Ethan sat in my lap, snuggled against my chest, rambling on in toddler-speak about the stars out his window. The conversation lulled as he took my hand into his. At two years old, his hands were already larger than mine, and much, much stronger.
I was born with a rare congenital birth defect called Arthrogryposis. In the womb, my arms didn't move enough to develop proper muscle tone and the joints from my shoulders to fingertips locked into place.
Growing up, as I learned to eat, write, drive and live using my feet like hands, I didn't often wonder what sort of life I'd have. I felt like a normal girl, so why wouldn't I have a normal life? Only now do I understand how lucky and rare I am. I am a mother with a physical disability.
Ethan intently studied my hand, then his own. He flexed and extended his fingers, then tried to force mine to do the same; they don't. In despair, he sighed and looked up at me with his dark chocolate eyes. "It's not working," he broke the news. "It needs batteries." I couldn't help but laugh at such a precious assessment, but it was the first time he'd really noticed that Mommy is different. I couldn't help but wonder what other questions would come, and whether I'd be able to communicate answers that he could understand. Answers I don't even understand.
A year has passed since that evening; Ethan is now three. More and more, he's asking me to play with him in ways that I just can't. To fly him around like Daddy does. To help him jump high in the air. To drive his play cars fast across the floor. My replies range from, "Mommy's arms aren't strong like Daddy's," to "Mommy can't move the car fast like you. Wow, you're so fast!" to "Hey, look at that interesting (distracting) thing over there!" I'm sure I don't always answer perfectly, and sometimes I don't have the emotional energy to answer at all, but he's beginning to understand that he can't expect me to move like everyone else. He high-fives my foot and places things between my toes when he wants me to hold them. We play Pat-a-Cake with our feet.
I'd be lying if I said I'm not nervous about the future. What if his friends at school pick on him for having such an unusual mom? What if he's put in a position to choose between mocking me and defending me? What will he choose? Will he be bitter over the softball games I can't play with him?
Only time will tell.
I do know that the difficulties we face as a family will make him a more compassionate and stronger person. I know that tolerance won't be much of a struggle for him. I know that it will all work out in the end.
But even now, we struggle to find our place in society. My fears and insecurities have often been enough to hold us both back. For Ethan's first two years, I rarely took him out by myself, even though I was completely capable of doing so. I cringed at the concerned looks we'd get, the kind-hearted strangers stepping in to "help" me, the eyes boring into the back of my head when I fumbled with the baby wipes or crackers. Instead, I'd wait until my husband got home from work and make him go out with us. I'd leave everything to him and risk looking like a detached mom rather than an incompetent one.
Ethan, bless his sweet little heart, thought nothing of the speed with which I did things or the number of times I had to try again. He knew I was capable, I knew I was capable, but in this time when parents with disabilities fight to keep their own kids, I was scared to let people watch me struggle. So I didn't.
Then one day, I let the scandal loose. I uploaded a video to CNN showing how things are for us. I recorded every minute of my struggle with Ethan's snap-up onesie. I showed my twisted little arms and talked about my disability. It was both terrifying and liberating. It was a confession: "Hi, I'm Sarah, and I'm a parent with a disability."
The reaction I received blew me away.
We were headline news on CNN. My inbox flooded with messages from wonderful people like me. Though few had disabilities, we connected. Through pain. Through struggle. Through our need to admit: "I'm not perfect!"
In the time since my headline confession, I've eased my way into society, as a mother. As an imperfect, flawed, struggling mother loving my child more than my pride. After all, isn't that the way he deserves to be loved? Doesn't he deserve to be shown that trying again, ignoring the stares and working through anxiety are important and good and doable? I'm not interested in teaching him how to achieve perfection on the first try.
As a parent with a disability, I have the unique ability to model perseverance, determination and resilience for my children frequently and in tangible ways. I have the ability to show what a person can work around with some effort and creativity. I have the ability to demonstrate what it is to be at peace with my limitations, and find purpose in spite of (or maybe in the midst of) them.
Yes, my disability will create all manner of hurdles for us, but also a world of opportunities that the average family may never be afforded. Even now, as we await the arrival of our second baby in August, I'm nervous about how well I'll adapt to two little ones with my limited physical resources. But if I've learned anything from three years of motherhood, I know that my limitations never turn out to be as big as I anticipate, and children have a way of yanking me out of myself, out of my fear, out of my "I can't" state of mind.
And as my children grow to understand how different Mommy is, may they not only recognize those parts of me that aren't working, but also the beautiful characteristics their trust has pulled out of me.
May they see all the things they've brought to life in me, all the things that work and work well. Because of them. Sarah Kovac is a public speaker, blogger and author who lives near Kansas City with her husband Adam and son Ethan. Her first book In Capable Arms: Living a Life Embraced by Grace can be pre-ordered.
