Original subtitles

- What happens if fiction continues to be fiction?

Can you deal with that?

- I can't deal with that.

I can't. - No?

How about things that you know are fiction?

What about things like Cinderella or Snow White?

- No, no. What I'm trying to say is that, um, that, um,

can I fall in love with my own imagination?

- Well, we've gotta be really careful

when we deal with what's real and what's fiction.

- I don't-I don't even know what's real or not.

- I know.

That's the problem.

It's not very cold out.

- It's not very cold out? - Nope. Not too bad.

- "All the world's a stage

"and men and women are merely players.

"They're the exits and the entrances,

and each man in his life plays many parts."

♪ You can take what you can get ♪

♪ I'll forgive but I'll forget ♪

- Once this guy said to me,

"Man, if I were you, I'd probably kill myself."

You know, just by seeing me

and my body in a wheelchair,

he thought that I must be miserable.

And, um, you know, I think that it's probably,

um, a pretty common assumption.

And so what body you're in

has everything to do with your perspective of the world.

♪ You wake up and you can't pretend ♪

♪ The dream was just a dream again ♪

♪ Won't you dry your eyes? ♪

♪ But it doesn't matter anymore ♪

♪ Do just what you did before ♪

♪ Until you realize the words go la, la, la, la, la ♪

- Push the button!

- You can push.

- It was not a normal mother-son relationship ever.

- Jack, do you wanna hear the volume?

It was overwhelming.

I didn't want it.

I did not want it.

♪ You can dip your brain in joy ♪

♪ Once we understand ♪

♪ No one understands at all ♪

♪ Singing la, la, la, la, la ♪

- I think in some ways, I wrote the book

to understand what happened.

And maybe I wrote it to forgive my parents.

I think my mother imagined that her first-born son

would be part of the real mainstream,

the kind of kid who was popular at school,

athletic, at ease in the world,

and basically quite conventional.

And instead, she got me.

When I was growing up, I had a lot of weird hang-ups.

I mean, I refused to wear blue jeans.

I refused to listen to rock music of any kind.

I was obsessed with Emily Dickinson's

poems of anguish,

and told my friends the plots of operas.

I was a weirdo.

And, you know, my parents were really good.

My mom, in particular.

She would sort of get on board

with the things that interested me...

...even when they were a little bit strange.

I feel like there was a lot of leeway for me to be...

...different in all kinds of ways...

...but my parents really didn't want to have a gay son...

...and I thought if I tell them I'm gay,

they're going to be brutally disappointed.

And I told them, and they were.

It was a catastrophe.

My mother sort of lectured me about

what a sad and lonely life it would be,

and I mentioned some gay family friends

and I said that they'd done all right,

and my mother said,

"If I had thought that inviting them into our house

"was gonna make you think that was an acceptable way of life,

they would never have crossed the threshold."

For many years after that, I was...

...angry, I was ambivalent.

I wanted to understand

why my parents dealt with me the way they did.

I wanted to see how other families managed it.

I thought I don't wanna know just about families

of gay people.

I wanted to look as widely as I could.

I set out to write Far From the Tree,

which was my attempt to investigate

how families go about

dealing with children who are very different from them.

I spent 10 years researching and writing this book.

- We'll look at things like dwarfism,

an autistic child,

a child who commits a crime.

It's a tough thing sometimes for a parent to reconcile with.

- There are some children who were born with an identity

or a way of being, or a set of priorities

that are completely foreign to his or her parents.

The stories I heard felt so alien at the beginning,

but bit by bit, they came to feel very real

and very intimate to me.

And I realized that in telling these stories,

I was investigating the very nature of family itself.

- You know what?

This actually looks very modernistic.

This could be by Picasso. - Yeah.

- Doesn't that look very modern?

And look at this.

- Looks like Turn the World Around.

- Turn the-- It looks like what?

- Turn the World Around. Like Harry Belafonte stuff.

- Yes. Yes, indeed, it does.

I think that's where they got their inspiration

for those masks.

- Yeah.

- Ooh.

- Ooh!

Where is everybody?

We are the last people on the planet.

Hello!

When Jason was born,

the doctor said,

"What we do with children like this

is we send them away before an attachment is formed."

I mean, this is so ludicrous

that an obstetrician doesn't understand

that you have spent nine months forming an attachment.

What did they think this was?

All right, my love. I had a wonderful time.

Be good.

- Love you. - Love you, honey.

Okay. Talk to you soon.

- Okay.

Oops.

- You got it?

Come here. Give it here.

Let me get you.

Yeah?

- I was born with Down Syndrome.

This is what we called "retarded."

We don't want to say that word because it's banned from...

...it was banned from conversation.

Down syndrome is a chromosomal mishap.

It's-it's an extra chromosome.

Never ever goes away.

- Hi!

- The doctors told us, "Your child is a Mongoloid.

"He's not gonna walk. He's not gonna talk.

He's not gonna read. He's not gonna write."

And I was frightened.

It was as if Jason had this rubber stamp,

this great black rubber stamp

with the word "retarded" over his forehead.

- Jason. - Jason.

- Jason, would you put your hands on your head for Daddy?

Yay!

- But Charles and I decided that you don't write off

a person because of a label that he carries.

That Jason was a person who could learn.

- Jason, what does that say?

- Over.

- Okay. What does this say?

- Under.

- What does this say?

- Across.

- The point that I'm driving at

is that when you walk out of here today

and somebody says to you, "Retarded people,

Down syndrome people, they'll never learn to read,

they'll sit against the wall and just grow big."

and so forth and so on.

And you could sort of give the lie to it

and won't take the opportunity at any time to...

...come and talk to people.

As you get to know them,

you realize that friendship and warmth

are things that they respond to.

- As Jason started accomplishing things...

