Hi Simi,
Going back to your original message, you wrote:
>Ruff's mom is quoted as saying "He's handled it extremely well. Better
>than I."
I'm sure I've said the same thing, because having been brought up in a
culture that sees the wheelchair as the symbolic equivalent to the electric
chair--i.e. the end of life (as 'we' in the cult of health and beauty know
it)--I could not imagine my own 'adjustment' to life as a nonwalker. This
was *more* than an attitude towards the hostile architectural environment
that I knew would curtail/restrict physical movement; it was fear of
difference, of dependence, and of detachment from society. I had seen how
disabled people were patronized and excluded, and I did not think I myself
would have the inner strength or 'vigilance' as you say, to survive in such
a situation. Those were *my* fears, my projections, though, about *my*
incapacity to deal with disability if it should become my challenge.
And altho it broke my heart to think that my son would have to endure
similar (narrow, medically and media-induced) reactions from society, I
tried very hard not to impart this defeatist attitude to my son. I told him
he could be anything/do anything he set his mind to (altho there was one
point where we had to discuss the realities of his goal of being a football
quarterback). We talked openly about people's reactions to him, and I
showed my disgust and impatience with 'ignorant' people. I spent 30 years
as his 'coach,' trying to build his self-esteem--while knowing all the while
that, if I were the disabled person, I would have collapsed under the
rejection and limited opportunities to be found in our society.
It would be useful to have Lynn tell his side of all this. He lurks on this
list, and I wonder that he hasn't contributed to the dialogue here. Perhaps
I've got it all wrong. But my point is that, like Ruff, my son has
*overachieved* in nearly everything that caused me worry--based on *my*
perception of what *I* would have managed to do in his situation. He
constantly amazed me and made me proud, not because I set limits on his
goals, but because I could not see *myself* meeting the challenges he was
faced with. Because I tried to keep those fears of personal inadequacy a
secret from him, I believed he would feel that I had the highest
expectations of him.
Thirty years down the line--what with the positive changes that have
occurred not only in societal attitudes and architecture and transportation,
but in self-esteem through the political collective of the Disability
Movement--I believe I could handle disability with more grace (It appears
that I'll get the chance to prove that). One never knows, until one dons
the apparell and the persona of 'difference.' But the knowledge that it is
*society* that needs 'Special Education' regarding disability--all that
makes a difference, when I imagine myself 'adjusting' and 'coping' "in spite
of."
So when you write:
>It was my experience that my mother was "adjusting" to my
impairment/disability status,
>long after I'd moved on.
I suggest that what you saw as 'adjustment' might have been
'amazement.' Maybe she, like myself and Ruff's mom, just had a little
trouble putting herself in your shoes (or wheelchair), after having been
raised in, and observing, an intolerant society.
You write, more recently:
>I was trying to understand the ways that her ideas about what my life was
>going to be like post-injury were different from mine. Her fears that
>I would have a miserable life, and her wish for me to "get better,"
>(meaning be able to walk again. . . .
Can you see in this thought the conflation of "her/my" and "she/me"
that suggests something about your mother's conflict? We want for our
children the very best--as we have known it. When disability confounds the
picture, when we cannot conceive of "I" as the actor in a disability scene,
we fail to see how the performance will unfold. We moms are tough
critics--of the script and props and set, and especially of the audience.
What we *don't* have, is the ability to see ourselves in the role, because
we've become too familiar with 'tragedies' (and the Greek Chorus that
prophecies disaster)--a far more popular genre, if we have been raised by
media, literature, charity appeals, and self-serving memoirs or "good
cripple" eulogies. We fear for your 'reviews,' mostly because we have BEEN
part of that audience ourselves and have not seen the disability role
performed in a way that would impell us to audition for it.
I see now that you were not 'blaming' your mother, but were puzzled by
her attitude.
Hope this sheds some light?
Best,
Dona
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Dona M. Avery
University of Bristol, England
Research Fellow, Graduate School of Education,
& Arizona State University, USA
PhD program, English: Rhetoric & Composition
UK Tele: 01793 487 424 Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.public.asu.edu/~donam
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