Think about it.

Before this weekend it never occurred to me how much people with facial disfigurement's are represented in the media, and how much that plays into our subconscious impression of people who don't look "normal".

People with facial disfigurement often represented in books, movies, and TV shows, as being either villainous, sad and pathetic or to be picky, or not really human, like trolls or aliens.

People with Burns, acne, skin conditions, congenital facial disfigurement, or any number of things that can make their face seem unusual, I'm not only battling against the airbrushed idea of perfection portrayed by Hollywood, but they'll also having to fight against the preconception that they are somewhat unlovable, sub human, or just in need of a surgical fix.

We wax lyrical about how children I talked to hate, about how racism and sexism is cool and how we need to prevent that from happening. But that we also teach our children about physical differences, about those two fear those who look different or are not the same as them. There's a big difference between a healthy fear of strangers that a child might have, and a perception that some people are a bogeyman. Old fairy stories tell of monsters, but also the TV show that we let our kids watch they do the same thing. Just watch some cartoons and see how the representation of people who have facial disfigurement is given. A culture of name-calling and laughing at people is created at such a young age.

As an adult, the chances are that you would deny any level of this kind of perception in yourself. But the truth is we all have it, we aren't even aware of it. And that is one of the reasons why we will work so hard to, yes raise awareness for conditions like Mobius syndrome, but also to fight for equality and for compassion and inclusion of people who feel otherwise sidelined by society. People who are denied a fundamental need to be accepted, and valued.

In the past there's been so much misunderstanding, and mistreatment of such people. I'm sure you can probably name individuals, but are we really any different than we were then. Just using social isolation instead of physical incarceration.

I believe that my daughter is intrinsically beautiful. With or without her syndrome there will be people who agree and those who don't! That's ok. I just wish we could teach our kids that whether it's facial disfigurement, "fat", or intellectual differences, people deserve love and respect. Not name-calling or isolation. When we can't manage that, we need to check ourselves.