mislim, da tako kot preizkušamo na ogenj odporne pižame v ognju, da zagotovimo, da se ne bodo vžgale, ko naši otroci segajo po štedilniku, enako zgodbe o družinah, ki premagujejo te izjemne razlike kažejo na univerzalno izkušnjo starševstva, ki je v tem, da občasno gledamo svojega otroka in si mislimo, od kod si se vzel?
(Laughter)
(smeh)
It turns out that while each of these individual differences is siloed -- there are only so many families dealing with schizophrenia, only so many families of children who are transgender, only so many families of prodigies -- who also face similar challenges in many ways -- there are only so many families in each of those categories. But if you start to think that the experience of negotiating difference within your family is what people are addressing, then you discover that it's a nearly universal phenomenon. Ironically, it turns out, that it's our differences and our negotiation of difference that unite us.
Izkazalo se je, da kljub temu, da je vsaka teh različnosti zamejena- obstaja zgolj toliko družin, ki se ukvarjajo s shizofenijo, samo toliko družin s transseksualnimi otroci, samo toliko družin z genialnimi otroci, - ki se pogosto srečujejo s podobnimi izzivi - obstaja zgolj toliko družin v vsaki od teh kategorij - ampak če, je izkušnja premagovanja razlik v družini, tisto s čimer se ukvarjajo, potem ugotoviš, da je to skorajda univerzalni pojav. Ironično se izkaže, da so naše razlike in poskusi premagovanja teh razlik, tisto, kar nas združuje.
I decided to have children while I was working on this project. And many people were astonished and said, "But how can you decide to have children in the midst of studying everything that can go wrong?" And I said, "I'm not studying everything that can go wrong. What I'm studying is how much love there can be, even when everything appears to be going wrong."
Da bom imel otroke, sem se odločil med tem projektom. Veliko ljudi je bilo presenečenih in mi reklo: "Kako se lahko odločiš za otroke, medtem ko preučuješ vse, kar gre lahko narobe." Rekel sem jim: "Ne preučujem, vse kar gre lahko narobe." Ampak koliko ljubezni lahko obstaja, tudi takrat, ko se zdi, da gre vse narobe."
I thought a lot about the mother of one disabled child I had seen, a severely disabled child who died through caregiver neglect. And when his ashes were interred, his mother said, "I pray here for forgiveness for having been twice robbed: once of the child I wanted, and once of the son I loved." And I figured it was possible, then, for anyone to love any child, if they had the effective will to do so.
Veliko sem premišljal o materi enega izmed prizadetih otrok, močno prizadetega otroka, ki je umrl zaradi zanemarjanja negovalcev. in ko je bil njegov pepel položen, mi je njegova mati rekla: "Molim za odpuščanje, ker sem bila oropana dvakrat, prvič za otroka, ki sem ga želela in drugič za sina, ki sem ga ljubila." Takrat sem ugotovil, da lahko kdorkoli ljubi kakršnega koli otroka, če ima voljo, da to stori.
So, my husband is the biological father of two children with some lesbian friends in Minneapolis. I had a close friend from college who'd gone through a divorce and wanted to have children. And so she and I have a daughter, and mother and daughter live in Texas. And my husband and I have a son who lives with us all the time, of whom I am the biological father, and our surrogate for the pregnancy was Laura, the lesbian mother of Oliver and Lucy in Minneapolis.
Moj mož je biološki oče dveh otrok, našima lezbičnima prijateljicama v Minneapolisu. Imel sem bližnjo prijateljico na faksu, ki je po ločitvi želela imeti otroke. Ona in jaz imava hčerko, mati in hčerka živita v Teksasu. Moj mož in jaz pa imava sina, ki je ves čas z nama, kateremu sem jaz biološki oče, naša nadomestna mama za nosečnost, pa je bila Laura, lezbična mama Oliverja in Lucy v Minneapolisu.
(Laughter)
(aplavz)
So --
(Applause)
Torej pet staršev, štirje otroci v treh različnih zveznih državah.
The shorthand is: five parents of four children in three states.
(Laughter)
In nekateri mislijo, da obstoj moje družine
And there are people who think that the existence of my family somehow undermines or weakens or damages their family. And there are people who think that families like mine shouldn't be allowed to exist. And I don't accept subtractive models of love, only additive ones. And I believe that in the same way that we need species diversity to ensure that the planet can go on, so we need this diversity of affection and diversity of family in order to strengthen the ecosphere of kindness.
na nek način spodkopava, slabi ali škoduje njihovi družini. in obstajajo ljudje, ki mislijo, da družine, kot je moja ne bi smele obstajati. Ampak jaz ne sprejemam izključujočih idej ljubezni, samo vključujoče. In verjamem, da tako kot potrebujemo raznolikost vrst, da zagotovimo obstoj planeta, potrebujemo tudi raznolikost ljubezni in raznolikost družin, da ojačamo ekosfero prijaznosti.
