"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."
"Čak i u čisto nereligioznom smislu, homoseksualnost predstavlja zloupotrebu seksualne sposobnosti. To je patetična, loša zamena za realnost - jadno bekstvo od života. Kao takvo, ne zaslužuje nikakvo sažaljenje, ne zaslužuje nikakvo lečenje kao mučeništvo manjine i ne zaslužuje da se smatra ni za šta drugo, osim za opasnu bolest."
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.
Ovo je iz časopisa Tajm iz 1966., kada sam imao tri godine. A prošle godine, predsednik Sjedinjenih Država je podržao gej brakove.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
And my question is: How did we get from there to here? How did an illness become an identity?
I moje pitanje je: kako smo stigli odande dovde? Kako je bolest postala identitet?
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.
Kada sam imao možda šest godina otišao sam u prodavnicu cipela sa mojom majkom i mojim bratom. I na kraju kupovine cipela prodavac nam je rekao da možemo da dobijemo svako po jedan balon. Moj brat je želeo crveni balon, a ja sam želeo ružičasti. Moja majka je rekla da misli da bi bilo bolje da uzmem plavi balon.
(Laughter)
Ali ja sam rekao da definitivno hoću ružičasti.
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 --
I ona me je podsetila da je moja omiljena boja plava. Činjenica da je sada moja omiljena boja plava, ali da sam i dalje gej -
(Laughter)
(Smeh) -
is evidence of both my mother's influence and its limits.
je dokaz i majčinog uticaja i njegovog ograničenja.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
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."
Kad sam bio mali, moja majka je govorila: "Ljubav koju osećaš prema svojoj deci je kao nijedno drugo osećanje na svetu. I dok nemaš dece, ne znaš kako je to." Kad sam bio mali, shvatio sam to kao najveći kompliment na svetu koji bi mogla da kaže o odgajanju mog brata i mene. I kad sam bio adolescent, mislio sam, ja sam gej i verovatno ne mogu imati porodicu. I kad je to rekla, to je unelo nemir u mene. I kasnije pošto sam se izjasnio kao gej, kada je nastavila to da govori, besneo sam od toga. Rekao sam: "Ja sam gej. To nije pravac u kome idem. I hoću da prestaneš to da govoriš."
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.
Pre nekih 20 godina, moji izdavači u Njujork Tajmsu su me zamolili da napišem članak o kulturi gluvih. I bio sam prilično zbunjen. Mislio sam o gluvoći kao o bolesti. Jadnici, oni ne mogu da čuju. Nedostaje im sluh, i šta mi možemo da učinimo za njih? I onda sam izašao u svet gluvih. Otišao sam u klubove gluvih. Video sam predstave teatra gluvih i poezije gluvih. Čak sam otišao na takmičenje za gluvu mis Amerike u Nešvilu u Tenesiju, gde su se ljudi žalili na otegnut južnjački znakovni govor.
(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.
I kako sam ulazio sve dublje u svet gluvih, postao sam ubeđen da je gluvoća kultura i da su ljudi u svetu gluvih koji su rekli: "Nama ne nedostaje sluh, mi imamo članstvo u kulturi", govorili nešto što je ostvarivo. To nije bila moja kultura i nisam naročito želeo da požurim i pridružim se, ali sam priznavao da je to kultura i to je, za ljude koji su bili njeni članovi, bilo tako vredno kao što je i Latino kultura ili gej kultura ili jevrejska kultura. Činilo sa da je možda čak isto tako važeća kao i američka 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?
Prijateljica moje prijateljice je imala ćerku koja je patuljak. I kad se njena ćerka rodila, ona se iznenada suočila sa pitanjima koja sada počinju prilično da odjekuju u meni. Ona se suočila sa pitanjem šta da radi sa tim detetom. Da li je trebalo da kaže: "Ti si kao i svi drugi, samo malo niža?" Ili je trebalo da izgradi neku vrstu identiteta patuljka, da se učlani u "Male ljude Amerike", postane svesna onoga što se dešava patuljcima?
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.
I iznenada sam pomislio da je većina gluve dece rođena u porodicama roditelja koji čuju. Ti roditelji koji čuju, obično pokušavaju da ih izleče. Ti gluvi ljudi otkrivaju zajednicu nekako u adolescenciji. Većinu gej ljudi su rodili strejt roditelji. Ovi strejt roditelji često hoće da oni funkcionišu u onome što oni misle da je mejnstrim svet i ti gej ljudi moraju da pronađu svoj identitet kasnije. I ta moja prijateljica je razmatrala ova pitanja identiteta sa svojom patuljastom ćerkom. I pomislio sam, evo ga opet: porodica koja smatra sebe za normalnu, sa detetom koje je izgleda posebno. I rodila mi se ideja da u stvari postoje dve vrste identiteta.
