One night before it got too dark, we decided to go on a family walk. We do this all the time. It is our favorite family pastime and works in both the pandemic and non-pandemic eras. After putting socks and shoes on my son Charlie, my husband set him on the couch and went to get the jogging stroller. When I looked over at Charlie, grinning with his feet dangling almost to the floor, I was struck by how tall he had gotten recently. The white sock-to-short pant ratio was the giveaway. He looked like a baby giraffe in culottes. I took a picture and posted it on my personal Facebook page. I wanted friends and family members to marvel with me at how big he had gotten. But what I received instead was a deluge of Look at him sitting up on the couch! And go, Charlie! Way to sit! He looks just like any other kid sitting like that!
These were not strangers. These people have seen Charlie grow and begin to use his wheelchair stand in his stander and ride a horse during hippotherapy. But they were shocked by the “normality” of this image of him sitting “like any other kid.”
In a way, I get it. Because Charlie has cerebral palsy and is largely nonverbal, most of his capabilities are often hidden – mired in the technical glitches of his speaking device or his impatience at not being able to go where he wants to go without help. He is a brightly-wrapped firecracker whose sparks fly when you least expect them.
But on the other hand, I was disheartened by this response to a simple picture of a simple act. Does society still know so little about disabilities? Special needs vary. Just because you are in a wheelchair does not mean you can’t sit in a regular chair, walk a few steps, or crawl. Because you don’t speak, does not mean you don’t understand. It is not a sign of limited intelligence. Have we learned nothing from Stephen Hawking?
The culture has come a long way since using “Are you deaf?” or “Are you blind?” as an insult. The same goes for words like “cripple” and “crazy,” “deformed” and “dim-witted,” “freak” and “feeble-minded”. At least I hope we have. But we still have a long way to go.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 protects the disabled from legal discrimination. But it cannot educate society against cultural discrimination. It cannot force empathy. It cannot stimulate curiosity in the physical, emotional, and intellectual differences in our peers.
I believe the media can do this better than most outlets… if it chooses. It can hire differently-abled people to star in its films, write its scripts, broadcast the news, write the books, and pen the op-eds. In this way, it can bring those on the periphery further into the center of the collective consciousness. Cheering on the Paralympic cyclists every four years and watching Murderball is not enough.
We are a country of influencers now. So let us use this influence for good. Promote awareness of the abilities of those with disabilities. Share the good, great work of this community that is often overlooked or misunderstood. In this way, one day a picture of my son sitting on the couch will be blissfully ordinary.
Jamie Sumner is a special needs mom and author.
Jamie-Sumner.com
Author of the middle-grade novels:
