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And a lot of the time the question of parenthood is,
父母常常面对的问题是
what do we validate in our children,
孩子在哪些方面值得肯定
and what do we cure in them?
哪些方面需要治愈？
Jim Sinclair, a prominent autism activist, said,
有名的自闭症专家，吉姆·辛克莱说，
"When parents say 'I wish my child did not have autism,'
"当父母说 '我希望我的孩子没有自闭症，'
what they're really saying is 'I wish the child I have did not exist
他们真正的意思是'我希望我的孩子并不存在
and I had a different, non-autistic child instead.'
而希望有一个没有自闭症的孩子.'
Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence.
听仔细了，当你们抱怨我们的存在，我们听到的就是这个意思
This is what we hear when you pray for a cure --
你们祈祷奇迹出现的时候，我们听到的是
that your fondest wish for us
你们衷心希望
is that someday we will cease to be
总有一天我们将不复存在
and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces."
和我们长着相同面孔的陌生人将会取代我们，得到你们所有的爱
It's a very extreme point of view,
这是一个非常极端的观点，
but it points to the reality that people engage with the life they have
但它指出了一个现实，人们有自己的生活
and they don't want to be cured or changed or eliminated.
他们不想要被治愈，或改变或消灭
They want to be whoever it is that they've come to be.
他们希望，不管是谁，都能保有与生俱来的天性
One of the families I interviewed for this project
为了这个项目，我采访了迪伦科莱柏德的家庭
was the family of Dylan Klebold who was one of the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre.
迪伦柯莱柏德是，哥伦拜恩校园惨案的罪犯之一
It took a long time to persuade them to talk to me,
我花了很长的时间，说服他们跟我对话
and once they agreed, they were so full of their story
他们同意了，有太多的故事
that they couldn't stop telling it.
一开口就无法停下来
And the first weekend I spent with them -- the first of many --
我第一次和他们共度周末，后来还有许多次
I recorded more than 20 hours of conversation.
我录了20多个小时的谈话内容
And on Sunday night, we were all exhausted.
到了周日晚上，大家都精疲力竭
We were sitting in the kitchen. Sue Klebold was fixing dinner.
我们坐在厨房里，苏在做晚饭
And I said, "If Dylan were here now,
我说，"如果现在，迪伦还在这里
do you have a sense of what you'd want to ask him?"
你们想要问他些什么?"
And his father said, "I sure do.
他的父亲说，"当然
I'd want to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing."
我想问问他，究竟为什么这样做"。
And Sue looked at the floor, and she thought for a minute.
苏望着地板，思考了一会儿
And then she looked back up and said,
然后抬起头来说，
"I would ask him to forgive me for being his mother
“我会请他原谅，我不是合格的好母亲
and never knowing what was going on inside his head."
从来不知道他的脑袋里，想的是些什么”
When I had dinner with her a couple of years later --
几年后，我再度与她吃晚餐
one of many dinners that we had together --
那是我们曾经许多共同的晚餐之一
she said, "You know, when it first happened,
她说，"你知道，当事情发生的时候
I used to wish that I had never married, that I had never had children.
我曾经希望我没有结过婚，也没有孩子
If I hadn't gone to Ohio State and crossed paths with Tom,
如果我没有到俄亥俄州立大学，没遇见汤姆
this child wouldn't have existed and this terrible thing wouldn't have happened.
这个孩子就不会存在，这可怕的惨案就不会发生
But I've come to feel that I love the children I had so much
但我觉得我太爱孩子们了
that I don't want to imagine a life without them.
我不愿想象没有他们的生活
I recognize the pain they caused to others, for which there can be no forgiveness,
我承认他们对其他人造成的痛苦，是不可饶恕的
but the pain they caused to me, there is," she said.
但我能宽恕他们对我造成的痛苦。"她说
"So while I recognize that it would have been better for the world
"所以虽然我承认，如果迪伦未曾出现在这个世界上
if Dylan had never been born,
世界会更美好
I've decided that it would not have been better for me."
但我认为那样对我并非更有好处
I thought it was surprising how all of these families had all of these children with all of these problems,
令人惊讶的是，这些家庭有这么多子女教育的问题
problems that they mostly would have done anything to avoid,
这些问题又是他们，常常不惜代价去避免的
and that they had all found so much meaning in that experience of parenting.
但她们都发现养儿育女的经验，很有意义
And then I thought, all of us who have children
然后我想，我们这些有孩子的人
love the children we have, with their flaws.
不管孩子如何，我们都疼爱无比
If some glorious angel suddenly descended through my living room ceiling
如果带着光环的天使，突然从客厅天花板降落
and offered to take away the children I have
提议要带走我的孩子
and give me other, better children -- more polite, funnier, nicer, smarter --
还给我一个更好的孩子，更有礼貌，风趣，友善，聪明
I would cling to the children I have and pray away that atrocious spectacle.
我会紧抓住我自己的孩子，祈祷残忍地事情不要发生
And ultimately I feel
我最终明白
that in the same way that we test flame-retardant pajamas in an inferno
就如同我们在火焰中测试防火睡衣
to ensure they won't catch fire when our child reaches across the stove,
以确保孩子手伸到炉子上时不会着火
so these stories of families negotiating these extreme differences
这些处理特殊情况的家庭的故事
reflect on the universal experience of parenting,
反映了普世的育儿经验
which is always that sometimes you look at your child and you think,
有时候你看着孩子，心里想
where did you come from?
你从哪里来？
It turns out that while each of these individual differences is siloed --
尽管他们各自面对不同的境况
there are only so many families dealing with schizophrenia,
只有一些家庭有精神分裂症患者
there are only so many families of children who are transgender,
只有一些家庭的孩子做了变性手术
there are only so many families of prodigies --
只有一些家庭出现神童
who also face similar challenges in many ways --
在许多方面也面临着相似的挑战
there are only so many families in each of those categories --
每个类别也仅有一些家庭
but if you start to think
但如果你开始思考
that the experience of negotiating difference within your family
那些处理家人间分歧的经验
is what people are addressing,
是出现在每个人生活中的
then you discover that it's a nearly universal phenomenon.
然后你发现这是一个普遍的现象
Ironically, it turns out, that it's our differences, and our negotiation of difference,
讽刺的是，事实证明，正是我们的不同和我们协商彼此的不同
that unite us.
将我们连结起来
I decided to have children while I was working on this project.
当我做这个项目的时候，我决定要孩子
And many people were astonished and said,
很多人对此感到惊奇
"But how can you decide to have children
"你怎么能做出要孩子的决定
in the midst of studying everything that can go wrong?"
当你的研究是关于不如意的，且只进行到一半?"
And I said, "I'm not studying everything that can go wrong.
我说，"我研究的不是那些不如意
What I'm studying is how much love there can be,
我研究的是，有多少爱可以给予
even when everything appears to be going wrong."
甚至当一切似乎，都是个错误的情况下"。
