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Strain on Attendants

Speaking still of the personal factors which impede our ideal, the emotional drain on an attendant with sensitivity must be mentioned. One cannot work twelve hours a day in a stream of missed opportunities and amidst unhappiness without paying toll. Which or how much of the world's standards should be applied to those who will spend their lives in the institution? Is it necessary to appear to be on the verge of permanent anger to get results? (It surely seems to be, sometimes.) The practice of extreme patience, day after day, is wearing. Where are the permanent factors which will remain after we leave and which we can influence? Too often these permanent factors create their own valid reasons against change and our transient attendant sadly acknowledges their validity. Thus it is that his personal problems, added to the regular problems of defective psychology, place quite a damper on the "pleasant home" idea.

The other category of obstacles to the attainment of the ideal gives evidence that institutions create their own problems. They generate ruts and compound inertia. It appears that by the simple fact of being established these institutions as they now are can postpone our "pleasant home" to a non-existent future. A catalogue of specific blockades on the road to reform would include interdepartmental rivalry, favoritism, tradition, boondoggling, buck-passing, incompetence, fear of superiors and the future, lack of knowledge and pride in the work, shortsightedness and concern with appearances. Each deserves an essay to show how it hampers the progressive administration or attendant. For example, a recreational program cannot be run by volunteers because it might later be demanded of other attendants who would not want to do it and so would be unfair to them. Or a game program for pent-up imbeciles has to be stopped because the boys become too noisy. Or a backward department blocks the efforts of a more competent department. The total of blockading factors is colossal.

First Steps toward Improvement

Of paramount importance is the hallmark of all institutions: low wages and poor working conditions for employees. It is difficult to work ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week, living in a somber institutional room and eating a heavy institutional diet. To labor patiently in an emotionally tense situation and then to receive seventy or eighty dollars a month is not attractive to anyone, let alone a socially conscious person interested in the complicated problems of deficiency. This is the result of penny-pinching by state legislatures and ignorance among the people. That is where the blame lies when an ill trained or crude attendant harms a patient. Ignorance and lack of interest are basic because they create the conditions from which all other obstacles flow. Improvement in the type of employees attracted to these institutions is the first requirement for all progress.

In this world where every successful force is a dehumanizing force, the little spots of unhappiness in our institutions for defectives seem small indeed. In the picture that has been painted, the obstacles to relieving this unhappiness are evident; also, they suggest their own solutions. On paper, the path to the "pleasant home" is clear. It remains to be seen whether or not that path is traveled by people who are anxious and able to help America's continually growing army of defectives.