Mom Invents Label For Unruly Child

By Linda Erin Keenan
Wellesley, MA. - Frustrated with her attempts to get her unruly child labeled, a Wellesley mom has invented her own, and is promoting her label as a genuine disability to other mothers, and her child’s teachers.
“Oh, yeah, Kilkenny has FG-NOS - Franticocious Gravidarum – Not Otherwise Specified. It combines rare academic talent with a frenetic, sometimes uncontrolled pace and it’s something, you know, the schools just have trouble keeping up with. But we’re going to change that,” said Jenny Leiter.
When the school district intervention team was asked about FG-NOS, it had no knowledge of the disorder.
Leiter was undeterred when presented with this information. “FG-NOS is cutting edge.
15 years ago, who had ever heard of Aspergers, Sensory Integration Disorder? People who were troubled geniuses were considered retarded, warehoused. You know, I read in Vanity Fair that Arthur Miller ditched his own kid 40 years ago just because he had Down Syndrome! I refuse to give up on my disabled child, and neither is this school district, not while I’m paying taxes here.”
Kilkenny’s teacher, who chose to remain anonymous, was nonplussed by Leiter’s assertions. “I don’t what the hell she is talking about with that FG-NOS or whatever that was she was spitting at me at the teacher conference. All I know is Kilkenny is just a big pain in the ass, pure and simple. He won’t listen. He throws stuff. He can’t spell his own name. The other kids hate him. And I can’t say I blame them. ‘Rare academic talent?’ Where the fuck did she get that? Not from my teacher conference, I can tell you that. I can’t wait to tell Principal Harris. She’s going to laugh her ass off that she talked to you about his ‘disorder’.”
Leiter asserts that FG-NOS will soon be part of the roster of well-established developmental maladies that require classroom assistance and state-supported occupational therapy.
“You know I bet 40 years from now we’ll look back and realize that some of the giants of yesteryear – Bill Gates, Anna Wintour – they had undiagnosed FG-NOS and were misunderstood as the quirky child geniuses that they were. And my Kilkenny will be able to speak out as one of the first to say ‘I had it, I’m hugely successful now, and you can make it out the other side too”.