The other day I took Annabelle, Sophie’s big sister, to a doctor appointment at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. The doctor recommended a flu shot and, glancing at the consent form, I noticed the term “mental retardation.”

In 2016.

Look, I get that in the scheme of things this is not a big deal. Frankly, I’d rather we all run around calling each other retarded at the top of our lungs than endure the news of another Trump cabinet appointee. But we’re stuck with him (it appears) and we’re stuck with the stigma associated with a term that used to be a perfectly acceptable medical descriptor — and no longer is.

The federal government has done away with the term mental retardation. So has the state of Arizona, which means it really must be offensive if the legislature in my backward home state took note. The DSM has changed the acceptable terminology.

And yet, I see it often. A few weeks ago, it popped up on a form at Camelback Pediatrics, the practice we’ve always used.

Camelback Pediatrics has updated that form since our visit. An official from Phoenix Children’s Hospital emailed yesterday to say they are reviewing all their medical forms; the one I saw was outdated, she said.

Good. I fucking hate being the word police. I’m a First Amendment fan, both personally and professionally. But this is such a small thing, not using the term mental retardation, in such a big mess of a world. More and more these days, I’m finding it’s the little things — scratch ‘n sniff stickers at Trader Joe’s, glittered M&Ms at Target, a cuddle with my poodle, Sophie’s Santa letter — that gets me through the day. Someone thoughtful enough to use the term intellectually disabled, if only because they know it will make me feel better.

Now more than ever, words matter. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, sometimes they’re all we have.

The National Center on Disability and Journalism has a useful style guide if you’re wondering about other words.

Image of Sophie by Monica Aissa Martinez. 

I don’t hear it so much anymore, so I was surprised.

“I’m so retarded!” a brand-new employee said the other day, struggling to open a door with a new key card. We were coming back from lunch, and as we walked to the security office to get the key card, I’d winced a little, thinking about how colorful my own language had been over tacos and iced tea. This girl had barely said crap. (Literally — that’s the only off-color thing I’d heard.)

But she had no problem ripping loose with the R word. Usually that’s when I whip out my phone to show off pictures of Sophie. It was the girl’s first day; I let it go, sighing as I returned to my desk.

People aren’t using the R word so much anymore — not around me, anyway. And that’s good. But it’s not enough. Not using that word is only a start. The other night, a dear old friend made a reference to “special needs” — and not in a good way. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to — I heard her voice catch on the other end of the phone and winced myself, upset that she was uncomfortable.

We all do it, all the time. I do it, despite attempts to be aware. As a journalist I’m not super down with the word police. But I worry about what our words say about our thoughts and intentions, corny as that sounds.

Not so long ago, a guy I know was doing PR for the local Special Olympics chapter — until he tweeted a joke about special ed. The response was swift and firm — Jason Rose no longer has the bragging rights of working on behalf of the kids with special needs that he dissed.

In a perfect world, we’d all be so swift to respond. And we’d all have as much clout.

Before I had Sophie, the R word was one-dimensional, a meaningless put down. Down syndrome, special needs, special ed — all terms on paper. Sophie brings it all to life for me, and I figure  my — our — small contribution is bringing it all to life for others, too. Hence the Facebook status updates, the Instagram photos, the blog posts, the radio commentaries, and the occasional newspaper story, when I can convince my boss.

In-person introductions work pretty well, too. I think I’ll bring Sophie to the office next week during Spring Break.

“I need to tell you I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you know why?”

I did.

Back up 20 minutes. I was having a pleasant conversation with this woman and her date, a writer in from LA to do a travel story, and we were chatting about — oh god, I can’t remember what. It’s been two days, my memory doesn’t last that long anymore. Anyhow, something struck all of us as dumb and to tell you the truth, these days I’ll see it coming before it’s out of your mouth. It’s as though the sound (and there was considerable background noise that night — lots of people, kids screaming, a fire roaring, DJ blasting, traffic) fades away and the person’s mouth gets super big and the words come out really slowly.

“That’s so retarded.”

She said it. I didn’t flinch, and neither did she, but for less than a split second, I saw it — the “OH FUCK, I JUST SAID THAT’S SO RETARDED TO THE MOTHER OF A KID WITH DOWN SYNDROME AND NOT JUST ANY MOTHER OF A KID WITH DOWN SYNDROME, THIS ONE BITCHES ABOUT EXACTLY THIS ALL THE TIME. OH FUCK” look on her face.

And then the conversation continued — seamlessly, as though nothing had happened, I think the date said something like, “Yeah, that’s so stupid” and after a few minutes we all drifted into conversations with other people the way you do at gallery openings.

For me, the worst part these days isn’t when someone says it. It’s when they realize they just said it. And so that half a split second after she said it was what bugged me. But like I said, it was kind of a crazy night, and I moved past it because really, what are you going to do? It’s true that often I call people out, point out what they just said. But sometimes you don’t need to say a word.

This was one of those times.

Twenty minutes later I turned around and there she was.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I said. “Really, I mean it. It’s okay.”

“No, I do. It was a horrible thing to say,” she continued, the tears welling up. “I can’t believe I said it, I’m so upset that I said it.”

The date walked up and confirmed this, said she was so embarrassed he’d told her that if she didn’t apologize, he was going to do it for her. I winced.

“I hate being that person who makes anyone feel uncomfortable about saying anything,” I told them, even though all three of us knew that it’s more complicated than that. She’ll probably never use the word again, at least not without thinking about that night at the gallery. And that’s exactly what I want, right? For people to be aware of how wrong it is to use the word retarded?

Yeah, it is. But it’s not a sweet victory, or even bittersweet. Instead, the whole thing left kind of a bad taste in my mouth. Of course there’s no turning back now — I’m not about to embrace the word retard, to “take it back.” (I hate that shit — I mean, really, who ever wanted the word cunt in the first place?!)

I’ve set the wheels in motion and now my mere presence during cocktail party chatter is enough to bring a grown woman to tears and now I’m not really sure what to say about it. I hope I didn’t ruin the rest of her night, because truly, she didn’t ruin mine. I just hope she knows that.