Young parents get lots of advice. Perfect strangers feel compelled to offer them instruction on everything from bundling the kid up on a windy day to dealing with a temper tantrum in the street. If your baby is teething and fretful, your next-door neighbor has the perfect remedy and if your toddler is keeping you awake at night, a dozen friends will offer their tried and true solutions.
Young parents take it in stride. Because after a while, it stops. The aunties and uncles give up and get on with their own lives. Neighbours acknowledge that it’s none of their business. Strangers go back to ignoring you.
Unless, of course, the person has a disability. People with disability (and their parents) get lots of advice too. But it doesn’t stop with childhood. Moy Moy is 25 now and we still hear – every time we walk out the door – that she should be wearing a sweater, that it’s too hot to be outside, that she should put on bug spray. Strangers – really and truly – accost us on the street to suggest a faith healer, an ayurvedic doctor, a magician. “Why don’t you get her treated?” someone asked me just last week. “Why don’t you take her to New York? Or Mumbai? Or how about my favourite quack in Muzaffarnagar?”
We are a bit tired of it now, a quarter of a century on. We’ve had enough of people implying that we need advice, that we don’t quite get it, that they know better than we do how we should live our lives.
It’s not just insulting. It’s wrong. Because it’s people with disability who should be giving out advice. They triumph over odds (no legs! no eyes! an IQ of 60!) that would daunt marathon-runners, corporate trainers and personal coaches. They know about courage. They understand pain. They face down fear every day and they have wisdom to share.
Some of us who work with them and have learned a lot in the process thought it would be worthwhile to share a bit of what they have taught us. This year, our calendar theme is Instruction: Useful Advice From Special Kids. We hope it helps. If it doesn’t, just pass it on!
-–Jo Chopra
