[blindkid] Special child

[jjordan_pa at yahoo.com]

Beautifully said, Jan, and insightful to me as a parent of a young, blind daughter. Janice
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-----Original Message-----
From: "Jan Wright" <jan.wrightfamily5 at gmail.com>

Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:45:24 
To: <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [blindkid] Special child



I think that this discussion is an important one.

I have refrained from responding because Carrie did a good  job at expressing my views. 

    While growing up, I always had people in my family who would say that I was "special" and "Amazing." This made me feel quite uncomfortable and yielded much animosity from my siblings. In fact, I will say that it was a barrier to interacting with my own sighted peers. I shrunk from this attention into my braille and talkingbooks.  

    The residential school that I attended did not help: I felt as if I was always put on display for the many tours that frequented the school. I realize that they needed to elicit donations. But, I will tell you that to this day, I dislike being in the limelight because it feels like I am on display.  

It seemed that the public only had two responses for me. Either they ignored me completely which also meant that they did not focus on my blindness, but they did not even recognize my existance.  or they thought that I was "amazing." But, this "Amazing" quality did not translate into real abilities. Often, I get the statement from society that I am "Amazing," because I am raising four children. Yet, these same people would not feel comfortable with me watching their own child. And, I was always "Special,"  but not "Special enough" to warrant true friendship and have an opinion passed the blindness issues. Whether in the pit or on the pedestal, your blind child wants to be treated like every other  child and when you do this, you teach society to do it, as well. Also, it allows your child to develop their gifts and be proud of being "special" for the wonderful gifts that they exhibit. Thus, their family, their friends and society does not define them by their disability. And, their gifts are not measured with a disabled measuring stick, but one that measures all gifts.

     

  

 

 

 

 
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