Independence? Self-Sufficiency?

I think it says something important, Sunshine, that your first connection was to your seven year old cousin. I wonder how much of that is because of Monica and David's actual behaviour and how much of it is because of the way others treated them. I was incredibly troubled by both Monica's parents' and David's parents' reluctance to give them more independence. In the scene in which Monica's step-father is grilling hamburgers in preparation for a get-together, he says Monica can't be fully independent – that essentially she's not capable of it. (I cringed). However, the documentary represented Monica as very abled. She held a part time job at her adult center, she could read and write, she kept her spaces clean and organized, she was aware and insistent that her marriage with David be a partnership. I was also bothered by the heteronormative tinge this holding-back of Monica took on; I felt uncomfortable/uneasy that her parents and David both told her she couldn't work and that she accepted that. I was troubled that the excuse given was that applying for a job could be "a hassle" – particularly because it seemed thought wasn't given to whether she (and David) might find work fulfilling. Though I could understand both mothers' fears that others would make fun of their children or treat Monica and David poorly, their sheltering from "society" was incredibly discomforting to me, and called back histories of institutionalization of people with Down's. 

 

I wondered whether Camphill would be a better or more fulfilling home/community for them? And thinking back to what you noted, Sunshine, about the levels of privilege present in their lives, I'm realizing that Camphill may not have even crossed my mind as a possible space for Monica and David had they not been privileged in their family's economic situations.

 

Finally, was anyone else shocked by how parallel the stories and chronologies of the two mothers were? What a narrative of self-sufficiency that reinforces!