On Disability, Suffering, and Euthanasia

Are there people whose level of disability places them into a category beyond hope? It's easy to think the answer depends on the answers to some other questions. What about that theoretical person I mentioned who has no neocortex, no possibility of conscious thought? Is it our mind that makes us human? Our genes? A thing called a soul that some people believe we have and others don't? But eventually I realized this line of questioning was the wrong approach entirely. It's not a matter of finding that dividing line between human and not human, worthwhile and hopeless, valuable and expendable. The minute you allow yourself to think that way, you've missed the point. You get hung up wondering where that dividing line is rather than seeking a solution that would make it moot.

Education, Control, and Abuse

My apologies for the length of this post. *** How do we teach children what they need to know in life? What do they need to know? They need, at some point, some measure of self-control: the ability to delay gratification, to think before acting, to modify aggressive instincts, to consider the well-being and desires…

Making Mistakes

(Sorry for the length of this post!) My first few times babysitting Tangles (10-yr-old girl with global developmental delay, possible autism, ataxic cerebral palsy, and seizures) made me realize just how new I am at all this. I made mistakes, lots of them. I learned a lot, too. The first hurdle was changing her diaper.…

Catching up about Tangles

I've learned so much since my first day with the 10-year-old girl I call Tangles, who has ataxic cerebral palsy and mixed partial seizures, and diagnoses of global developmental delay and profound intellectual disability. But I want to take things in order, here, as much as possible. *** The first time I met her, Tangles…

Things That Are Difficult to Say: More about my first impressions of Tangles

I wasn't, at first, going to write about this here. I was going to keep this blog for writing about Disability Rights and Disability Positivity and The Right Way To Do It. I wasn't going to talk about my mistakes, my second thoughts, my doubts... not in public, anyway. Not because I was ashamed, but…

What kind of therapy does Tangles receive?

[EDITED] Last time I introduced you to a 10-year-old girl I call Tangles, who has ataxic cerebral palsy and mixed partial seizures, and diagnoses of global developmental delay and profound intellectual disability. Here's point one of my frustration about Tangle’s situation. I've described the kind of ABA therapy that Fishy [whose primary disability is also…

Introducing Tangles

I have a new client for whom I've been providing occasional respite care for the past month, and she has taught me so much that I don't even know how to start putting it all down. She is a 10 year old girl who lives with her mother and younger sister, age 6. She's brought…