The Back Door Into Adulthood

Summary:
From the book, "Break Out: Finding Freedom When You Don't Quite Fit The Mold," a modern literary memoir of 51 short stories about what it means to be presumed different.

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"So our self-feeling in this world
depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do."
William James

The last time I referred to myself as "Jimmy" was in the fourth grade, and it never cropped up all the way through high school and college.

But, when I entered the workforce after college, I noticed the tendency among my superiors to call me "Jimmy," even though I clearly signed my letters "James R. Hasse" and the masthead of our company newsletter displayed the line, "Jim Hasse, editor."

It was an on-going amusement among the staff people in my department as they started tracking who within our organization called me, "Jim," and who called me," Jimmy."

We found the "Jimmy" people fell into two camps: the truly unenlightened and the condescending.

I must admit I have met very few "condescenders" in rural America.

Since my staff and I classified most of our "Jimmy" people as unenlightened, I gave the issue only a passing thought. Some things were worth fighting for and some were not. I had bigger fish to fry.

It was the early 1970s. I was making headway in my job -- getting things accomplished for the organization that I thought needed to get done, challenging management in a patient way to change ever so slightly into a more participative mode of managing people.

But, then, Jimmy Carter went to Washington. Our nation recaptured some hope and needed self-renewal after the dark days of Watergate. He managed to symbolize a fresh approach to politics, but, then, I watched his credibility on the world stage as well as at home slip away after the Sadat-Begin agreement, probably the high point of his presidency.

Why did that happen? Yes, he was an honest, principled man, but he lacked charisma and experience in welding the worldly ways of power, especially in Washington..

And, he lacked something else: a first name that is credible in our culture (or, at least, in the isolated ranks of Washington, where condescension is one of the tools in the fine art of politics).

During Carter's fall from favor with the American public, I began to realize how "Jimmy" could also be patronizing in my case as well.

Called "Jimmy" and tagged as "crippled" was a double whammy that reinforced long-established stereotypes which don't die easily in a rural area. That really didn't become clear to me until my friend, Elizabeth, challenged me to become more assertive about the matter. A single parent of two grade schoolers, Liz was an accomplished musician and intellectually astute. She also happened to be overweight.

"Esther kept calling me 'Lizzy,'" and I finally called her on it," she explained. "You've got to do the same."

But, I found it difficult to correct people in person, and, to this day, I've never challenged anyone directly by simply saying, "I prefer to be called 'Jim'".

I took the back-door approach instead. As I gained more visibility through professional accomplishments, I became the subject of several newspaper profiles about how "a man with disability makes good." Inevitably, the question would always come with every interview, "What would you change in how people relate to you as a person with a disability?"

Every chance I had I used the "Jimmy" example. And, it worked. The media helped me say, "I'm not a 'Jimmy' anymore." Today, the "Jimmy" people are either reformed or out of my circle of contacts.

But, it took years for me to find a way to take my personal step into adulthood -- the same journey someone named Howie, Donnie or Tommie as a child normally learns to take much earlier in life.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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