Photo: Kate Wilson
Every four years, we can be sure that people with disabilities are going to get a few headlines, and that the stories will be largely positive. That time was upon us just a few months ago, as the Paralympics took place in Rio.
It was a good thing. I watched, and hope others did too.
But as the parent of a child with a disability, I think often about narratives surrounding disability in our society?and how, on a daily basis, the world treats my son and me.
My son is five years old. He has cerebral palsy. But that is just one sum of the many parts that make him who he is. He loves technology and he loves his family. He likes music and dancing and books. He may just be the city?s biggest little Blue Jays fan. He has a smile that lights up a room. He has really awesome hair. Like the rest of us, he is many things. But too often, people just see the disability?he wears orthotics and travels largely in his wheelchair. And when people see his disability, they start to feel sorry for us.
Please don?t.
See, when you feel sorry for me and for my son, you send the message to his highly perceptive little soul that his existence is a problem. That we should all feel bad for his mother and sorry for him being here, as he is.
I?m not sorry and I do not expect my son to make apologies for who he is.
And don?t call me a Supermom or say, ?I don?t know how you do it.? I that get you are trying to be kind and show compassion, but the effect is the opposite.
And when you ...