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.
Vertikalni identiteti, koji se prenose generacijski sa roditelja na dete. To su stvari kao: narodnost, obično nacionalnost, jezik, često religija. To su stvari koje su zajedničke vašim roditeljima i deci. I iako neke od njih mogu biti teške, ne pokušavate da ih izlečite. Možete zaključivati da je teže u Sjedinjenim Državama - uprkos našem sadašnjem predsedništvu - biti "obojena" osoba. Pa ipak, nema nikog ko pokušava da obezbedi da sledeća generacija dece rođene u afro-američkim i azijskim porodicama bude sa kožom boje mleka i plavom kosom.
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.
Drugi su identiteti koje morate da naučite od vršnjačke grupe. I ja ih nazivam horizontalni identiteti jer je vršnjačka grupa horizontalno iskustvo. Ovo su identiteti koji su strani vašim roditeljima i koje morate da otkrijete kad ih prepoznate kod vršnjaka. I ove identitete, ove horizontalne identitete ljudi skoro uvek pokušavaju da izleče.
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.
I ja želim da pogledam kakav je proces kroz koji ljudi koji imaju ove identitete ostvare dobar odnos sa njima. Izgledalo mi je da ima tri nivoa prihvatanja koji treba da se dese. To su: samoprihvatanje, prihvatanje porodice i društveno prihvatanje. I oni se ne poklapaju uvek.
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.
I u velikom broju slučajeva, ljudi koji imaju ovakva stanja su vrlo ljuti jer osećaju kao da ih roditelji ne vole, a u stvari se dešava da ih roditelji ne prihvataju. Ljubav je nešto što je u idealnom slučaju tu bezuslovno kroz odnos između roditelja i deteta. Ali prihvatanje je nešto što zahteva vreme. Uvek zahteva vreme.
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.
Jedan od patuljaka koje sam upoznao bio je momak po imenu Klinton Braun. Kad se rodio dijagnostifikovali su mu distrofični dvorfizam, veoma invalidno stanje, njegovim roditeljima su rekli da neće nikada moći da hoda i govori, neće imati nikakvog intelektualnog kapaciteta, i verovatno čak neće moći ni da ih prepoznaje. Savetovali su im da ga ostave u bolnici da može tamo da umre na miru. Njegova majka je rekla da neće to da uradi.
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.
I odvela je svog sina kući. I iako nije imala velikih obrazovnih ili finansijskih mogućnosti, našla je najboljeg doktora u zemlji za distrofični dvorfizam i upisala Klintona kod njega. I u toku svog detinjstva on je imao 30 velikih hirurških zahvata. Proveo je sve to vreme zaglavljen u bolnici dok su mu radili te zahvate zbog kojih sada može da hoda.
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.
I dok je bio tamo, slali su mu učitelje da mu pomognu sa školskim zadacima. I radio je vredno jer nije imao ništa drugo da radi. I završio je dostigavši nivo koji nikad ranije niko u njegovoj porodici nije zamišljao. U stvari, on je bio prvi u porodici koji je otišao na koledž, gde je živeo u studentskom domu i vozio specijalno prerađen auto koji je prilagođen njegovom neobičnom telu.
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 majka mi je ispričala priču o tome, kad je došla jednog dana kući - a on je otišao na koledž u blizini - i ona je rekla: "Videla sam taj auto, koji uvek možete da prepoznate, na parkingu ispred bara," rekla je. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
"I pomislila sam, oni su visoki 180, on je 100 centimetara.
"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 je četiri piva za njega." Rekla je: "Znala sam da ne mogu da odem tamo i prekinem ga, već sam otišla kući i ostavila mu osam poruka na mobilnom." Rekla je: "I onda sam pomislila, da mi je neko rekao kad se rodio, da će moja buduća briga biti to što odlazi da pije i vozi sa drugarima sa koledža..." (Aplauz)
(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."
Pitao sam je: "Šta misliš da si uradila što mu je pomoglo da izraste u ovu šarmantnu, ispunjenu, divnu osobu?" Ona je rekla: "Šta sam uradila? Volela sam ga, to je sve. Klinton je prosto uvek imao to svetlo u sebi. I njegov otac i ja smo imali sreće da budemo prvi koji su to videli."
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."
