[blparent] Sighted Interference

[Allison]

Hi JoElizabeth. That sounds awful. Sounds like you handled it the best you
could. How sad for you and your daughter though. 

In the six months I've been a mom, it has continuously amazed me how much
more about parenting all kinds of folks think they know than I do simply
because they can see and I can't. Never mind that some of them don't even
have kids, or that some have almost no education, or that some had their
children decades ago, and on and on. Those functioning eyeballs really do
make them especially qualified to tell me what my daughter needs. Ugh. 

I don't have a solution. Wish I did. Ignoring works most days, until it
doesn't of course. Hang in there all, you're doing a good job. 

Best,
Allison



-----Original Message-----
From: BlParent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jo
Elizabeth Pinto via BlParent
Sent: Monday, July 4, 2016 2:47 PM
To: Blind Parents Mailing List <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Jo Elizabeth Pinto <jopinto at msn.com>
Subject: [blparent] Sighted Interference

Hi, all.  I regularly dealt with the issue of well-meaning sighted people
interfering with my parenting when my daughter was a baby, but I thought the
problem had pretty much resolved itself once she got too big to be
irresistibly cute and learned to walk and talk.  Maybe I just have
particularly busybody friends--I'm in a writing group where most of the
members are quite a bit older than I am,  some with grandchildren my
daughter's age--but sighted interference is an ongoing problem we all have
to be on the lookout for .  It jumped up and bit me on the nose last week. 
This time it embarrassed my daughter, which infuriated me, whereas before
she was too little to really know or care.  That makes the issue a thousand
times more thorny now, which is why I decided to bring it up on the list,
because the earlier disabled parents find a strategy for dealing with it, I
think, the better off they and their children will be.

My daughter and I were out to lunch at Dairy Queen with some of the members
of my writing group.  One of the authors, in my opinion, is quite obsessive
about everything, including my blindness.  She once told me in front of
everyone that there's a right way to eat a cupcake, and I wasn't eating mine
correctly because you're supposed to eat it from the side and I was eating
mine from the top.  Of course, she said, I wouldn't know that because I
can't see.  I was slightly peeved with the self-appointed Miss Manners, but
I laughed it off and said I always was a rebel.  There are a lot more
examples of her saying things like that.  That particular author had been
invaluable in helping me get my book published, so I didn't feel I could
ruffle her feathers too much.  Anyway, toward the end of the lunch, my
daughter was enjoying her cherry sundae, and the same author told her she
was holding her spoon the wrong way.  She said my daughter still held her
spoon in her fist, like a boy, instead of in three fingers, like a proper
little girl.  My daughter got embarrassed, and I was appalled.  First of
all, my daughter is eight.  So what if she holds her spoon in her fist? 
Lots of kids do.  Maybe she's a little old for that, but to go on and on
about how boys shovel their ice cream in and girls eat nicely, and if she
didn't learn the right way to hold a spoon, the kids at school would make
fun of her, and her mom couldn't see to show her the right way.  Then two
other grandparent-aged writers at the table joined in to try and "help."  My
daughter tried to hold her spoon their way, but it felt funny to her, so she
said she couldn't do it.  At that point, I intervened--I had been quite
shocked and appalled before that, and to my shame, it took me a few moments
to find my voice--I put up a menu around my daughter's place at the table
and said it didn't matter how she held her spoon and she was going to eat
her sundae in peace without everybody watching her.  She was too
overwhelmed, though, and said she was full and didn't want her ice cream. 
Her cherry sundae, which is her favorite thing in the world, was spoiled. 
She wouldn't eat it; she gave it to me.  I didn't say anything else, but
looking back, I wish I would have.  I wish I would have asked them how dare
they ruin my daughter's dessert.  I wish I would have told the instigator
that if she was really concerned with the way my child held her spoon, she
could have spoken to me privately about it instead of making it a public
issue for the whole table.  I wish I would have told them all that their
help did more harm than good.

I will have to decide if I should say anything to them when we meet again
this week.  I don't know if I can make them see that they made a mistake,
especially the obsessive one.  My other choice is just to be very vigilant
and protect my daughter from their boorishness.

Jo Elizabeth

"The Bright Side of Darkness"
is my award-winning novel,
available in Kindle, audio, and paperback formats at Amazon.com. 


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