Austin was born with Pfeiffer Syndrome, a premature fusion of the skull resulting in an abnormally shaped head. He's grown up being ridiculed for his appearance, and dealt with the relational and emotional struggles that come with it.
His mother, Shellie, tells a story when she, her husband Jeff, and Austin were at a fast food restaurant. It was crowded, and Shellie asked Austin to go sit and reserve a table for them. As she and Jeff were ordering their food, she looked back and saw that some kids had gathered around Austin and began making fun of him.
The kids would put their fingers in their mouths and make gagging noises and other rude gestures, looking back at their parents who would join in the laughter making fun of this little boy. Shellie felt the rage well up inside of her. She was furious.
As Shellie came over, the dad got up to get his little girl. "I'm sorry," he said, unabashedly so. "We're leaving."
Shellie responded with the usual, "It's okay, it's okay," trying to calm her nerves. She just wanted them to go away. She'd experienced this before. But on this occasion, a certain calmness came over her.
In that calmness, she spoke back up and said, "No, what you've done is inexcusable, and you should be ashamed of yourself."
She looked down at the little girl who had just been making fun of her son. She was looking up at Shellie with these big, surprised eyes. Shellie asked her, "Do you believe in God?"
"Yes," the little girl said.
"Tonight, before you go to bed," Shellie said, "I want you to take your dad's hands, and both of you get down on your knees, and I want you to thank the good Lord above that you have not had to go through what this little boy has had to go through."
Now 15 years old, Austin is receiving today what is supposed to be the last of his major reconstructive surgeries. In high school, he runs cross-country and track because it helps him to feel normal; so do his friends and his loving family. Despite his circumstance, he still believes in God and trusts that He is sovereign.
Perhaps, you could pray that Austin's surgery today goes well and he doesn't have to continue to hide behind his hat and sunglasses to look normal. You can serve Austin and other children who had to go through what he did by teaching kids to accept each other no matter what, embracing children who are different.
Do you know anybody who has had similar experiences? Have you encountered someone with a disability? How did you react to them?
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Comments (9)
Ownage! XD That there is one cool mother. If only all parents could stick up for their children like that, and not be ashamed instead...
As a kid I was bullied, too-- someone always ends up being bullied, somehow-- but I didn't feel as helpless as that boy probably did. I was teased for my personality while dear Austin here was teased for something he had no power over. It sounds like Austin was strengthened by such experiences, however, and I hope he now knows that God made him into such a vase for a reason.
Yes, I know a person with a disability. I'm quite close friends with her. :D
We have a boy with autism in our Sunday school. He's chronologically a third grader, I think, but he's still in the 2's and 3's nursery; we tried transitioning him to the 5-8 year old class, but that didn't work. He comes with an aid, and the preschoolers get along with him really well. It's always interesting to see how the little guys can sometimes be more compassionate than the grown-ups.
This made me tear up. I hope the surgery goes well.
Excellent. You know we are a family of disabilities...some seen and some unseen. It amazes me how cruel people can be to each other.
In the town I live in, there are a lot of conflicts between kids and with kids doing things they shouldn't. However, in the school even the cruelest students are very nice, helpful and supportive of the special needs and "different" students.
Growing up, I always thought people being picked on because they were "different" like this, or had special needs, was just something that you saw on television and in movies, and read in Reader's Digest, to make things sound more dramatic and interesting, because I just never saw that kind of thing happening in my own school.
However, that doesn't mean no one was picked on. I was bullied a lot, but it took me years to realize it was just the insecurities of the bullies and not because something was "different" about me.
It would've been nicer if those students were as nice, helpful and supportive of EVERYone as they were to the "different" or special needs students, but I don't ever ask for perfection from human beings. Especially human beings that young.
Still, this recount of events is very touching. Hopefully that little girl and her parents learned something that day.
Kids will be kids, that's true. But, when the parents are sitting right there and condoning the behavior, rather than trying to correct it, that's when the real problems set in, if you ask me. :/ You can't always expect children to know the right thing to do, or to fight the temptation to act like little brats, especially if there is a crowd of kids doing it, but you should always be able to expect the parents to step up and tell the kids to knock it off, explain to them why its the wrong thing to do, and then punish them if they don't listen.
Truthfully, at this point in my young life, I wasn't too surprised to hear that the kids were making fun of the little boy. Although, I was a little surprised that they would do it in a restaurant, especially a fast food restaurant where its usually very easy for parents to see what their kids or what the kids of other parents are doing. But, then when it was described that the parents were condoning it by laughing along with their children, that explained to me immediately why. If the parents were doing that, it was sending a message to their children that it was okay to do it, that it was acceptable behavior.
Yes, what a terrible thing let happen to another little child, but what a terrible thing you do to your own children when you condone such behavior in them. Looking the other way is terrible in itself when your children do that, both for the one being picked on and for the ones doing the picking, but actually showing your children that bad behavior is good behavior is a whole new level of bad parenting. >_<
I never understood how someone could do something so mean to someone else, and then in the next breath answer, "yes," to the question of whether they believe in God. Perhaps the little girl didn't know any better (and no wonder, with the parents acting like that), but the parents did for sure. There is no excuse for that.
I hope that that little girl and her father took that mother's advice.
Wow, I wrote a book. O.o Sorry! I didn't mean to write so much.
Makes me think of the "Butterfly Circus." If you haven't seen it, you should.
Look for it at the doorpost.com
The behavior of these kids is sickening, but not quite as disgusting as the parents who joined their kids in causing this boy so much pain and humiliation. I know I was picked on for being different (black, fat, buck-toothed), but I was pointing fingers and laughing at the kids with special needs right alongside the ones who would make fun of me. It saddens me to think of what an asshole I was (sorry for the language, but I can't think of an appropriate word that has the right connotation for what a terrible human being I was as a child). I pray that if the Lord grants me children, they'll be better kids than I was.
I want to applaud Shellie's response. It shows amazing mercy that she told the little girl to pray, not to ask God to forgive her for being a rotten little child (as I imagine I would have), but to teach that girl to be appreciative that she never got the treatment that she had been given.
I'll be praying for Austin's surgery and for other kids like him who have to endure the wrath of their peers.
This is touching, but I don't understand how it relates to embracing children.
@danielle_thexdino@xanga - it would seem the questions added by Revelife have little to do with the Title.
I went to school with a girl who was minimally mentally handicapped, and had moderate physical deformity. She walked with a limp, had very crooked teeth, spoke with a lisp, her hygenie was poor, and scholastically she never did too well. She played the flute. She attended special ed classes, spent time trying to learn to walk straight with assistance of the P.E. coach. And she also knew how to manipulate the teachers, administrators, counselors, and others, and got a lot of preferential treatment because of her "disabilities". She knew how to manipulate more popular girls, so she went places, got rides etc. She became sort of their "pet". The class beauties let her run with them, made them look good by comparison, she in turn, used them and did and went places she never otherwise would have. She graduated, married a fellow who was also a bit "slow", and they had a child, who had fetal alcohol syndrome, and is also physically and mentally challenged. She divorced and lives alone, the child is grown not, unknown if the child is living independently.
As in the OP story, there were certainly many incidents where she was made fun of, mistreated, etc. Some of it was undeserved, of course, and some she brought on herself. Not so very different from any other kid thats too fat, too tall, too thin, too short, too black, too white, whatever. Life is not a bed of roses. The kid in the OP story didn't ask to be born that way, and it is a shame he had to suffer with surgeries, etc. None of us asked to be teased for something we couldn't control either. And it is up to us as adults to not mock or ridicule, but to try to teach tolerance, patience, and understanding of those that are different than us.