Today I want to write about more of a light hearted topic which is why I’m going to write about why able bodied people are useless. Don’t get me wrong, some able bodied people are great, my whole family are able bodied, I just want to write about why some of the able bodied folk aren’t always the best at communicating with anyone outside of their small minded definition of normal.
What sparked this idea was a strange interaction I had when I was out at a park yesterday. I was with my PA from school, we’ve recently been going out places to keep in touch, anyways we were heading back to the car when a middle aged couple passes by, they look at me sitting in the car as if I were small puppy and let out an audible awww. My PA was horrified, she asked if that happened all the time, I explained this was a fairly normal experience for me. It made me think though, people have been inappropriately patronising me since I was 5.
I can still remember going to the science centre with my primary 1 class. We got to go into the planetarium and had a guided tour of space. The lady presenting it stood with her rat puppet explaining what stars were or something, and at the end she asks the audience of small children if they new any facts about space. As a highly intellectual 5 year old, I decided to put my hand up and tell everyone my amazing fact which was that the sun was hot. The lady with the rat puppet walked up to me and I began to inform her about the temperature of the sun when I was interrupted. The lady chimed in with “would you like to pet my rat?” Obviously I did, but then I realised that she didn’t actually listen to my fact. She had silenced me by distracting me. Looking back on it now I realised that maybe I should have thrown a tantrum. I wonder what she would have done if I had just screamed ‘THE SUN IS HOT’ though at that age I didn’t understand what that lady did.
I think it’s important that able bodied people start making more of an effort to listen and respect disabled people. From being a five year old to being a fifteen year old, people have always and probably will always patronise me. It’s important for everyone to understand their power to stick up for themselves but it’s especially important for disabled people.