A little over 19 years ago I bought a royal blue, down-filled baby hat with ear flaps that did up with a snap under the chin. It was the equivalent of today's designer baby togs. I used to run my fingers over that hat -- with the plush soft lining and bright azure shell -- and imagine my son's fresh face peeking out of it. It was not a possibility in my mind that he could be anything but perfect, though I don't think I would have used that word. We'd worried when a blood serum test showed I had an increased risk of having a child with Down syndrome. I didn't know anything about disability. I wouldn't agree to an amnio until an obstetrician at the genetics clinic was sent in to berate me. "If you have a Down syndrome baby that'll be a burden you live with for the rest of your life," he barked. Miscarriage would be depressing, he said, but then I'd get pregnant again and have a 'normal' baby. I had an amnio and it came back normal. He would be healthy, like the other babies in the family. He arrived two hours into his exact due date. At one hour old, we were told he had anti-mongoloid eyes and a handful of other unusual facial features. By the next day other anomalies were added, after the pediatrician insisted on examining him alone. I had trotted down the hall with the nurse who took him, clinging to hope. She placed him on the table and the doctor slammed the door. I stood in the hall with a mom who wanted to observe her baby being circumcized. She wasn't allowed in either. When the doctor emerged, I took notes, documenting the seven things wrong with him. Three days later we were trudging through the children's hospital in our winter coats and boots, Ben swinging in his car seat, trying to find the hospital photographer who would take pictures of our son's 'abnormal facies.' That darling little hat the colour of the Mediterranean sea -- too large for him to wear -- sat on a shelf in his room. It seemed to taunt me. I just rifled through our photo albums and I don't have a single picture of him wearing it. When I drove home today I couldn't help noticing the teenagers hanging out on the corners, on their way home from school. As I turned onto our street I saw the preschool twins up the road playing hockey. There are three healthy kids in that family. Just like the family across the road that moved to France: they also had a set of twins and one singleton, all healthy. The long-boarders with loud logos on their shirts were already on our street, careening down the steep hill with the wind in their faces. The girls with long hair stood on the sidewalk, ready to yell "car." I remembered playing for hours on our dead-end street as a kid, returning home with that dirty, salty smell on my skin, spent. An hour later Ben and I walked down our stairs, hand in hand, he wearing his shoe with the big lift, in loose track pants, because he doesn't fit standard sizes. What does he think when he sees these middle-school boys here everyday, I thought, together, roaring down the street? What do they think of Ben? I've never bothered to notice if they look, or how they react. Ben was going to a bar with a couple of his workers and their friends, who wanted to take him out for his 19th birthday. Because he's the size of a six-year-old, I packed his passport for ID. "Do I get to go out for a beer when I turn 19?" asked my 14-year-old son, incredulously. "Uh. Yes. If you want to." "What about Lucy. Renise? Will she go for a beer when she's 19?" "I guess that'll be up to them. But probably." As the older brother, Ben has never been able to trail-blaze with milestones. I've never told him that he'll never drive, and he's never asked, except for the time during his Life Plan event when he said he'd like to learn. And be a zookeeper, or a soldier, have his own house, a girlfriend, and a family. Oh, and travel the world. It was a blue-sky event, so we didn't discuss the likelihood or practicalities. When I was 19 I'd just returned from a year in London working as an au-pair, and began university. Ben isn't able to walk to the store alone. He's never expressed his thoughts in speech. Ridden a two-wheeler. Done hand-stands in the pool. Made a crank phone-call. Kissed a girl. Talked to a friend on the phone. He doesn't have any friends at school. He did in elementary school, but they all grew up and moved on. "I feel sad about Ben," my husband messaged me during the day. I'm sure he was thinking about what he was doing at age 19. After dropping Ben off for his trip to the bar, I lay on a table with my hand and arm (recently freed of a cast) stuck with long pins, listening to classical piano and the persistent tick of a clock, while a figurine of a Chinese girl in a blue cape with a white fan, black hair and blood-red lips gazed down at me from a shelf. I tried to stop the thoughts I was having, the politically incorrect ones, about disability. When Ben was younger, I didn't want to hear about families like ours, families whose children hadn't 'overcome' their disabilities. He's our world. But we can't give him the world we imagined for him, not a fraction of it. Did we not try hard enough? Did he not? Ben went to the bar at 5, and it's now dark, 8:45. I thought we might get a call for a pick up, letting us know that the event was too much for him. "Is Ben coming home late from his first brewsky?" "I don't know. Maybe he's playing a game of pool." "Pool? Ben's playing pool? He's going to have a hard time waking up tomorrow."
What do we mean when we talk about inclusion? For the most part, we've come to take it for granted that inclusion is always a good thing. But what is inclusion anyway? Are we there yet? How will we know when we get there? Are these even the right questions to ask?
