Open Letter to Ann Coulter

Dear Ann Coulter,

Before I get to the point of this letter, I want to get some preliminaries out of the way.

I don’t agree with your political views, and I don’t like the way you present them. I find you to be offensive and abrasive, and generally disrespectful to your fellow man – even those who check the same name you do in the ballot box.

This is not about politics, though. While I have been kind-of following the US presidential campaign, I don’t have a stake in it. I do not live in the United States, and the outcome of the election will not affect me in my day to life. I am just a Canadian mom muddling through life as best I can, striving for the happiness and wellbeing of the two children I have had the honour of bringing into this world.

I have many of the typical modern-day mom challenges. My boys keep me busy, I spend too much time commuting so that I can work full-time to provide for my family, and my husband and I can barely squeak in any time for ourselves.

In some ways, though, I am not really typical, because both of my children need some extra help. My younger son is struggling with reading and writing. My older son has autism. They are both highly intelligent, you understand, but they have their challenges.

Ann, my older son – the one with autism – does not have any friends. He has been invited to exactly one birthday party in his whole life. He does not know how to play with other children, and when he comes home from school, he is not able to tell me what his day was like. He is different from other kids, and it is obvious.

But do you know what? Not once has any child said a mean word to my son. I realize that as he approaches his teenage years things may become more difficult for him, but until now, he has never experienced anything but tolerance, acceptance and kindness from other children.

No, the nastiness – the looks, the snide comments, the sniggers – have come from adults. It has been the so-called grown-ups who have shepherded their children to the other side of the playground. It has been the grown-ups who have smirked in the face of my son’s public meltdowns and told me that my child “needs a good hiding”. The grown-ups have been the ones to stare rudely at my son’s stimming while their own children have acted as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

Ann, the one time I heard someone refer to my child as a retard, guess who it was?

Yep, you got it in one. It was an ADULT. Someone who really should have known better.

Someone who freely uses words like “retard” without any care for how it might hurt other people.

Someone like you.

Do you know what connotations that word has for a special needs mom like me? Do you realize that you are tossing out a term designed to hurt and ostracize children like my son? Do you have any idea that this word is exactly what is stopping my son and thousands of others like him from being accepted as a valuable part of society?

Do you even care?

I’d like you to take a moment to look at the picture at the top of this letter. Really look at it. Look into the eyes of that sweet, innocent child, and then tell me if you feel good about being so insulting to him and doing your part to damage his chances of acceptance and happiness.

If you must trash-talk the presidential candidates, please do so without using words that are offensive and divisive.

Thank you.
Just another mom