Disability²

First, Happy Birthday Heather! My baby is 18 today.

We drove up to Rocky Mountain Village, the local Easter Seals camp to drop off my two younger kids for a week of camp. (Heather goes in a couple of weeks). I was in my 12 year old’s cabin, helping her get settled when one of the other girls, asked incrediulously: “are you really her mom?”

“Yes.”

“But you use a wheelchair?” The kiddo was also a chair user. She must have been 10 or 11, although she may have been a bit older. “I’ve never seen a mom in a wheelchair,” she said. She just chattered away for several minutes with many questions. At one point she asked, “could I be a mom?” Clearly her counselor was uncomfortable with the question, but I just plowed headfirst into an answer,

“Of course!” The girl still had a million questions, but I needed to finish settling my 9 year old. My 12 year old was tugging on my arm.

Asiza was nonplussed. She couldn’t figure out why this girl wanted to talk to me so much, and she was more concerned with getting me to just go, go out the door. At almost 13 she isn’t particularly interested in me talking to her friends, but she was utterly confused. She didn’t get what the big deal was.

All my kids were older when they were adopted, but none of them have articulated anything about me using a wheelchair or not. Now, all three of my kids have cognitive disabilities, but this is the kid who would have articulated something. In her case, her bio sister was adopted by a family with a crip mom too, so I think for her, the concept of a disabled parent is completely normal.

The interaction, however, made my heart feel empty. While I am glad it happened, it continues to bother me that girls (and boys) with disabilities grow up and don’t think parenthood is possible for them. I know it happens, but it still makes my heart empty.

So Eden, of course you can. You can be whatever you want to me.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 9:15 pm and is filed under kids with disabilities, on parenting with a disability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.