Feb 17 2009
Bad parenting and disabled people
I have a friend who lives in Tennessee. We’ve never met in reality. At first, he was more of a virtual friend to my friend Zyn than my friend. However, as Zyn knows I know lots about the disability benefits system he put his new friend in touch with me. You see, the person in question lives with his parents in Tennessee and from what I can observe they never let him do anything. Not the way I would parent if I were parenting. It’s not like this person is completely immobile or dependent on people 24 hours a day. He just has a visual impairment.
As a disability rights activist, I cannot stand bad parenting in general of anybody be they disabled or able-bodied. I think they’re going to turn out to be a little messed up. However, I do feel that it’s worse to be a bad parent towards a disabled person than it is to an able-bodied person. The world is not pre-designed for disabled people in the way that it is for able-bodied. If you don’t encourage your disabled kid to go out and seek what they want, they’re very likely to fall victim to those people who say you can’t do anything because you’re disabled. As parents, I think it’s our job to arm our kids against those people by letting them try and fail at whatever they want to try and fail at. Of course, they won’t always succeed. No child does but let them attempt. When I’m a parent, that’s what I’m going to try to do even if it pains me at times.
