The R-Word: The Monster Under the Bed as the Sibling of Someone With Down Syndrome
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines the r-word as: 1: informal + offensive: very stupid or foolish 2: dated, now offensive: affected by intellectual disability: intellectually disabled.
From a very young age, I learned that the r-word was bad. Not the way the f-word is bad, just a different kind of bad. Growing up with Pete, my brother with Down syndrome, my parents told me people sometimes use the r-word to imply “stupid.” They went on to explain why it was such an offensive word, especially for our family.
Yet, I heard this word often. It was so common, I was surprised it wasn’t on any of my weekly vocabulary tests. At some point, the word went from three syllables to two – where it was once used as an adjective, it was also being used as a noun.
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