terug
People will always judge by appearances
People will always judge by appearances | ||||||
| LOVING parents, |  Minette Marrin | peculiar is often harsh. | to her eyes, or pin back | |||
| if they can | Other children can be sur- | her ears, but anyone | ||||
| afford it, buy | prisingly cruel. My little | looking at her must be | ||||
| their daughters | sister’s birthday parties, | [id:9220] her new pretti- | ||||
| pretty clothes and get | [id:9219], were full of tiny | ness, and her confidence, | ||||
| their teeth fixed. They | girls in pretty party | while still unmistakably a | ||||
| take them to doctors for | dresses, who before long | Down’s person. If there is | ||||
| acne and to surgeons for | would start taunting my | one thing I have become | ||||
| birthmarks or squints, and | sister for her oddities, and | convinced of, it is that it | ||||
| for cleft palates, club feet | end up leaving her in | is essential to think prag- | ||||
| or curved spines. If a boy | tears. If there had been | matically, and always | ||||
| messes up his face in a | any kind of scientific | about the [id:9221]. Phi- | ||||
| motorcycle accident, | magic to change all that, | losophical principles | ||||
| parents try to arrange | or even to make it only | about the meaning of han- | ||||
| cosmetic surgery. The | There seems to be a | slightly better, of course I | dicap in general are irre- | |||
| [id:9215] of such repairs to | widely held view that | would have been in | levant to the question of | |||
| a child’s well-being is | there is something wrong | favour of it. | what was best for this | |||
| often very obvious. And | with [id:9217] the disabili- | After the | little girl. Her photographs | |||
| loving parents who are so | ty that is Down’s syn- | show that her appearance | ||||
| protective of one of their | drome. At its extreme this | is now enormously | ||||
| children would not be any | view holds that it is de- | more attractive | ||||
| less protective of another. | meaning to people with | and acceptable. | ||||
| My sister and I both | Down’s to suggest that | A young Down’s syn- | ||||
| damaged our front teeth | their condition is in itself | drome man said on the | ||||
| in minor accidents when | undesirable. To suggest | same documentary last | ||||
| we were children. It | that it should be eradi- | week: “I wish people | ||||
| would have been unthink- | cated, or at least modi- | wouldn’t judge by ap- | ||||
| able in our family that my | fied, is to devalue them as | pearances.” But they do | ||||
| teeth should have been | individuals. Therefore it | In the case of the | and they always will, for | |||
| capped but not hers, just | is [id:9218]. Society, not | three-year-old girl, there | deep-seated reasons, and | |||
| because she was [id:9216] | the individual, should | is surgery that can subtly | not always bad ones. | |||
| and I was supposedly | change. | alter her appearance, re- | [id:9222] appearances work | |||
| normal. Yet this idea | I sympathise with this | lieve some physical diffi- | both ways. The ap- | |||
| seems to lie behind the | feeling, but it is undisci- | culties and make her look | pearance of Down’s is, to | |||
| arguments last week, | plined sentimentality. The | less odd. Her oversized | anyone capable of kind- | |||
| widely reported in the | truth is, however much | tongue has been reduced. | ness, a sign to be gentle: | |||
| media, about a three- | we may love an | She will now find eating | stigmata have their | |||
| year-old girl with Down’s | individual sufferer, that | and speaking easier. Her | gentler uses. Curiously | |||
| syndrome, whose parents | Down’s syndrome is | malformed teeth and bite | enough, one of my | |||
| had arranged cosmetic | undesirable. So is spina | can be made to look | sister’s problems was that | |||
| surgery for her, and | bifida or Huntington’s | better and to work better. | her quite normal ap- | |||
| whose case was the sub- | chorea. Which of us | Who could deny such im- | pearance worked against | |||
| ject of a television docu- | would not wave a wand, | provements to any child? | her: there weren’t any | |||
| mentary. Many people | if we could, and magic it | I don’t think it was so | disarming signs in her ap- | |||
| expressed shock and dis- | away? For one thing the | obviously desirable to | pearance. | |||
| approval. | life of a child who is | make subtle adjustments | ||||
| 'The Sunday Telegraph' | ||||||