The day after our son was born, the pediatrician came into the hospital room and said she was concerned. He wasn't extending his legs appropriately. She said that might mean that he had brain damage. Insofar as he was extending them, he was doing so asymmetrically, which she thought could mean that there was a tumor of some kind in action. And he had a very large head, which she thought might indicate hydrocephalus.
Na dan, ko je bil rojen najin sin, je pediatrinja prišla v sobo in rekla, da je zaskrbljena. Otrok ni pravilno iztegoval svojih nog. Rekla je, da to lahko pomeni, da ima možganske poškodbe. Tudi ko jih je iztegoval, je to počel asimetrično, kar bi lahko nakazovalo na učinek nekakšnega tumorja. Imel je tudi zelo veliko glavo, kar bi lahko kazalo na hidrocefalus. In ko mi je govorila vse te reči,
And as she told me all of these things, I felt the very center of my being pouring out onto the floor. And I thought, "Here I had been working for years on a book about how much meaning people had found in the experience of parenting children who were disabled, and I didn't want to join their number because what I was encountering was an idea of illness." And like all parents since the dawn of time, I wanted to protect my child from illness. And I wanted, also, to protect myself from illness. And yet, I knew from the work I had done that if he had any of the things we were about to start testing for, that those would ultimately be his identity, and if they were his identity, they would become my identity, that that illness was going to take a very different shape as it unfolded.
sem čutil, kako vse moje bistvo, pada na tla. Mislim sem si, vsa ta leta sem delal na knjigi o tem, kako veliko pomena, so ljudje našli v prizadetih otrocih, in sam se jim nisem želel pridružiti. Ker sem se spopadal z idejo bolezni. In kot vsak starš že od pradavnine, sem hotel zaščiti svoje otroke pred boleznijo. Hotel sem tudi zaščititi sebe pred boleznijo. A vseeno sem vedel, zaradi dela, ki sem ga opravil, da če ima katero koli od omenjenih stvari, da bodo te sčasoma postale njegova identiteta. In da če bodo njegova identiteta, da bodo postale tudi moja identiteta, da bo ta bolezen s časom postala zelo drugačna. Peljali smo ga na MRI in na tomografijo,
We took him to the MRI machine, we took him to the CAT scanner, we took this day-old child and gave him over for an arterial blood draw. We felt helpless. And at the end of five hours, they said that his brain was completely clear and that he was by then extending his legs correctly. And when I asked the pediatrician what had been going on, she said she thought in the morning, he had probably had a cramp.
en dan starega otroka sva oddala za odvzem krvi. Počutila sva se nemočna. Po petih urah, so rekli, da so njegovi možgani povsem zdravi in da sedaj že pravilno izteguje noge. In ko sem pediatrinjo vprašal, kaj se je dogajalo, je rekla, da je zjutraj verjetno imel krč. (smeh)
(Laughter)
Ampak jaz sem razmišljal, kako prav je imela moja mati.
But I thought --
(Laughter)
I thought how my mother was right. I thought, "The love you have for your children is unlike any other feeling in the world. And until you have children, you don't know what it feels like.
Mislil sem si, da je ljubezen do svojih otrok, drugačna od vseh ostalih občutkov na svetu in dokler nimaš svojih otrok, ne veš kakšna je.
I think children had ensnared me the moment I connected fatherhood with loss. But I'm not sure I would have noticed that if I hadn't been so in the thick of this research project of mine. I'd encountered so much strange love, and I fell very naturally into its bewitching patterns. And I saw how splendor can illuminate even the most abject vulnerabilities.
Mislim, da so me otroci ujeli tisti trenutek, ko sem povezal očetovstvo z izgubo. Vendar nisem prepričan, da bi to opazil, če ne bi bil tako močno prisoten v mojem projektu. Spoznal sem toliko nenavadne ljubezni, in tako sem zelo naravno padel v njen čarobni vzorec. Videl sem, kako lahko lepota razsvetli tudi najbolj grozljive ranljivosti.
During these 10 years, I had witnessed and learned the terrifying joy of unbearable responsibility, and I had come to see how it conquers everything else. And while I had sometimes thought the parents I was interviewing were fools, enslaving themselves to a lifetime's journey with their thankless children and trying to breed identity out of misery, I realized that day that my research had built me a plank and that I was ready to join them on their ship.
Tekom teh 10 let, sem pričeval in spoznal zastrašujoči občutek neznosne odgovornosti in spoznal sem, kako lahko premaga vse ostalo. In čeprav sem občasno mislil, da so starši, ki jih sprašujem, neumni, da so sužnji doživljenjskega potovanja z nehvaležnimi otroci, ki jim poskušajo ustvariti identiteto iz trpljenja, sem spoznal, da mi je moja raziskava zgradila pomol, in da sem se pripravljen pridružiti njihovi ladji.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause and cheers) Thank you.
(aplavz)