- When you have four bagels

and you take away one bagel...

- Three.

- We were so excited.

It was such a miracle.

- Hey, you know what? Can you count to 10 in Spanish?

- Okay.

- He walked, he talked,

and he did all kinds of things

that he was not supposed to do.

- What does it mean to be retarded?

Do they think like we do?

Do they have the same feelings?

And now I'd like you to meet

Emily and Charles Kingsley, Jason's parents.

- He is now reading on a second-grade level.

The child they told us to junk and throw away

is doing second-grade reading, first-grade math.

And he became a bit of a celebrity.

- Meet Jason Kingsley.

You might think Down syndrome hardly gets in his way.

- I was studying sound, electricity, and energy.

- I literally thought, "Well, this is a piece of cake.

"This is-this is really- this is really thrilling,

and they must have been just plain wrong."

- Hi, Jason. - Hi.

- I worked here about 18 years.

I deliver the mail and deliver the packages.

When I work here,

I mostly work independently.

It keeps me learning.

It keeps me on my toes.

I think slowly,

but I'm smart in my own way.

I'm mostly with emotions.

I mean, sometimes I'm happy.

Sometimes I'm a little bit sad.

- You have a great weekend, okay?

- Okay. - See you next time.

- See you next time. - Take care.

- Bye. - Bye.

Basically, I'm just a normal guy.

- Here we go.

- I live with Yaniv...

...and Raymond.

We are The Three Musketeers.

And I like my life now

until something better happens.

- All right.

- You guys good? - Yeah, we're good.

Let's eat.

I do like Jason...

...as a roommate,

As a friend and musketeer.

But he doesn't know how to-- how to juggle between...

...reality and fantasy.

- I painted my room blue.

I've got all blue clothes.

I have a costume.

I wear this, and I wear these pants...

...and I wear this...

...as Queen Elsa.

- He's obsessed with Frozen,

and it gets me crazy all the time.

That's his personality.

- ♪ Let them in, don't let them see ♪

♪ Be the good girl you always have to be ♪

- When I was a kid.

The world revolved around me.

And I was close-minded

until Elsa came and let it go.

- ♪ Let it go, let it go ♪

- She opened my heart.

- ♪ Let it go, let it go ♪

I want to go on a trip to Norway.

Because I know that she's there.

And it feels like that I fell in love with her.

- ♪ The cold never bothered me anyway ♪

- "The cold never bothered me anyway"

That makes me feel happy. That part.

I always do that.

- It has sort of taken over his life,

and it's very difficult

to talk any kind of...

...commonsense to him about it.

But if it gives him comfort and...

What are you gonna do?

- ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday, dear Jason ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

- More blue shirts.

- This is because you've been wearing

your blue clothes a lot.

So, I figured you could use some fresh ones.

- Um, um, I have this stuff already.

I've got already um, um, blue clothes

already color-coordinated.

- Yep.

It was letting go of a dream

when I realized that Jason was gonna be who he is.

We worked so hard and he worked so hard to...

...develop so many skills.

- All for one, and one for all.

- All for one, and one for all.

- He was bright, and he is bright.

And I see him as sort of falling into a lazy,

unchallenging life mode which could stay that way

for years and years and years and years.

And that saddens me.

But, you know, I have to realize

that I am dealing with a child who has a disability.

There are certain limitations that are just built in.

Somebody was asking me today how you feel about

the part of your life when you were so famous,

and you were going around giving speeches

and being a celebrity

as you were showing so many people

what a person with Down syndrome was capable of

and how much you could do.

- I see things now in a different angle,

and I can't go back to who I was.

- Well, do you think that people still look up to you now

and still think that you are somebody to admire?

- No.

- It wasn't until I tried to change who I was

and tried as hard as I possibly could

that I realized that who I was wasn't changeable.

When I was growing up, I'd always been told

nothing matters more than having a family,

and my mother said to me,

"You would be a wonderful father,

and if you make this choice,

you aren't going to have a family,

and I am not going to have any grandchildren."

And of course, it was then seen by lots of people

as a choice.

It wasn't just a different way to be.

It was understood to be a sin and an illness.

Something that was treatable, and it was curable.

And I thought what I have to do

is to get married and have children.

And I thought to myself, how can I get to the point

at which I'm physically capable of doing that.

I said to myself, "I need to change myself",

and I can remember getting copies of Playboy magazine

and trying to sit with them and stare at those women

and trying to get myself to be attracted to them.

And then I read an ad

for something called sexual surrogacy therapy.

And I went to this weird office on 47th Street

and it was this set-up in which there were these people

who you were encouraged to call, "doctors",

and they would sit and talk to you for a little while,

and then you went into another room

with these women you were supposed to call, "surrogates",

and with whom you actually went through sexual exercises.

So, I went through that therapy for months

with those surrogates.

You know, it sort of worked

because I had been terrified

at the idea of having sex with women,

and after that, I wasn't so terrified by it.

But, boy, I was torturing myself.

Taking myself down to that office.

The indignity of the exercises.

All of that. But most of all...

...most of all, it was that belief that...

...it wasn't okay to be who I was,

and that I had to torture myself

to try to be someone else.

There's our doctor.

Okay. Ready? Gotta do more pushin'.

- There's your man.

Hello.

- All the equipment and everything.

He's got all the parts.

Yeah.

Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.

Hey, yellow hood.

Hi, buddy boy. - It's a duck.

- ♪ Happy birthday, dear Jack ♪

- Jack was just such a happy,

crazy little guy

for the first year and a half, two years.

Hey, big boy!

And to look at those videos now

and to see that,

and then go, "Wow, that's gone,

that's never coming back."

It's hard.

- Jack wants to go for a wagon ride.

Bye-bye! Wave, Jackie!

