Am I a Hypocrite?

My mother-in-law used to share "combat" stories of her early days as a nurse when she escaped from North Korea and went to nursing school all by herself until her family later joined her in South Korea.  One time, she told me about taking care of children with cleft lips.  In her early days of nursing in Korea, she was assigned to rural villages to assist physicians correct cleft lips in children.  At the time, she was pregnant with her first child and said that seeing all these children with a "deformity" made her feel uncomfortable.  Perhaps, being a bit on the superstitious side, she said she quit that job because she didn't want the child in her womb to get a similar condition.  I wonder what it feels like to be pregnant and be surrounded by disabled children all day long. Would l correlate my experience with something similar happening to a growing fetus?  I probably would not, but being around sick children would make me sad and worried about complications of pregnancy and all the things that could go wrong.  I would probably prefer to be around healthy and happy children who are thriving.

Today we took Lucas to the mall and while he played in the area called Le Fun Land with Gabriel as his chaperone, I studied for my PCCN certification exam at one of the tables in  the atrium of the mall.  There smack in the middle was a giant bowling pin statue that advertised the bowling alley on the second floor.  It was a high traffic area and many people buzzed by tending to their weekend shopping.  I noticed a lady with dark sunglasses, a long floral spring dress with a red scarf used as a belt singing and dancing around this bowling pin.  She was smiling and dancing and was happy as can be and didn't seem to care one bit for the people passing by or staring at her odd behavior.  She spun and twirled around the bowling pin as if in a musical, singing and dancing to a tune nobody could hear.  My first thought was, "oh dear, she has lost her marbles."  and felt sad for her and wondered what traumatic and tragic events in her life led her to lose touch with reality. My second thought was, "I wish I can join her and just not care about what anyone thinks!"  Then the fear set in.  This could happen to anyone.  Will it happen to me?  The whole scene made me feel uncomfortable and I, like the rest of the people who get brainwashed by the advertising industry, wanted to see shiny happy people who have their acts together and are "successful" and not weird or odd that goes with mental illness.   Seeing Jennifer Aniston drinking Smart Water on a billboard somehow panders to people's desire to be like her - successful, popular, beautiful, famous.  If we had a billboard of the mentally ill lady at the mall drinking bottled water and dancing to an inaudible tune, would people go out and buy it?  Most people probably would not.

Then, I thought about my son and his disability.  I don't want people to mistreat him but can understand people who are unaware of his condition having discomfort around him because I, too, have felt uncomfortable around certain disabilities.  Had I not a child with intellectual disability, I wonder what my own attitude would be?  L has definitely turned me into a better human being and I am so thankful for that.