"...does not need her womb because she will never marry or have children."
This part particularly disturbs me on several levels.
My friend recently had a hysterectomy, and then surgery again to deal with the complications of the hysterectomy. I am unsure how the pain and trauma of the surgery and recovery is somehow less than "mood swings" and cramping from menstruation. My friend could not find painkillers strong enough in the first weeks.
It seems to me this more a compulsion to infantilize people with disabilities because it is easier for the rest of us to see them as 'forever children' than to try to grasp their version of what 'adult' means.
Next they will tell us that they need to alter the brain chemistry of people with physical disabilities so that their awareness of their physical disability will be diminished. "The anger and frustration of being physically disabled will be decreased if the child is kept in the mental state of a 6 year old. Parents will also find it easier to care for a child who remains in the pre-individuated stage of development."
Z, they are doing this already, trust me. They've been doing it for *years* - brainwashing us into being `good little cripples', doping us up with drugs to keep us compliant (particularly in institutions/residential housing), isolating us so that we don't have the full range of human experiences - particularly when it comes to relationships. They just haven't been doing it as part of a concerted treatment program.
I see the results of it in myself, and some of it I will never be able to fix, I see the result of it in other PWD around me, I see it still happening.
"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.
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Good lord, these people are MUTILATING their children for their own LAZINESS. It is LAZINESS and SELFISHNESS. Nothing else. Nothing, nothing else.
*grrrrrrr*
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This part particularly disturbs me on several levels.
My friend recently had a hysterectomy, and then surgery again to deal with the complications of the hysterectomy. I am unsure how the pain and trauma of the surgery and recovery is somehow less than "mood swings" and cramping from menstruation. My friend could not find painkillers strong enough in the first weeks.
It seems to me this more a compulsion to infantilize people with disabilities because it is easier for the rest of us to see them as 'forever children' than to try to grasp their version of what 'adult' means.
Just.....Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
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SPEECHLESS.
Next they will tell us that they need to alter the brain chemistry of people with physical disabilities so that their awareness of their physical disability will be diminished. "The anger and frustration of being physically disabled will be decreased if the child is kept in the mental state of a 6 year old. Parents will also find it easier to care for a child who remains in the pre-individuated stage of development."
Just wait.
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I see the results of it in myself, and some of it I will never be able to fix, I see the result of it in other PWD around me, I see it still happening.
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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.)
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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.
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Amen.
Sometimes it all reeks faintly of Munchausen's by Proxy.
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