I remember we were outside one day,

and this giant jumbo jet flew overhead.

Jackie!

And I'm like, "Jack, look at the plane."

He didn't look.

- Hey, Jackie, can you wave bye-bye?

No. - He can say bye...

- He wasn't using words.

Jack. Jackie!

You know, I thought maybe it was a hearing thing.

Good morning. - Hey, Jackie.

Hi, Jackie. Merry Christmas.

- And finally, a psychologist came.

- Show me the chair.

Touch your nose.

- That was in January. And by July, we knew...

...he had autism.

- Touch your shoulders.

Touch your shoulders.

- I watched him, and, you know, they'd ask him

to point at the yellow duck and he couldn't do it.

So I thought, "Wow, he...

...he can't even point to a picture."

- ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

- And because he never spoke to us,

I just assumed that he was impaired...

...and that he couldn't understand us.

Give a kiss for Mommy.

- That he had no idea what was going on.

You have to sit in your chair.

Don't tape this.

Wave to Daddy.

- Hey, buddy. - Wave.

- Can you wave? Maybe not.

- And I researched everything,

and we were of the mentality

we're going to do everything we can.

So, we did.

- Train coming.

- Whoa!

- If there was anything out there, we jumped on it.

- Robot!

Robot!

- And we did music therapy

where they're playing Mozart

and while they're doing physical therapy.

- We did allergy testing.

Saw a naturopath.

Chiropractor.

He was eating a gluten-free, dairy-free diet,

so I was having to shop at specialty stores.

- And he had hyperbaric oxygen therapy

where you go and sit in

a high-pressure oxygen tank with a--

He's got like, a spaceman hood on.

We were doing homeopathy at the time

with a group out in Texas.

- Of course, he wouldn't take pills at that time,

so we had to put it in this awful little slurry

and get it into him and mix it with juice,

and it was just real time-consuming

and horrifically expensive.

- Here it is! Who is it?

- And we spent years on speech therapy.

We thought that he should talk.

We talk, so he needs to learn how to talk.

But he was so angry and so frustrated.

Nothing worked.

- As he got older, it became

scratching and pinching.

Have a seat.

And he would routinely hit me.

And the more you touch your nose...

And I was angry with him when he would attack us.

It's hard not to take it personally.

Have a seat, Jack.

And I didn't know how to help him.

And I thought, "My God, this is our life."

I blamed it on everything.

I blamed it on the medicine that I was on

when I was pregnant.

I blamed it on the bed rest.

I blamed it on my health,

like, maybe I wasn't as healthy as I could have been

when I was pregnant with him.

I blamed myself for all of it.

Like I caused it.

- The sun gives us heat.

H-E-A-T, "heat."

- So, in Austin, we walk into a room

and this short little lady walks in,

and doesn't really talk to us,

and then, she just started talking to Jack.

- Heat.

Or cold. C-O-L-D, "cold."

Heat or cold?

Yes.

Heat.

The sun gives us heat.

- And it was four days.

She had a stack of paper and a couple of pencils.

And she had templates with letters cut out,

and three of them,

and she showed him how to take the pencil

and point to the letter.

So, she kind of walked him through the first couple.

- You're going to find it.

F-A-B-C-D-E.

- And then she started asking questions,

and then she would answer. She'd say the word.

She'd write the word,

and then she'd get him to spell it.

We're thinking, okay, this-this is... this is good.

Almost a parlor trick, but that's fine.

- Then she started to ask more abstract questions.

- This Thanksgiving. Tell me anything about it.

"J" to "O".

- It was a very tedious, long process.

"M".

"A". M-A-S-H.

"Mash potatoes," yeah.

What about the pumpkin pie?

"N"

You don't like the pumpkin pie?

You're not quite fond of it? Okay.

Enough with pumpkin pie.

- We were off and running,

asking him all kinds of questions about, you know.

What-- Do you like sports?

What's your favorite sport?

And he wanted a blue basketball.

- Basketball would be a very good idea.

- Now she got our attention.

Then she said, "Jack just can't control his body,

but you've got to keep going.

You have to just talk to him and you've got to ignore this.

This is him. His body has taken over.

You've just got to work through it."

You know, toward the end of the week,

he was exhausted.

He was having a huge tantrum. Huge.

And she was saying, "What's the matter, Jack?

Let's talk about it. What's the matter?"

- Now, you tell me.

Any word.

- And through his rage, he started spelling letters

with the stencils.

He typed out,

"I am trying, and I am really smart."

And then, Jack was perfectly quiet.

He was like, "I finally got it out

after all these years."

- And that was...

That was-that was the moment where I just went,

"My God, he's in there!"

- I couldn't believe it.

It was like I was meeting him for the first time.

Like...

...my gosh, you're real?

- I can hear it better than lots of people.

But I am sensitive to many noises

that most people can't really hear.

It sounds like a crazy, very loud combination

of buzzing and voices.

- It's got a nice tone to it.

Hey, that's a pretty disappointing one.

These plastic ones aren't so good.

They don't make much noise.

- I am Jack Allnut.

I am 13.

I don't talk.

I type.

I...

...try...

...to...

...talk.

I try to talk.

I can't. It is too hard.

- And I'm like, what were you eating?

What were you eating? Repeat it.

- I picked up Italian food. I forgot the pizza.

I knew I was in trouble. I turned around,

and I saw that light go off behind me...

- It's definitely easier for us...

...but I'm not living in his body.

I don't go through what he goes through every day.

He still will pinch and scratch when he's frustrated.

- That's your water right over there. See it?

That's for you. And you'll be able to get...

Then you can tell me what's bothering you.

Can you sit down?

But I can communicate with him.

As a mom, that's all I needed.

I just needed to know what's going on inside your head.

I... want...

I want lots of cookies.