Citiraću još jedan članak iz časopisa iz '60-ih. Ovaj je iz 1968. - mesečni list Atlantik, glas liberalne Amerike - i napisao ga je značajni bioetičar. On kaže: "Nema razloga za osećanje krivice zbog napuštanja deteta sa Daunovim sindromom, bilo da je ostavljen u smislu sakrivanja u sanatorijum ili u odgovornijem, smrtonosnom smislu. Da, tužno je. Užasno. Ali ne nosi nikakvu krivicu. Prava krivica nastaje samo kad uvredite osobu, a daunovac nije osoba."
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.
Puno je mastila potrošeno u ogromnom napretku koji smo napravili u odnosu prema gej ljudima. Činjenica da se naš stav promenio vidi se u novinskim naslovima svakodnevno. Ali zaboravljamo kako smo gledali ljude sa drugim razlikama, kako smo gledali na ljude koji su invalidi, kako smo ih videli kao neljude. I promena koja je tu postignuta, koja je skoro jednako radikalna, je ona na koju ne obraćamo mnogo pažnju.
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.
Jedna od porodica koje sam intervjuisao, Tom i Karen Robards, bili su zaprepašćeni, kao mladi i uspešni Njujorčani, kad je njihovom prvom detetu dijagnostikovan Daunov sindrom. Mislili su da mogućnosti za njegovo obrazovanje nisu bile kao što bi trebalo i odlučili su da naprave mali centar - dve učionice u kojima su počeli sa još nekoliko drugih roditelja - da obrazuju decu sa Daunovim sindromom. I tokom godina, centar je izrastao u nešto što se zove Kuk centar, gde sada ima na hiljade dece sa intelektualnim ograničenjima koja se obrazuju. U vremenu od izlaska priče u mesečniku Atlantik
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.
prosečno trajanje života ljudi sa Daunovim sindromom se uvećalo tri puta. U iskustvu ljudi sa Daunovim sindromom ima onih koji su glumci, onih koji su pisci, nekih koji mogu da žive potpuno samostalno kad odrastu.
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."
Robardsovi imaju puno zasluge u tome. Pitao sam: "Da li vam je žao zbog toga?" Da li biste želeli da vaše dete nema Daunov sindrom? Da li biste želeli da nikad niste čuli za to?" I, interesantno, njegov otac je rekao: "Pa zbog Dejvida, našeg sina, mi je žao jer za njega je teško biti u svetu i voleo bih da omogućim Dejvidu lakši život. Ali mislim da bi, da smo izgubili sve one sa Daunovim sindromom, to bio katastrofalan gubitak." I Karen Robards mi je rekla: "Slažem 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."
Zbog Dejvida, izlečila bih ga odmah da bi mu omogućila lakši život. Ali govoreći u svoje ime - ne bih nikad verovala pre 23 godine kad je rođen da ću doći do momenta - govoreći u svoje ime, to me je učinilo mnogo boljom i mnogo plemenitijom i sa mnogo više svrhe u mom celom životu, da, govoreći u svoje ime, ne bih to menjala ni za šta 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 u momentu kada je društveno prihvatanje ovih i mnogih drugih stanja u porastu. Pa ipak, takođe živimo u momentu kada je naša sposobnost da eliminišemo ova stanja dostigla visine koje nikad nismo zamišljali. Većina gluve dece rođene u Sjedinjenim Državama sada, će dobiti implante koji se stavljaju u mozak i povezani su sa prijemnikom i koji im omogućavaju da dobiju kopiju slušanja i koriste oralni govor. Jedinjenje koje je testirano na miševima, BMN-111, je korisno za sprečavanje aktivnosti gena ahondroplazije. Ahondroplazija je najčešći oblik patuljastog rasta i miševi kojima su dali tu supstancu i koji su imali gen ahondroplazije su izrasli do pune veličine. Testiranje na ljudima vreba iza ćoška. Postoje analize krvi koje napreduju i koje pronalaze Daunov sindrom u trudnoćama, jasnije i ranije nego ikada, sve više olakšavajući ljudima da eliminišu te trudnoće ili da ih prekinu. Tako imamo i društveni i medicinski napredak.
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.
I ja verujem u oba. Verujem da je društveni napredak fantastičan, smislen i sjajan i isto mislim i za medicinski napredak. Ali mislim da je tragedija kad jedan od njih ne vidi drugi. I kada vidim kako se ukrštaju u uslovima kao ova tri koja sam opisao, ponekad mislim da je to kao oni momenti u velikoj operi kad heroj shvata da voli heroinu baš u onom trenutku kad ona umire na sofi. (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?
Treba da razmislimo šta mislimo o izlečenjima uopšte. Mnogo puta je pitanje roditeljstva šta da cenimo kod naše dece, a šta da lečimo?
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.
