Parenthood & Me

Almost two years ago, I wrote a blog about disability parenthood called "Who Says We Can't Have A Family?" http://thevoicelssminority.blogspot.com/2013/07/who-says-we-cant-have-family.html In it, I discuss several issues about being a parent and having a disability. When I wrote the blog, I had just turned 27 and had a different view on life. As I am approaching my 29^th birthday, my perspective on the world is somewhat the same, but on the disability and parenting issue, I don't know if I still hold the same belief.

            In that first blog, I laid out the following arguments: It is natural to want to pass genes to offspring, considering human life is just a blip in the cosmic makeup of things, and all we have are the legacies we leave behind. While I still agree with that argument, I find myself internally struggling with the question. Although I believe disabled people as a group have the right to be parents, am I, as a disabled person, capable of being a parent?

            This argument has been weighing on my mind for several days now. As much as I am bound and determined to have a family, I wonder if I have ever accepted my limitations enough to have a family. By that, I mean, I am aware that I will not hold my son or daughter. In the first blog, I laid out physical ways to overcome this. But I did not do the emotional aspect of the problem. To become a good parent, one has to be emotionally secure with his or her self, to provide emotional support to the life they bring into this world. The same could be said for people with disabilities, except on a different level. People who have disabilities have to be emotionally okay with themselves as people. I feel this could be split even further.

People who have disabilities have to not only understand their limitations physically, but they have also to know what they mean. Physically correcting or not being able to hold someone might be possible and practical, but will it compensate for the emotional closeness when they hold the child. It is issues like this that I am not able to think about. Although in the earlier blog, I have said that it doesn't matter how many poopy diapers you change or how many balls you throw, I find myself not second-guessing the statement, but wondering if it comes from the perspective of someone who has no idea what it is like to play catch. I believe quality outweighs quantity, where I am struggling, can be best summed up in this example: I love sports, so I would hopefully instill a love for sports in my children. I look at my Uncle Richard and see how much enjoyment he gets out of coaching his son and my other little cousins, and I find myself asking if they love sports and I can't play, how will it make me feel to have someone else play sports with them, even if that someone else is my wife?

 

This blog may seem like it contradicts itself, but the earlier blog on family, and it may be. I am not sure of my capability to not have the physical/emotional bond that comes from the physical contact with a child and be okay with that. Things may change in the future, but as of right now, for this person with a disability, parenting is not in my future as much as I would like it to be.

The Hero Complex

            Being a new disability advocate, I find myself continually plugged into various publications. One publication I get news from is the American Association of People with Disabilities. Every week they put out a handy newsletter entitled Disability Weekly.

In a recent issue in a segment called In the News, they had a story about a mom who wrote a somewhat controversial piece. Her piece was entitled My Child with a Disability is not My Hero. As the title suggests, Miss Sarah Sweatt Orsborn asserts that disabled people but disabled children are not heroes. At first glance, even I, the non-politically correct writer, that I was taken aback. However, after looking further into Miss Orsborn's premise, I have to say I agree with her.

The premise of the article is quite simple. Orsborn suggests that the term can be more harmful than positive.  From my perspective, as a disabled person, I cannot help but agree. Every time I hear  "Oh, you're so amazing," or something of the like, I cringe. This occurs even when I listen to it from my own family. How can I be fantastic for doing such everyday tasks such as getting up in the morning and going to school? Every time someone comments on these lines, I feel like it diminishes me as a person.

I am not saying that complimenting someone for his or her accomplishments is a negative thing. I am realistic and understand that we all have egos that need a little inflating now and then. The point that Miss Orsborn and I are trying to make is that complementing somebody is fine but merely complimenting them because of the obstacles they face diminishes their self-worth and the work they have accomplished. Let me put it another way; it is like saying that we did not expect you to set the bar so high for yourself because you have this infliction. That not only causes a problem individually, but it results in a group problem.

What is that group problem? Disabled people as a whole have always expected less of themselves because society, in general, expects less of them. If we begin this second-class citizen in the doctor nation at an early age, it is no wonder disabled people set the bar so low for them.  I am a 27-year-old person with cerebral palsy who just graduated with my master's in education. However, I did not graduate with teacher certification, even though I had a 4.0 cumulative grade point average in the program. So why am I not a certified teacher, one may ask?

Simply put, I listened to society when they set the bar so low for me. Some at my school thought it was so amazing that I was getting my masters, but they saw me as too disabled to teach in a classroom. Even though it was not said directly, this was an example of the hero complex. It's so amazing that I got so far; they did not expect me to go any further and were unwilling to invest in me to help me do so. I should have done not settle for such low standards, but I did, and I have learned from it. It has helped me develop my voice as a disability advocate. It has also taught me that as good intentioned as parents are, or even family members are when they say to a disabled child, look how much you have accomplished with what you have had to go through, this has to stop.