- You had, like...

- You had that huge rice bar. - You had an Oreo and...

- I know how that is. You know what?

I'll definitely let you have one for dinner.

- So, Jack, why do you wear ear buds all the time?

They are noise-canceling.

- Can I ask you another question, Jack?

- Can she ask you another question, Jack?

Yeah?

You've got to tell your story.

Mh-

Can you do one more question?

He said yes.

- He said yes?

- Mh- - Okay.

Um, can you describe what it feels like

for you to not be able to talk?

H-E...

- Keep going.

You're doing great.

E-E-L.

- You're doing great. Awesome.

I-N-G.

Feeling like...

- The feeling is like...

A-A-T...

- Mh-

I-G...

- Keep going. Great.

E.

- Good.

- R. - Mh-Keep going.

Tiger.

I-M-A...

- Great - A...

A...

C-A...

- Look-look right at that letter. so you get it right.

G-E dot.

The feeling is like a tiger in a cage.

- How's it going? Hey, shut the gate.

And you do the lock.

Tell me about your day.

All right, guys, listen.

Let's talk about football real quick.

Share the ball today.

Make sure everybody's getting passes.

Know who your center is.

Know who your quarterback is.

You're going down and out towards the out-of-bounds line.

That's a good pattern.

Come on, man.

On a day-to-day basis, I'm his facilitator.

Keep-keep working. Keep working.

Okay.

So, I just help him type

and help him with anything else he needs throughout the day.

- Boys in my school,

they say mean things.

- Do you think he knows?

- Does he know what? - That their filming him.

- Yeah, he knows they're filming him.

Does he know they're filming him?

You've seen him talk. He types.

Why would he not know?

- 'Cause he's autistic.

- He knows everything that y'all know.

Did y'all get straight A's last semester?

- I got 2 B's. - He got straight A's.

- For a long time, I'd thought that being gay

was something you could make the best of,

but that gay relationships were in some basic way

lesser than straight relationships.

I had realized that I couldn't fix the fact that I was gay,

but I still regretted it.

And there was a piece of me that felt broken,

and the idea that you could accept or even celebrate

the forms of your brokenness

didn't come to me until a great deal later

when the world around me changed.

Gay rights!

- Two, four, six, eight, God does not discriminate!

- The shift that has taken place

over the course of the last 40 years or so

has been of a scale that is almost unimaginable.

And I became fascinated by the process

through which that happened.

How did we get from there to here,

and how did something that was understood to be an illness

come, instead, to be an identity?

And that was what drove my investigation.

And having lived to see my supposed defect

come to be celebrated.

I wondered whether defectiveness itself

might be all a matter of perspective,

and if it's possible for the illness of homosexuality

to turn into the identity of gayness,

and what other instances

might the world's point of view change?

How do we decide

what to cure and what to celebrate?

- Hey, I know you! You're on TV!

Big fan, big fan!

I am, too!

- I'm 23.

But I guess, in a way, I don't feel like an adult.

My brother and sister, they're very protective,

but they don't know what it's like to be me.

They don't really quite understand

as much as they think they do.

- I come home every day at lunch

just to check up on her,

um, because I know that she gets bored.

She gets depressed sometimes.

She wants to go to work.

She wants to drive a car,

but I can't afford a special car for her.

- I would like to, you know, go out more...

...travel maybe.

You know, maybe someday have a boyfriend.

Never dated.

Nope.

Still single.

- So, do you want any make-up?

Make you look like...

- I'm fine.

- Don't be mean.

What pants are you wearing?

All right.

They're clean? - Yes, Mom.

You're smelling my pants. That's gross!

- Just checking to make sure. - They're clean.

- Okay. Iron your hair?

- No, I'm not ironing my hair.

- Curling? - No.

- You want me to curl it?

- No.

- I can curl it.

You'll have curls. - I don't want to.

- This is a lot of work.

- That's why I said, "no", but you didn't listen.

Growing up...

...I never really knew that people like me

existed in the world.

I saw them on TV,

but I've never met any up close or in person.

So, I'm curious...

Wondering...

...is there anybody out there like me?

- Hi. - Hi.

- Hi. We're here to register.

Register? All right.

- It is your first time. Awesome.

That's exciting.

Let's see what you signed up for.

Small tee shirt, a group photo,

and two trivia night tickets.

And are you entering the fashion show?

- No.

- You should. It's so much fun.

It'll be a great way to meet other people

around your age, too.

- Who's excited for a great show tonight?

Miss Stephanie Brandon.

Jasmine!

Next we have Michelle Crowe.

And now we have Christian!

Next we have Loini and Maddie!

- All right, girls, high five!

Whoa, missed that five!

Got mine! You guys did it!

You guys look great!

You're so awesome.

- I met my friend Mads...

...and she's my age, a little bit younger,

but she's in the same boat as I am.

- My gosh!

- I'm a-I'm usually a three.

- I have toe rings and they fit perfectly.

- It was wonderful finding someone who's like you.

It's awesome.

I found my first friend who could understand me.

So...

...it felt great.

- There is no tiredness right now.

- If you're a dwarf,

it doesn't matter what you do.

Everybody is probing you.

Everybody is looking at you,

making a judgment about you.

Oscar Wilde said a person's real life

is often the life he cannot lead,

and I think when you come to a place like this

for little people, you get to lead the life

you were born to lead.

You don't necessarily get to lead that life

once you step away from these walls.

I think people come to these meetings to be validated.

I think people come to these meetings to be heard.

I think they come to be seen.

And then I think they come to disappear.

- ...To make the message broader

and more complete...

- We want to talk about next steps going forward,

and what they want from us

is for us to be comfortable with what they're doing,

and specifically, these drug treatments

for people with achondroplasia.