Džim Sinkler, značajni aktivista autizma, kaže: "Kad roditelji kažu: 'Voleo bih da moje dete nema autizam', oni u stvari kažu: 'Voleo bih da dete koje imam, ne postoji. i da imam drugo, neautistično dete umesto njega'. Pročitajte to ponovo. To je ono što čujemo kad oplakujete naše postojanje. To je ono što čujemo kad se molite za izlečenje - da je vaša najveća želja u vezi sa nama to da jednog dana prestanemo da postojimo i stranci koje možete da volite se presele iza naših lica." To je vrlo ekstreman pogled ali on ukazuje na realnost da se ljudi upuštaju u život koji imaju i ne žele da budu izlečeni ili promenjeni ili eliminisani. Oni žele da budu šta god da su.
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.
Jedna od porodica koje sam intervjuisao za ovaj projekat bila je porodica Dilana Klibolda koji je bio jedan od zločinaca u masakru u Kolumbajnu. Trebalo je puno vremena da ih ubedim da pričaju sa mnom a kada su pristali, bili su toliko ispunjeni svojom pričom da nisu mogli da prestanu da je pričaju. Prvog vikenda koji sam proveo s njima - prvi od mnogih snimio sam više od 20 sati razgovora. I u nedelju uveče, svi smo bili iscrpljeni.
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 u kuhinji. Su Klibold je spremala večeru. I ja sam pitao: "Da je Dilan sada ovde, da li imate osećaj šta biste želeli da ga pitate?" I njegov otac je rekao: "Naravno da imam. Želeo bih da ga pitam šta je to dođavola mislio da radi." Su je pogledala u pod i razmislila na minut. I onda je podigla pogled i rekla: "Ja bih ga pitala da mi oprosti što, kao njegova majka, nikad nisam znala šta se događa u njegovoj 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."
Kad sam večerao sa njom nakon nekoliko godina - jedna od mnogih zajedničkih večera - rekla je: "Znaš, kad se to dogodilo, poželela sam da se nikad nisam udala i da nikad nisam imala dece. Da nisam otišla u Ohajo i ukrstila put sa Tomom, ovo dete ne bi postojalo i ova užasna stvar se ne bi dogodila. Ali osetila sam da sam volela svoju decu toliko da nisam htela da zamislim život bez njih. Prepoznajem bol koji su naneli drugima, što ne može da se oprosti ali za bol koji su naneli meni, može", rekla je. "Iako priznajem da bi bilo bolje za svet da se Dilan nije rodio, odlučila sam da to ne bi bilo bolje za mene."
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 --
Mislio sam da je iznenađujuće kako su ove porodice imale svu ovu decu sa svim ovim problemima, problemima za koje bi uglavnom uradili sve da ih izbegnu i da su svi našli tako puno smisla u tom iskustvu roditeljstva. I onda sam pomislio da svi mi koji imamo decu volimo ih sa njihovim manama. Kad bi neki divni anđeo iznenada sišao kroz plafon moje dnevne sobe i ponudio mi da odvede moju decu i dovede mi drugu, bolju decu - učtiviju, zabavniju, finiju, pametniju -
(Laughter)
ja bih zadržao svoju decu i oterao tu gnusnu predstavu.
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?"
I konačno osećam da na isti način kao što testiramo pidžame otporne na vatru u paklu da bi bili sigurni da se neće zapaliti kad se naša deca nagnu preko peći, tako se ove priče o porodicama koje savlađuju ove ekstremne razlike ogledaju u univerzalnom iskustvu roditeljstva što je uvek ono kad pogledate svoje dete i pomislite, odakle li si ti došao?
(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.
Izgleda da, dok je svaka od ovih individualnih razlika uskladištena, ima puno porodica koje su suočene sa šizofrenijom, ima puno porodica dece koja su transrodna, ima puno porodica sa izuzetno talentovanom decom, koje se isto suočavaju sa sličnim izazovima, ima puno porodica u svakoj od ovih kategorija, ali ako počnete da razmišljate da je iskustvo savlađivanja razlika u vašoj porodici ono o čemu ljudi govore, onda otkrivate da je to skoro univerzalni fenomen. Ironično, izgleda, da su naše razlike i naše savlađivanje razlika ono što nas sjedinjuje.
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."
Odlučio sam da imam decu dok sam radio na ovom projektu. I mnogi ljudi su bili zaprepašćeni i rekli su: "Ali kako možeš da rešiš da imaš decu usred proučavanja svega onoga što tu može da krene po zlu?" Rekao sam: "Ne proučavam ono što može da krene po zlu. Proučavam koliko ljubavi može da bude čak i ako sve izgleda da ide po zlu."