Based on their accomplishment, judge their achievement, don't put a star beside it with a little footnote that said he or she had a disability too. Changes in culture and society do not start in Washington in the political arena. They begin with everyday people. If disabled people and those who support them want to change the way disability is perceived in this country, we have to start with ourselves. It is time that disabled people's expectations are just as high as everyone else's because we may have visible or not visible obstacles, but that doesn't make us any more or less of a person. 

The Acceptance Problem: It’s Yours, Not Mine

Okay, so usually I don’t write two in a day, but something has been on my mind lately, and the blog I posted earlier wasn’t an original piece of writing. Instead, it was forwarding an inspirational story. So here’s my daily food for thought.
       I warn you that this blog may unsettle some, and it may make you uncomfortable. The un-comfortableness will come from the overuse of swear words or a sexual conversation. It might come from looking at “ourselves” (society in general) in the near. Some of you may not like what you see if you are honest with yourself. 
       I am two and a half weeks away from finishing my Master’s Degree at my school in  Northwestern, Pennsylvania. As I complete this round of my academic work, I am forced to reflect. For the last nineteen years of my life, give or take a semester or two, I have been on the “right path.” We all are required in the end states to enroll in 12 years of compulsory education. After that, different paths can emerge depending on the individual. My approach has been full of curves and wrong turns and such.
       Now some of you may say, “But you’ve told us before you have two Bachelor’s degrees and just said you’re getting your Master’s Degree! What more could you want?” And to be honest, I reflected on this question for several weeks now. I even talked to varying sources, and many of them have told me this, “You are at crisscross roads in your life because you didn’t accept your disability sooner and set your expectations reasonably.” To them, I say it is not that I have the acceptance problem. It is you. “You,” in this case, being social. Even my parents and my shrink (who I occasionally go to) maintain my sanity have remarked that perhaps a little bit of my problem is accepting my disability. 
       Is my problem accepting my disability, or instead is it accepting what society thinks I should be? Limited to or capable of because of my disability. I believe it is the latter, and I will say this straight out. You’re damn, right! I don’t accept limitations put on me by anyone except myself. If that means I have an acceptance problem, then I guess I do. 
       Last Christmas, I asked for a book on the history of the disability rights movement entitled “What We Have Done: An Oral History of the Disability Rights Movement.” I have not been able to steadily read that book due to my Master’s Program requirements, but tonight when I read Chapter 3: Discrimination, I realized not much has changed from the ’50s to today. Some of you may say, but we have the ADA! Society is much more accepting of disability! To that, I must sarcastically laugh. Yes, the ADA has removed the barriers physically to many of the obstacles that face the disabled community. What it has not done is to remove the societal stigmas that come with disability. For example, there was a story in the third chapter of the book about Johnnie Lacy, a disabled individual who wanted to be a teacher, very much like myself. Lacy was systemically persuaded not to be by the same institution, allowing her to take special education classes. When I read this story, I couldn’t help by seeing myself.         
       Yes, I will have three degrees in about two-and-a-half weeks. Still, the route a lot of my college education (especially recently), I have been persuaded or “recommended” not to pursue the paths I follow. The problem is that we fight, and we fight for so long because we know we’re capable of doing whatever we put our minds to. Still, eventually, it’s not necessarily that we give up, but we come to a realization when the whole institutional system is against you. And you have no allies except the people that know you personally; there’s not much you can do. Even though my parents and counselors (and even friends) believe that I am perfectly capable of teaching, they do not have any power when it comes to educational institutions.
       Eventually, I just gave in, so I will walk away with a degree that I will not be able to use. Because yet again, this happened. When I expressed this sediment to this and others around me, they remarked that I haven’t accepted my disability and need to be more realistic about my expectations. To them—in this format, I say you might be wrong. Screw that. I am not bitter and am perfectly aware of my limitations. What I do not accept is the lack of opportunity in the greatest country in the world. We have the Americans with Disabilities Act, that “gold standard of disability law,” but it hasn’t done jack shit when it comes to disability and equality. Just because we can get into a building doesn’t mean society wants us there, and that is the next struggle that the disability rights movement will have to undertake. 
       Finally, someone liked the comparison, but as I dive deeper into the disability rights movement and find my voice, I can’t help but compare our struggles to African Americans in the ’60s. They were discriminated against because of some God-given skin pigment, and people like me, whether wheelchair-bound or disabled in some other way. I am discriminated against because society has such a screwed up perception. Not because we are flawed but because the company itself is flawed. It may take to the end of my life and beyond to fix that problem. Right here and now, I dedicate myself to making life better for further generations of disabled Americans and disabled individuals around the world.