And that really kind of sent this message

that created this visceral reaction

within some of our membership.

- We are the only ones that can advocate for ourselves

and let people know

that difference in the genetic world is valuable,

and we have built a community that thrives,

and saying we know how you want to perceive us,

but we want you to know

there's this other alternative.

I think this drug is going to profoundly change things,

and it was kind of an idyllic world.

And we just had dwarf pride that we were trying to manifest,

and we finally got there.

Like, we got pretty close.

Like, where we really felt as a community

pretty good about ourselves,

and then this comes up

and just throws everything on its ear,

and it's a-- it's a brave new world.

- I feel like they present something to the media

and then we might say what we say

and then it's like, "İsn't that sweet?"

Personally, I'm very against the idea

that someone is researching

to find a cure for my type of dwarfism.

- ...is that it's all about...

- It's the same message, every day our whole lives

that there's something wrong with you

and we need to fix it.

I don't think I need to be fixed.

Watch this. Watch, watch.

Bah!

Hi.

How was your meeting?

- Good. - That's good.

Hey. - Hi, there.

- How's it goin'? - Good.

- You got your new shirt. - I'm wearin' my new shirt.

Figured I'd get away with it.

Tyrion Lannister, right?

- Joe and I met back in the days of MySpace.

I had seen his MySpace page,

and I read everything he wrote on there,

and he didn't just write "My name's Joe."

He wrote, like, his entire political beliefs

about every topic that you can imagine.

So, I'm reading it one night and I was like,

"Holy smokes, this guy is fascinating",

and I made, like, this mental note,

I'm gonna meet him.

Like, that was all there was to it.

I want to meet this guy.

So, I knew I was interested in him immediately.

And then, kind of took us a while.

It took us two years before we got serious.

- Where's the light?

Ha!

- We dated for four years, and then we got married.

- No? Okay. No hat?

- You should take your hat off for tonight. - Okay.

- ...Perhaps a shower or thunderstorm.

High of 87 degrees.

Thursday will be very steamy.

A high of 92 and partly sunny,

but also some scattered showers and thunderstorms...

- I had dated some average-height people

and tried to stay open-minded about it,

but I just found that they didn't get me,

and I don't know that there's anyone that gets me

the way he does.

I love his dwarfism.

That's something that we say, like, "I liked your ism."

- Coffee improves my quality of life.

- Yeah.

You know, there are certain characteristics involved

with every type of dwarfism,

and for achondroplasia, it's having bigger hips.

And so Joe will walk up to me in a public space

and whisper in my ear, "I liked your ism,"

meaning he likes my ass.

- I like big butts and I cannot lie.

- I think there is this cultural understanding

that when you see people like me,

the core of the experience is negative.

And when people have very low expectations, it's--

It's surprising to them when I indicate somehow

that I'm not suffering.

And here is the dwarf in his natural habitat.

He is taking his afternoon meal.

Hi, Gram!

How's everything?

- I'm fine. How are you?

- I'm all right.

You look good, Gram.

- You look great yourself.

- Thank you.

- If I didn't know better,

I'd think you were up to no good.

You've been practicing. You have, haven't you?

I have not!

- Are you making presentations?

- In Houston, it's gonna be on disability,

environmentalism, and gender.

- Well, that's the newest thing now, right?

- I don't think gender is new. It's been around a while.

- That's not what she's talking about, Joseph.

- Don't they-- Isn't that--

- You talking about transgender?

- Yeah. - That's--Well--

- That's not the same?

- Gender is just gender in general, right?

Transgender is one variation on that.

- We're very proud of him.

I mean, he's got a nice job, a nice wife, and his Phd.

- Don't even ask me what he teaches

because it's over my head.

But what does he teach?

- Philosophy of some sort.

- "Most people seem to take it for granted

"that disability is a bad thing,

"and it's openly endorsed by many philosophers,

"bioethicists, and public intellectuals

"who favor the reduction or elimination

of disability from human experience."

"These differences, if visible or known,

"will often play a subtle or not-so-subtle role

"in shaping the character

of one's interactions with others."

- So, um,

I understand that you are interested

in achieving a pregnancy.

- Yes! Sounds good to me. - Okay!

- First, I want you to tell me...

how old are you?

- 34. - 34.

- Do you smoke?

- No.

- Drink? - No.

- And how many times have you been pregnant?

- Once.

- Okay. Tell me about that last pregnancy.

- It was a year ago almost exactly.

We miscarried at seven weeks.

- Okay.

So, was there an ultrasound done?

- They diagnosed the miscarriage

with an ultrasound. Yeah.

Okay.

An ultrasound is what you need done between

11 and 14 weeks.

That's where we offer every pregnant patient

a risk assessment for genetic abnormalities.

- You know, whether or not the baby will be born

with a disability, it is-- yeah, yeah.

Of course it's something we've thought about somewhat.

- We can arrange for a specific counseling

from the genetic standpoint.

- It's certainly something that the doctors

talk about a lot, right.

- IVF and PGD, those are certainly

some options to test the embryo.

- You know, I think they see normality as the end goal

and just sort of assuming that,

normality is what any parent would want for their child.

- I really want a child.

I would say that it's probably like the most basic

evolutionary like, thing I've ever felt

of I just want a kid!

I think that every parent has a desire

for their ideal child.

You know, like some people think, "I really want a girl."

But if they have a boy, it's not the end of the world.

So, I have a desire to have a little person,

but if we had an average-sized child,

I think I will still get it on a level

because I understand what it's like to be different

than your family.

- No leaves on the trees yet. - Not yet.

- In a couple of weeks, they'll be there.

This is the forest primeval.

- I'm not sure this is quite the forest primeval.

I think there's been a lot of civilization imposed on this.

When I was 27,

my mother died of ovarian cancer.

