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!
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-19 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-19 01:38 pm (UTC)Cleavon Little: "Are we awake?"
Gene Wilder: "I don't don't know. Are we...black?"
Cleavon Little: "Yes we are."
Gene Wilder: "Then we are awake."
So, my laughter may have nothing to do with where it originally comes from, but that's where it sent me. A tragic, Mel Brooks moment for me...
"should" is a such tricky word....
Date: 2007-09-19 03:20 pm (UTC)And the first guy says.....
What I meant was that sometimes we can avoid dwelling on the unique circumstances each of us has (age, race, gender, ability), and instead focus on our common humanity, our common ground.
I don't think this is easy (in fact I think we're genetically inclined against perceiving "different" as "OK") and I admire how you see this come and go in yourself.
K.
Re: "should" is a such tricky word....
Date: 2007-09-19 03:26 pm (UTC)Thanks.