In the past a children's rehab goal was 'community integration,' but in the last 30 years there's been a move toward using the term 'inclusion.' Even though inclusion is outlined as a goal in international human rights documents and, more locally, in our national and provincial policies and institutions, it's challenging to define what it means for children in everyday life, or how to achieve it. Most often, notions about inclusion are depicted using a circle to suggest that it's desirable to be inside the circle. It's tempting to think that inclusion means being able to access mainstream public places like schools or libraries. But research has shown that being able to physically get into these places is not enough, and that sometimes, when there are no supports in place to accommodate people with disabilities, their experience in public places can be disabling. As an occupational therapist I often observed young people who were 'included' in a mainstream classroom at their local school, but who sat at the back of the room away from other students and interacted primarily with a teaching assistant. This seating plan often happens for kids who need space for a wheelchair, a bulky speech device and a desktop computer, and who work with an assistant. Most students with this equipment accept it as a given that they can't sit in the midst of students. What I heard from youth was that they wanted more opportunities to hang out with other kids at school. They felt included in one sense, but excluded in other ways that were very important to them. So we need to critically examine what we mean by inclusion. What types of inclusion enhance participation and make students feel like they belong? What types of inclusion make students feel different and left out, even if this isn't the intended effect? Research on inclusion has shown tradeoffs when specialized schools are closed and kids with disabilities are integrated into regular schools. Families want their child to be at their local school, but they mourn the loss of a community where disability is common and positive disability identities are modelled. Very little research has looked at understanding inclusion from the perspective of children growing up with a disability, so I've chosen to make these questions the focus of my doctoral research. I'm just getting underway with my study, which will explore how youth who use augmentative and alternative communication experience being included or left out. What are the factors that lead them to feel they belong and are participating in class? I'll also consider the ways that broader notions about inclusion might impact these young people. I'd like to share some tentative ways of thinking about inclusion that I've developed for my study. These statements were developed, in part, by drawing on research based on input from people with disabilities. I'll test these working statements throughout my research, and modify them as I learn more from study participants. What do you think about these ideas?
Inclusion is more than being located in a particular place or space. Inclusion is created socially through relationships that involve people and places. This means it is fluid and constantly changing or fluctuating.
Inclusion is 'in the eye of the beholder.' This implies that individual children and youth might have very different ideas about what factors enable them to feel like they belong, and what the barriers to being part of an activity or group might be. It also means that it's difficult to objectively identify inclusion because it's primarily a subjective experience.
Inclusion isn't necessarily experienced as all or nothing. We can feel both included and excluded at the same time.
Inclusion isn't about a one-way move to include children with disabilities in mainstream places or activities. This isn't always achievable or desirable.
Many of our ideas about inclusion stem from the assumption that being in the centre of mainstream society is ideal. This tends to obstruct other ways of thinking about inclusion. It's also troubling because it suggests that it's better to be 'normal' or to try to be as normal as possible. It leads to judgments about who's in need of inclusion, and suggests that not being included in mainstream events or places is a failure. Thinking differently about inclusion involves thinking differently about disability. In particular, we need to stop thinking about disability in primarily negative ways.
I don't know if the time has come for a new word to replace inclusion but I do know that we have much to learn about how inclusion is understood, imagined and experienced by children and youth with disabilities. What types of inclusion do they desire? And in what social spaces? Gail Teachman has more than 20 years' experience as an occupational therapist at Holland Bloorview and teaches at the University of Toronto. Her research examines norms and assumptions in children's rehab in relation to youth who use augmentative and alternative communication and their families.
I'm watching snowflakes fall outside my massive window at Holland Bloorview.
One of the unique things about our newish building (2006) is floor-to-ceiling windows that let in natural sunlight—something you don't see in many hospitals.
The glass is so clean and unobstructed that I can see big fat fluffy flakes close up. Further out the churning up of so many tiny dots of snow looks like millions of frenetic stars.
What strikes me as the wind changes is how many flakes float by my window in a relatively straight path, while some rise above and others, farther away, are in a free-fall.
Children are often compared to snowflakes—each one different and unique.
But as I look out it all appears so random—the course of these snowflakes, which are carried up, which are carried along, and which fall (I realize they all eventually fall). And that's how I feel about my son with severe disabilities, when I think of him in relation to his siblings and other children. Most children are gifted at birth with the tools that will allow them to do all the regular things in life, and many come with superstar abilities across the board, allowing them to ascend in the conventional world of success. And then there are children with disabilities that touch everything, who seem to have been destined from birth for a free-fall. I'm not talking about an isolated physical disability or hearing loss, which can be worked around. I'm talking about kids who have physical disability plus hearing loss plus no speech plus fine-motor problems that limit sign plus learning problems plus health problems, plus, plus, plus. There isn't any rhyme or reason as to which child gets what. We don't start out equal and it certainly isn't just. It's World Down Syndrome Day today, but all I can think about is that 26-year-old man man with Down Syndrome, the one who sat back down in a Maryland movie theatre in January when his caregiver went outside to get the car. Robert E. Saylor was his name. When asked to leave, he refused. He was handcuffed and forced to the ground by three deputies working extra hours as mall security workers. During the scuffle he called out for his mother. He suffocated to death.
This morning a friend on Facebook posted a blog by a British mom. Two days ago she learned that her daughter's teacher was being charged with physical and emotional abuse, which included taping her daughter's wrists together, hitting her in the face with a book, and kicking her. The girl is in elementary school and has Down syndrome.
A couple of days ago there was a story about a mother who learned caregivers were beating her adult son with autism after she placed cameras in his home. I didn't want to watch the news clip, but I made myself. I just did a google search for the story and quickly gave up: I couldn't find it because there were too many stories about people with autism being beaten. There isn't really any point to this, other than to say that some kids are born so vulnerable, in so many ways, that it's hard to keep them floating.
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