And my sense of loss about my mother

not having lived long enough to come to a real

and full acceptance was enormous.

My father had seen me go through years

of being alone,

and through a serious depression.

- You can't relive what happened before,

the tragedies that you've had.

The difficulties you've had in growing up are past,

and you're very successful. So feel very blessed.

We don't have everything.

We don't have your mother, but we have a very good life.

- I used to confuse love and acceptance,

and through this whole process, I felt unloved by my parents.

But as I went along, meeting all of these people

and hearing their stories, I found that everyone who

has kids has kids with flaws and problems,

and nobody goes around saying,

"I'd like to turn my kids in for a better model."

You love your children.

It isn't really up to you.

They just have come along and changed you.

- Every mother in the world would understand

that a mother can't just stop loving a child.

We just didn't see this coming.

Hey. Renting the truck.

- Derrick Grace.

Yeah, Derrick Grace.

- Are you guys moving into a home or apartment or...

- Actually, we moved from here to Texas.

But we left a few things back in the shed,

so we're going to be clearing all of that out.

- God!

- What?

- Shh...

- Lots and lots of pictures.

There's Trevor. Our undefeated U-12 team.

- Yeah. He still had his braces.

- These are all Trevor. Trevor driving his Jeep.

Here's the journal. There you go.

Take those pages out, and save it.

- You know, that's all?

- What? - There wasn't too much.

- I think the cops took a lot of the other stuff.

I was at work and I got a call from the sheriff,

and he said, you know, there's been a crime.

He said it was Trevor,

and so I'm thinking there's been some teenage thing.

He's had a wreck. He's vandalized something.

A squad car comes up and the deputy says,

"You're Mr. Reese?" and I said, "Yes."

He says, "Okay, come on. Let's go."

He didn't tell me anything.

It was just like, "Come on, we're gonna go."

We went in,

and that's when they tell me that a child

has been killed and that, um,

you know, that Trevor did it.

And of course, I say, "You've got it all wrong.

I want you to take me to see my son."

But of course, you know, as soon as you see him

that the worst has happened,

and it is not going to be okay.

Trevor got up that morning.

He went out on the trail where we lived,

and he waited until 8-year-old Jackson came by,

and then he slit his throat.

- Trevor was 16.

The first time I saw him

after I found out, he was shackled,

and in prison stripes.

And we couldn't touch him.

He was like, "I don't know why I did this."

- Everybody was trying to figure out, you know,

what went wrong and why--

why would a kid, you know, think like this.

You know, because we raise our kids better that that up here.

- I don't think that there's gonna

be an issue of responsibility.

I think it's gonna be an issue of what is his competency

and his understanding and his mental status.

- There were three psychiatrists, psychologists

that we payed for, and there were

two psychiatrists from the state.

And they did everything.

Scans and stuff for schizophrenia.

They ran the test for sociopath, psychopath,

the serial killer test.

You know, all those kinda of issues.

I kept thinking that one of those tests was going to say,

you know, here's the ha. But there wasn't.

All they gave us was, "Yeah, your son is broken."

- Some justice tonight for the parents of a murdered

St. Francisville boy.

Trevor Reese will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

- Trevor pled guilty to murder.

- Today is a very special day. It is Trevor's birthday.

So, what we're going to do is on the count of three,

we're going to sing as loud as we can

"Happy Birthday" to Trevor, okay?

One, two, and three.

- ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday Dear Trevor ♪

- What was your favorite part of the day?

- Riding Space Mountain.

- All right!

- Let's give Trevor a nice round of applause, okay?

- All right.

- You literally go back to when they were

in the cradle, and you wonder if you let him cry too long

when you were trying to teach them to sleep.

Should you have breastfed longer?

I mean, you ask every question in the world.

You ask yourself everything,

and you keep coming back to...

...this happened.

And we can't fix it.

- That first month or two,

I could have run straight on the street hoping to get run over.

I thought, well, if I died,

then that would help atone for the other death.

But...

there is no reconciling on this issue.

These is no magic.

There's not a point.

You'll just carry the guilt with you forever.

Whoa, good tackle!

- You should take the trash out.

- The trash doesn't come today.

- But it's Saturday. It comes on Saturdays.

It doesn't come on Sundays.

- No. It doesn't come Fridays or Saturdays. - It's your turn.

- We moved to Texas.

- What kind of world are we living in?

I don't know--

- Rebecca and Tyler, what are you all doin'?

Sometimes people ask me if I have children,

and I will say yes,

I have an 18-year-old son in college

and a sophomore in high school.

And I don't mention Trevor.

It's just, you know, a matter of not wanting to get into it,

but not wanting to be dishonest.

- Welcome, welcome! - Hi.

- I'd get up, but I'm trapped!

- When you try to tell somebody,

it just never goes well.

You know, your son killed an 8-year old.

There's nothing redeeming about that,

and therefore, if that has happened in your family,

then there must be something wrong with your family,

your parenting, your whatever.

Like, Tyler and Rebecca both said,

neither one of them want to have kids.

Because they don't want... they're afraid.

- I saw it like, tear Mom and Dad apart,

and I don't want to have to deal with that myself.

I don't think I have that in me.

- Everything with Trevor was like so out of the blue,

and I feel like my parents did everything right,

and then it just happened.

Like, I would be afraid that that would happen to me.

You know, I could work as hard as I could

and love them as much as I could,

and then something would still go wrong.

- This is a call from an offender

at a Louisiana Department of Correction facility.

- What baby?

- It'd be a volunteer thing or like a part time job?

- I think it would be a next career,

like, somewhere along the way,

I'm going to be too old to teach,

and maybe I should counsel or...

- Are you sure?

There are some pretty old ladies that do that.

- When does it start? And how long is it?

- It starts this summer.

