Handicapped?

I agree with Sunshine--the film really suggested to me that having money has a lot to do with intellectually disabled individuals living safe and healthy lives. Monica's mother mentions several times that she does not want Monica and David to work because she does not want them to be exposed to people who could be rude or insensitive about their disability. However, they are only able to give up on the idea of work (if only for a short time) because Monica's mother is wealthy enough to feed and clothe them. This situation likely feeds into Monica and David's definitions of the word "handicap." When asked whether she had a handicap, Monica said she did not, explaining that someone with a handicap is in a wheelchair and is unable to talk or hear. David agreed that he did not have a handicap and explained that he only had Down's Syndrome "sometimes," as people with Down's Syndrome have sad and old faces or they are deaf and blind and have no family. David seemed to define Down's Syndrome around the idea of feeling different, which he only experiences sometimes. It seems likely that Monica and David are able to define themselves because they are not working in environments where others can taunt them or use hurtful language to attack the couple and their disability. Perhaps if Monica's mother was not able to support them, the couple would be working in environments where they heard fairly frequent comments about their having Down's, or at least having some form of a handicap, and they would answer the interviewer's questions differently.

I was also very struck by one of Monica's mother's comments that she brought up after watching David do his own blood sugar reading and insulin shot. She expressed, "As parents, we want people to look upon our children with special needs like anyone else. We want them to be treatd with respect and with dignity, and to not stare at them and whatever. And yet, because we want to protect them so much, we are typically the first ones who treat them poorly by subconsciously denying them their rights to have a normal life." This self-awareness surprised me a great deal, especially coming from someone who felt it was her life's purpose to care for Monica and David. Monica's mother constantly protects Monica and David by hesitating to allow them employment--so she is at once protecting them from an uneducated, hurtful public, and removing them from lives of normalcy, where they could likely adapt to having such overbearing support systems.