The M word

October is dwarfism awareness month. I thought I would write a post about the infamous "M" word, "midget"".

I understand that most people who have never met a little person are simply not aware that the word "midget" is offensive to little people, their family and friends. Well, I am writing this in an attempt to make it crystal clear to everybody, whether they know a little person or not.
The word midget is highly offensive so please do not use it. You could compare the "M" word to the "N" word that some people use towards African American people. Those are words that are never acceptable. If you want to talk about a little person, you could say "little person", "dwarf" or a "person of short stature". I personally don't understand why we can't just call them by their name, it is not because someone is shorter than the average that we should automatically label them or put them in a category.

See, my daughter does have achondroplasia but that doesn't define who she is as a person. She is just short, that's it...nothing else. She is just like any 17 months old baby...short or not.
The thing that bothers me about dwarfism is that as a society, people think it's somewhat ok to laugh at little people, people think it's ok to think they "look funny", people think it's ok to stare at them...

Well I say NO, it is not ok.

They are people with a genetic condition, there is nothing funny about that. They can do anything, just in a different way. They lead the same exact life as average height people do. They have jobs, get married, have kids etc... They are people and like all of us they want to be respected for who they are.

So please, let's all try to make this world a better place for our kids and spread the awareness.

This is my daughter, her name is Anaïs and I love her for who she is. When I look at her I see HER, not her dwarfism.

Please, appreciate people for who they are because if you don't you will be the one missing out.