Wow, we all saw this comming when we read about Ashley last year, and no one would listen. We said it would create a precident.
I especially like the comment about doctors who see these children "for a few minutes in their surgeries" having no idea what it is actually like. Admittedly, my own CP is mild, and my direct caregiving days to kids and teens with more severe CP lasted only a summer. But unlike most doctors, I think I do have a reasonably realistic idea of what caring for (and being) a person with severe physical needs may entail.
And as I said before about Ashley, while I usually feel the parents have the best interest of their children in mind, in this context I do balk. Surely the solution to the horseback riding dillema is to build, for a few hundred dollars, a ramp mounting system (they exist.) And the solution to the need for toileting assistance is - to convince society that needing such assistance is no big deal. Surgery can be the answer for many things, but it is not, should not be the answer for the simple fact that children with disabilities - grow up.
"I usually feel the parents have the best interest of their children in mind"
Not so much a response to you, but to the phrase itself, but, no, not all parents have the best interests of their children in mind. Some parents have the same ablist reactions that society has - becoming a parent of a PWD doesn't fix that. Some people are rotten parents of any child - it's just they get to have more control over a child with a disability. Some people are scary scary bigoted perfectionist, control freaks.
And I wish I wasn't as much of an `expert' on that as I am. People said for years, based on no more information about me or my family than is in those articles, "Your parents must love you", "they support/help you, don't they?". Um, no. They don't and they didn't. They said all the `right' things in public, but when it came down to the wire - they threw me to the wolves.
(Again - no way am I attacking you for saying what you did, I know we are on the same side - that phrase just sets me off.)
The fact that, with the parents with whom I interact professionally, I usually do feel that way does not mean I haven't encountered exceptions, and know for sure there are grevious exceptions elsewhere as well.
What always gets me actually are the self-praise assumptions I often see on the internet, that becomming a parent of a kid with a disability magically makes them special and wonderful and they aren't ever "given anything they can't handle." THIS I definitely do not see borne out in everyday life.
"That becomming a parent of a kid with a disability magically makes them special and wonderful and they aren't ever "given anything they can't handle." THIS I definitely do not see borne out in everyday life."
Amen.
Sometimes it all reeks faintly of Munchausen's by Proxy.
I especially like the comment about doctors who see these children "for a few minutes in their surgeries" having no idea what it is actually like. Admittedly, my own CP is mild, and my direct caregiving days to kids and teens with more severe CP lasted only a summer. But unlike most doctors, I think I do have a reasonably realistic idea of what caring for (and being) a person with severe physical needs may entail.
And as I said before about Ashley, while I usually feel the parents have the best interest of their children in mind, in this context I do balk. Surely the solution to the horseback riding dillema is to build, for a few hundred dollars, a ramp mounting system (they exist.) And the solution to the need for toileting assistance is - to convince society that needing such assistance is no big deal. Surgery can be the answer for many things, but it is not, should not be the answer for the simple fact that children with disabilities - grow up.
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Not so much a response to you, but to the phrase itself, but, no, not all parents have the best interests of their children in mind. Some parents have the same ablist reactions that society has - becoming a parent of a PWD doesn't fix that. Some people are rotten parents of any child - it's just they get to have more control over a child with a disability. Some people are scary scary bigoted perfectionist, control freaks.
And I wish I wasn't as much of an `expert' on that as I am. People said for years, based on no more information about me or my family than is in those articles, "Your parents must love you", "they support/help you, don't they?". Um, no. They don't and they didn't. They said all the `right' things in public, but when it came down to the wire - they threw me to the wolves.
(Again - no way am I attacking you for saying what you did, I know we are on the same side - that phrase just sets me off.)
Reply
The fact that, with the parents with whom I interact professionally, I usually do feel that way does not mean I haven't encountered exceptions, and know for sure there are grevious exceptions elsewhere as well.
What always gets me actually are the self-praise assumptions I often see on the internet, that becomming a parent of a kid with a disability magically makes them special and wonderful and they aren't ever "given anything they can't handle." THIS I definitely do not see borne out in everyday life.
Reply
Amen.
Sometimes it all reeks faintly of Munchausen's by Proxy.
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