Think of the children

I was bowling with some friends last week, and as one of my friends was redeeming his coupon for a free game I was looking over the counter at the things they had on the wall. I noticed a plaque bearing a picture of a small (conveniently) black child wearing a medal, shaking a police officer's hand. Turns out this bowling alley had hosted some local special olympics league for a couple years in a row and this lucky kid was the winner.

The more I thought about this, the more it pissed me off at its sheer stupidity and feel-good uselessness.

Let me be clear: I'm not attacking children with disabilities, terminal or severely chronic illnesses, or 'special needs' (gotta love euphemisms, huh?). And I'm not attacking the organizations like this local 'Special Olympics' squad- or at least, not their intentions. Actually, scratch that. The whole idea is pretty fucking stupid. [cue hate mail in 3...2...1...]

There's a lot of things wrong with these groups. First of all, their intention. For the most part, the concept boils down to this:
"every child should have a normal childhood, even if they suffer from physical, mental, or health disabilities."
It's not a bad idea, really. It's a bit stupid, sure; and it's more than a little naive, but you can't blame them for caring. It's sort of like the pro-life position on abortion: you can respect the intentions, since they're coming from a good place- just maybe not the most well-informed place, or with the greatest execution of that central concept. I don't know about you, but I never shook the hand of a police officer as a child. I visited a firehouse when I was a Boy Scout, but that's pretty much as close as I got to meeting someone really cool. I haven't done half the shit these kids get up to, and my childhood was pretty well normal. Come on, how many of you have participated in a bowling league and a track team and a nature camp? And then of course they're given all sorts of bullshit awards because people seem to suffer the fantastic delusion that simply because these children have learning disabilities, or are missing limbs, or have cystic fibrosis, or whatever, that they're somehow so fragile that if they don't win a shiny little medal in everything they do, they're going to go insane and kill themselves. What the fuck? If you really want these kids to have a normal childhood, you should start treating them like normal goddamn children- which, as far as emotional sanity goes, they pretty much are.

aside: I'm not attacking the Make A Wish Foundation, I'm attacking the organizations and groups who coddle children who actually grow up to be adults. If the child has a terminal disease that will kill them before they become an adult, that's a completely different story. By all means, let Timmy the leukemia patient play a game of pickup with LeBron James. If he's got a 6-month prognosis I see nothing wrong with making sure the rest of his life vomits sheer awesomeness. Remember, I'm not an unreasonable asshole- just an asshole. :end aside:

It's bad enough that these kids get pampered and coddled and dragged around everywhere so they feel special, it's that these groups do nothing else for them. The reality is, most people who are homeless are in that position because of mental, physical, or learning disabilities that make it incapable for them to hold a job. And these groups just don't prepare them for that uncomfortable reality, because the same kernel of idiocy that led to the "EVERY CHILD IS SPECIAL" philosophy implies that these children can't handle reality. Well guess what, fucktards: like it or not, they're gonna have to. Pretending that their handicap doesn't exist doesn't make it go away. To make matters worse, these institutions tend to punt the children to the curb once they turn 18 or thereabouts, leaving the poor suckers armed with nothing but a memory that they can't really do anything on their own. These children are retarded, not stupid.

What these insufferable organizations need to do, if they really want to live up to their mission statement of doing some good, is teach the kids in their care strategies to adapt to the harsh reality of adult life. Claude has severe autism, okay? And the last time I checked, giving him an explorer's badge when you drag him off to the local zoo is not a known cure for his disease (though if it was you can bet your ass Jenny McCarthy would be screeching her ass off about it). So instead of trying to pretend his autism doesn't exist and trying to hide the fact that he's crippled (or, even worse, champion it as though it inherently makes him better than those without it), start teaching Claude about the places he should apply for a job, how to apply for social security, where he should turn if things fall sour instead of living on the streets, basic interaction skills- you know, stuff that's actually fucking useful for him to survive after you dump him on the sidewalk because he's not an adorable little child anymore.