- You have one minute left.

- Alright, mom. I'll call tomorrow. Alright?

- I'm gonna leave Dad alone.

I talked to him yesterday and the day before. - Yeah. All right. Just...

All right. Love you.

He says your sister's game is tied 1-1 at the half.

- Yay. Love you. - Love you too. Bye-bye.

- The caller has hung up.

- Did you all buy some biscuits or no?

- Biscuits.

There's the chicken.

Can he have chicken scraps?

No.

Yes, you got tender tummy.

- In these past six years,

I'd say we're much tighter and closer...

All right. I'm here. I'm here.

- ...but we're afraid to expect too much.

Because... we've lost so much.

- There was a time where

I felt like everything was a lie.

Every family vacation picture I would look at,

I felt like, here I was, thinking we were happy,

and you were so miserable.

It just felt like every time you and I laughed together

was a lie.

I was really angry.

I took this picture when I went to see him Saturday.

Isn't that cute?

- That is cute.

When did Trevor get glasses?

Um...

- A couple months ago.

- But...

You love your children.

You don't get to choose to love them, you know.

You love them.

- ♪ On the 12th day of Christmas ♪

♪ My true love gave to me ♪

♪ 12 drummers drumming ♪

- ♪ 11 pipers piping ♪

- ♪ 10 lords a-leaping ♪

- ♪ 9 ladies dancing ♪

- ♪ 8 maids a-milking ♪

- ♪ 7 swans a-swimming ♪

- ♪ 6 geese a-laying ♪

- ♪ 5 golden rings ♪

- Hi.

- Hi.

- You look beautiful.

- Thank you.

- He still talks a lot about

the loss of his dad.

When Charles died, Jason nosedived.

Jason was not showering and not shaving,

and not eating properly, and was wondering around town

in the middle of the night, and it was a nightmare.

And um...

I have to, you know, put a whole lot of things

into place about my own mortality.

I've made financial preparations,

arranged for a co-guardian,

but um...

I don't want to think about it.

- You know, when we went to the hospital

and when we saw...

...when we saw him before he died,

in-in my heart, that-that really hurts.

Well, the best thing that you can do

is try to remember the best you can...

the good parts, the fun parts,

and the important things that he taught you.

- How do I feel about Elsa in the mix...

just because I have um...

I have a feeling because I have a crush on her,

even though I know she's a fictional character?

- So that's okay. That's all right.

You want to feel very, very attached

and very, very close to somebody

who's not going to leave you.

- I do want to go to that trip to Norway to find out

what's gonna happen.

- Going to Norway is not going to make her any more real.

It's like Santa Claus.

You know, you tell kids, well, Santa Claus comes

and brings presents on Christmas Eve,

and kids believe that.

- I still believe in it.

- In your heart, you know he's coming.

It's a spirit.

- Well...

- I always believe in that. - Okay.

Okay.

- Sometimes I wish I didn't have Down Syndrome.

I wouldn't gone to college, I would've drove...

...I would've gotten married.

But it's sort of like the movie, It's a Wonderful Life.

What happens if I wasn't born?

I wouldn't have met my roommates.

If I said hello to them it would be as strangers.

We wouldn't be friends. It would be erased.

It would all be erased if I decided

to wish I didn't have Down Syndrome.

So, um, I may have to... um...

So, I may have to stick to what I have.

- We not having any Splenda but we do have Sweet & Low.

- We can use that.

Careful with this.

Careful with this because of the side effect.

You have to be careful with that.

- What's the side effect?

- Cancer.

- Delicious.

- 19 Years at the same job.

I'm getting old.

- If you're getting old, I'm getting old, too.

- We-we all are.

- The three of us,

we've made 13 years in this house.

- Big number.

- 13 Years in this house.

We've always found ways to get along.

- Exactly, we always do.

Isn't that right, Jason?

- It's not just how we get along.

It's about, um...

I sort of like lost the word.

What I'm trying to say is that we became...

...we became something.

What?

Friends.

- Deeper than that.

How much deeper?

Family? - Family. Thank you, Ray.

That we became a family

because we've been living in this house.

- I think we should be officially a family of friends.

All for one and one for all.

All for one and one for all.

- Yeah.

- Sorry, I'm getting a little emotional.

It's all right. Nothing happening.

Yeah.

Hi, Jack. How are you?

You ready? Have a seat right here.

So, remember when you were here last time,

we talked about you were going to do the clear braces.

- Okay. - Okay.

Good job.

A-I-G-H-T

So, are my teeth always going to be straight?

You'll have a retainer that you'll have to wear

and that will keep them straight.

So yes. As long as you wear your retainer,

your teeth will always be straight.

- Do you have a further question

or does that clarify that?

- G-I-E...

Girls here.

I-C-O-M-E

Girls, here I come!

Yeah, man. Girls, watch out!

- He will come again into glory

to judge the living and the dead,

and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead

and the life in the world to come.

Amen.

- He is not what we thought

he was going to be and he's not like us at all.

This looks great. Can you close your mouth?

That's it. Right there.

Both hands up here. We're gonna scrub. Ready?

I tell him, "You're not normal,

but that's not so bad.

Normal is pretty average, and you're well above average.

I mean, you are..."

He is he's abnormal in a really good way.

T-H-E...

The.

- P-E P-R-E

Okay.

My best friend is Grant.

He lives the damn autistic life like me.

A Lost Boy plateaus in his autistic mind.

A Real Boy has a future, like anyone else.

The day was awesome 'cause I was with my tribe.

- You holdin' it together?

- Try not to act awkward. - What?

- Try not to act awkward.

- I'm not gonna act awkward. I'm smooth.

Leah, how tall are you?

- 3' 11" and a half.

The half's real important.

Make sure you get that on there.