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.
Razmišljao sam dosta o majci jednog invalidnog deteta koje sam video, teško invalidnog deteta koje je umrlo zbog nebrige osobe koja ga je negovala. I kad je njegov pepeo zakopan, njegova majka je rekla: "Molim se ovde sada, za oproštaj što sam bila dvaput opljačkana, jedanput mi je uzeto dete koje sam htela i jedanput sin kog sam volela." I shvatio sam da je onda moguće da svako voli bilo koje dete ako ima stvarnu volju za to.
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 muž je biološki otac dvoje dece sa nekim prijateljicama lezbejkama u Mineapolisu. Ja imam prijateljicu sa koledža koja se razvela i htela da ima decu. I ona i ja imamo ćerku i majka i ćerka žive u Teksasu. A moj muž i ja imamo sina koji živi sa nama, kome sam ja biološki otac a naš surogat za trudnoću je bila Lora, lezbejka majka Olivera i Lusi u Mineapolisu.
(Laughter)
(Aplauz)
So --
(Applause)
Ukratko, pet roditelja četvoro dece u tri države.
The shorthand is: five parents of four children in three states.
(Laughter)
I ima ljudi koji misle da postojanje moje porodice
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 neki način podriva ili slabi ili šteti njihovoj porodici. I ima ljudi koji misle da porodicama kao što je moja ne bi trebalo da se dozvoli da postoje. A ja ne prihvatam oduzimajuće modele ljubavi, već samo dodajuće. I verujem da, na isti način kao što nam je potrebna različitost vrsta da obezbedimo dalje postojanje planete, tako nam treba i ova različitost afiniteta i različitost porodica da bismo ojačali biosferu plemenitosti.
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.
Dan pošto se naš sin rodio doktorka, pedijatar, je došla u bolničku sobu i rekla da je zabrinuta. On nije ispravljao noge kako treba. Rekla je da to može da znači da ima oštećenje mozga. Kako ih je do sada ispravljao, radio je to asimetrično, što je ona mislila da može da znači da postoji neki tumor. I imao je veliku glavu, za šta je mislila da može da bude višak tečnosti u lobanji. I kad mi je rekla sve ovo
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.
osećao sam da se središte mog bića prosipa na pod. I mislio sam, radio sam godinama na knjizi o tome koliko smisla ljudi nalaze u iskustvu odgajanja dece koja su invalidi i nisam hteo da im se pridružim. Jer ono što sam nalazio bila je ideja o bolesti. I kao svi roditelji od početka vremena, želeo sam da zaštitim svoje dete od bolesti. I želeo sam takođe da zaštitim sebe od bolesti. Pa ipak, znao sam iz rada koji sam uradio da, da je imao bilo šta od onoga na šta smo se spremili da ga testiramo, to bi bio na kraju njegov identitet i ako bi to bio njegov identitet, to bi postalo i moj identitet, da će ta bolest, kako se razvija, imati vrlo drugačiji oblik. Odveli smo ga na magnetnu rezonancu, odveli smo ga na CT skener,
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.
uzeli smo ovo dete staro jedan dan i dali ga na vađenje krvi. Osećali smo se bespomoćno. I posle pet sati rekli su da je njegov mozak potpuno čist i da je do tada već počeo da ispravlja noge pravilno. I kada sam pitao pedijatra šta se to onda desilo, rekla je da je jutros verovatno imao grč. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Ali pomislio sam koliko je moja majka bila u pravu.
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.
Pomislio sam da je ljubav prema svojoj deci kao nijedno drugo osećanje na svetu i dok nemaš dece, ne znaš kako je to.
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 su me deca uhvatila u zamku u trenutku kad sam povezao očinstvo sa gubitkom. Ali nisam siguran da bih to primetio da nisam bio toliko duboko u ovom mom istraživačkom projektu. Našao sam toliko mnogo neobične ljubavi i osetio sam se vrlo prirodno u njenim omamljujućim obrascima. I video sam kako sjaj može da obasja i najbednije ranjivosti.
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.
Tokom ovih 10 godina bio sam svedok i naučio zastrašujuću radost nepodnošljive odgovornosti i video sam kako ona osvaja sve drugo. I dok sam ponekad mislio da su roditelji koje sam intervjuisao budale koje se zarobljavaju doživotno sa svojom nezahvalnom decom pokušavajući da stvore identitet od bede, shvatio sam tog dana da mi je moje istraživanje napravilo dasku za hodanje i bio sam spreman da im se pridružim na njihovom brodu.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause and cheers) Thank you.
(Aplauz)