Seeing Disability
Sep. 18th, 2007 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lollardfishSome of the literature I've come across on "difference" - race, gender, sexuality, class, and so forth - has talked a lot about gaze and vision. This is English professor land, a place where mild-mannered medieval historians fear to trade. I don't remember much of it (this was as an undergraduate). I think I "got it" at the time, but I've since filled my mind with very different types of thoughts and analysis.
Anyway, I've been thinking about disability and my vision.
I don't see my son as disabled. I've said this before, back in March, and I still feel that way. One could credit this to the fact that he's my boy, I love him, and see him only as my boy. Or, one could credit the fact that his extra chromosome has given him the typical down-syndrome facial characteristics in way that has made him astoundingly cute (or so all the world thinks). He does not have any of the exaggerated characteristics, and he's strong enough to avoid the extreme floppiness. Or, we could look to the fact that he's strong, healthy, developing at a "neurotypical" (my word of the week from a DS discussion group) pace, more or less, curious, clever, physically solid, and generally an all around easy, fabulous, baby. There's no ability for which he yet seems "disabled," although I'm sure we'll encounter speech delays, reading delays, and so forth. I'm pretty ready for them right now.
I do see my son as a boy with Down Syndrome, part of an enormous population of children with Down Syndrome, all of whom share some physical characteristics, and many of whom I am coming to love. It is a different look, I see it in my boy and the other children with whom we play, and it's come to be something extraordinarily beautiful to me. And I think, "Hey, look, Nico's made me a better, more accepting, person."
But I still feel the twinges when I see non-Down Syndrome people with disabilities (boy, what a terrible phrase!). Thoughts of - should I make eye contact and show that I am accepting? Should I just go about my business to show that it's no big deal (that someone has, I think, cerebal palsy, or someone else has a deformed left side)? We were at a center with horseback riding lessons for disabled children as well as a dozen other programs (neat place, dunno if we'll be able to afford any of it in the next 5 years), and pictures of the students were on the walls. I wanted to just see them as people, as children - but I saw their disabilities.
My son has Down Syndrome, but he's just my son now. It's how he looks. The other children I know are just the children I know. I can't, quite, get my brain to accept this universally, to make all people, in my gaze, just people - and then demarcate, if I must, their differences..
But I'm working on it.
Not my clearest of ramblings, but, they're my ramblings. Get your own!
Anyway, I've been thinking about disability and my vision.
I don't see my son as disabled. I've said this before, back in March, and I still feel that way. One could credit this to the fact that he's my boy, I love him, and see him only as my boy. Or, one could credit the fact that his extra chromosome has given him the typical down-syndrome facial characteristics in way that has made him astoundingly cute (or so all the world thinks). He does not have any of the exaggerated characteristics, and he's strong enough to avoid the extreme floppiness. Or, we could look to the fact that he's strong, healthy, developing at a "neurotypical" (my word of the week from a DS discussion group) pace, more or less, curious, clever, physically solid, and generally an all around easy, fabulous, baby. There's no ability for which he yet seems "disabled," although I'm sure we'll encounter speech delays, reading delays, and so forth. I'm pretty ready for them right now.
I do see my son as a boy with Down Syndrome, part of an enormous population of children with Down Syndrome, all of whom share some physical characteristics, and many of whom I am coming to love. It is a different look, I see it in my boy and the other children with whom we play, and it's come to be something extraordinarily beautiful to me. And I think, "Hey, look, Nico's made me a better, more accepting, person."
But I still feel the twinges when I see non-Down Syndrome people with disabilities (boy, what a terrible phrase!). Thoughts of - should I make eye contact and show that I am accepting? Should I just go about my business to show that it's no big deal (that someone has, I think, cerebal palsy, or someone else has a deformed left side)? We were at a center with horseback riding lessons for disabled children as well as a dozen other programs (neat place, dunno if we'll be able to afford any of it in the next 5 years), and pictures of the students were on the walls. I wanted to just see them as people, as children - but I saw their disabilities.
My son has Down Syndrome, but he's just my son now. It's how he looks. The other children I know are just the children I know. I can't, quite, get my brain to accept this universally, to make all people, in my gaze, just people - and then demarcate, if I must, their differences..
But I'm working on it.
Not my clearest of ramblings, but, they're my ramblings. Get your own!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-19 11:31 am (UTC)I've been thinking a lot about language, after I heard someone say that their child "has autism" but is not "autistic". Very strong preference for children to be referring to as children who have a disorder, not be characterized by the disorder. Totally makes sense to me.
And on a different day I found myself offended when I saw "suffered from" being used along with Down Syndrome and Autism someplace because that isn't the right way to say it. Yes, some people suffer and it's sometimes a direct result of a condition or disability or something along those lines. But there are also plenty of people living with these things who aren't suffering, they just face some unique challenges. So if you're gonna make a blanket statement about a group "suffering" you'd best be careful, I think.
But then I think about language more than most. And also about exceptions to stereotypes and such.