- All right. Then we're going to

go right down the hallway to the ultrasound room.

- Now, I know you had one miscarriage in the past.

Do you know how far along you were at that...?

- Seven weeks. - Seven weeks. Okay.

I'm just gonna take a peek here.

- Is there a heartbeat?

- That's the heartbeat. Yeah.

That is so amazing.

Look at that fired-up shear.

Most people don't get a minivan until after

they've had kids.

That's not why we've got a minivan.

So, we figured that we'd

give you an advanced Christmas present.

So, Mom and Dad, can you open that?

What's this?

- Is that what I think it is?

Is that an ult-?

I'm so happy!

God bless you!

- Hey, Mom.

I know you can't make anything out there, but...

- There's not much there. - There's not much there yet.

- I can see it. Yeah.

There is the head. There's an arm. There's a leg.

I think I could even see a nose.

- Geez, Mom!

- You think, Ma?

- There's a lot to think about now.

- Yeah. It's gonna be a journey.

I, John, take you, Andrew...

I, John, take you, Andrew...

To be my lifelong partner.

To be my lifelong partner.

To have and to hold.

To have and to hold.

From this day forward.

From this day forward.

- All of us, every one of us

has mountains that we have to climb,

and we have to do it.

We have to climb those mountains

if we want our ultimate fulfillment.

And the reason I'm telling you this is because

no one knows better than I do.

Andrew has had his mountains to climb.

Difficult mountains to climb.

I could wish no more for you, Andrew and John,

than a marriage such as I had with Andrew's mother,

only longer.

Thank you.

- I think I had grown up with

a sense that there was a right way to be.

- We hereby make our assault on conventional morality!

- Writing the book set me free.

It broke me finally out of that particular narrowness

that had been inscribed in my childhood.

And it gave me the courage to have a family

in a different way from the way I'd imagined growing up.

You have a sword and you have a fishing rod.

That seems very appropriate.

- And I've got a fishing rod with bait on it.

- What's the bait?

That little bit of seaweed.

Do you think there are fish in this water?

I don't know.

I don't know either.

George, let's go and put on your pajamas please.

Pajamas, please.

George, pajamas.

I tend to find the ecstasy hidden in ordinary joys

because I did not expect those joys to be ordinary to me.

- This is book five, right? - Right.

- The first chapter is called,

"How Shasta Set Out on His Travels."

Chapter 15 is called, "Rabadash the Ridiculous."

- Okay. Shall we start reading the book?

- Yup.

- Would you like me to read it to you?

- Yes. Who is Shasta anyway?

- Well, we'll find out. - I guess we're gonna find out.

- "This is the story of an adventure that happened

in Narnia and Calormen and the lands between them."

John and I have a big, spectacular family.

John is the biological father of two children

with some lesbian friends in Minneapolis.

My best friend from college and I decided we'd like to

have a child, and so we have a daughter.

And then John and I have a son George

who lives with us full-time.

And when we had George, our surrogate was Laura,

the mother of John's two biological children.

So, there are six parents of four children in three states.

You know, Tolstoy said,

"All happy families are the same.

Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

And I used to think that might be true.

But actually, I think a lot of unhappiness is quite similar,

and that what's remarkable is that all of the different ways

people find to be happy.

- You ready, Freddy?

- Louisiana Department of Corrections facility.

- Hi, buddy.

Jamie stop. Don't walk away from your father.

- Here in reality.

Everyone is different.

Different opinions, tastes, personalities, and beliefs.

- Cheers!

- Hello.

- Hey, sweetie. - Hello.

- Hey, you've got everybody.

Rebecca and Tyler, and your Dad, and me.

- Hello everybody.

- At each sonogram,

they take measurements of the baby.

- And so, we've been told by the doctors that it's likely

to be average height.

And so, whether it's dwarf or average size,

we're gonna love any child that shows up.

- I always like to put a percentage to it.

I would say at least a 40 percent chance

that it's a little person.

- Where did you get that number?

- I just made it up.

Here's your little girl.

She was born exactly at 8:30 on the dot.

As I always predicted.

- You better get used to being held

because she's gonna hold you a lot.

- And spend lots of time together.

Hi, little one.

- Being a grandma is wonderful. isn't it?

Yes.

Hi, Hazel.

That's my daughter.

- Yeah.

- I'm still in shock.

♪ I'm put together beautifully ♪

♪ Big wet bottle in my fists ♪

♪ Big wet rose in my teeth ♪

♪ I'm a perfect piece of ass like every Californian ♪

♪ So tall I take over the street ♪

♪ With high-beams shining on my back ♪

♪ A wingspan unbelievable ♪

♪ I'm a festival I'm a parade ♪

♪ And all the wine is all for me ♪

♪ And all the wine is all for me ♪

♪ And all the wine is all for me ♪

♪ I'm a birthday candle in a circle of black girls ♪

♪ God is on my side ♪

♪ Cause I'm the child bride ♪

♪ I'm so sorry but the motorcade ♪

♪ Will have to go around me this time ♪

♪ 'Cause God is on my side ♪

♪ And I'm the child bride ♪

♪ And all the wine is all for me ♪

♪ And all the wine is all for me ♪

♪ And all the wine is all for me ♪

♪ I carry the dollhouse safe on my shoulders ♪

♪ Through the black city ♪

♪ Nightlight's are on in the corners ♪

♪ And everyone's sleeping upstairs ♪

♪ All safe and sound ♪

♪ All safe and sound ♪

♪ I won't let the psychos around ♪

♪ All safe and sound ♪

♪ I won't let the psychos around ♪

♪ I'm in a state, I'm in a state ♪

♪ Nothing can touch us, my love ♪

♪ I'm in a state, I'm in a state ♪

♪ Nothing can touch us, my love ♪