Ableism and parenting intersect in ways most people never consider—until children begin absorbing the quiet lessons our culture teaches about whose bodies are valued and whose are questioned. Simply put, ableism is the discrimination disabled people experience. However, I like Talila A. Lewis’ working definition the most. Talila is a multilingual abolitionist, artist, educator, writer, movement strategist, and community lawyer.
Talila’s definition of ableism states:
Ableism is a system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism.
This systemic oppression leads to people and society determining people’s value based on their culture, age, language, appearance, religion, birth, or living place, “health/wellness,” and/or their ability to satisfactorily re/produce, “excel” and “behave.”
You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.
I appreciate this definition because each time I read it, I gain a new perspective on its depth and understanding of the term. “A system of assigning value to people’s minds and bodies” is essentially how our entire society is constructed. From our education to where we work to what type of family we have to our gender to where we live- it’s all based on what society has deemed ‘normal, desirable, or intelligent’ enough. However, the last sentence, ‘you do not have to be disabled to experience ableism” is the one that most often confuses people. Unfortunately, I think the confusion is only a sign of how pervasive ableism is in our culture. Some examples of how nondisabled people experience ableism:
- when someone uses the ‘R-Word’ towards you
- When becoming disabled is used as a threat towards you or your children. (ie : You have to look for cars! Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair?!” )
- When someone refers to you as ‘crazy’ or ‘psycho’
- When someone says you are acting so ‘bi-polar today.’
When disability is used as a punchline, a threat, or an insult, what we are really saying is that living in a disabled body is something to fear. And when that belief circulates freely, everyone absorbs it.
As a Little Person, I stand at roughly four feet tall. And as a mother to two kids who do not share my disability, people are often surprised to learn that they, too, experience ableism—regularly and in very real ways.
For them, ableism, of course, shows up when they are with me. Sometimes this is through access and other times through picture-taking, stares, comments and questions. We get lots of questions- and my kids have become experts on when those questions are smart questions and when those questions could best be answered by google.
However, ableism most often shows up for them when I’m nowhere nearby. People, strangers and friends alike, often wait until the kids are by themselves to ask invasive questions about our family. What I don’t think they realize though is how often these stories get told and retold at our dinner table. Since they were able to talk, they have told me of times when someone has asked where we buy our clothes, how we drive our cars, how we cook dinner, or if they are going to look like us when they get older? My kids often point out things about how the person asked the question- like how they obviously avoid saying the word ‘small’ or ‘short.’ They use hand gestures to refer to our height. But even at their age, the deeper connotation does not go unnoticed. They have often asked, “Why do people think being like you would be so bad?”
Unfortunately, this is what #everydayableism looks like. I’m proud to say that my kids may look to be nondisabled on the outside, but they can name your ableism a mile away. When we ask kids whether or not they will look like their disabled parent when they grow up, we aren’t just being intrusive. We are teaching them that disability is a cautionary tale. It’s also how we, as a society, reinforce the notion that disability is something that needs to be ‘othered.’ This is how ableism reproduces itself- quietly and conversationally.
Ableism does not only wound disabled people; it shapes the air all of us breathe. When we treat disability as a threat, a punchline, or a spectacle, children are listening. And we often don’t know the lives they are living at home and how that is impacted. They are learning whose bodies are valued and whose are questioned. My kids do not need protection from my disability – they need protection from a culture that treats it as something to fear. If we want the next generation to understand disability as part of the natural fabric of human diversity, then we have to model that understanding ourselves. That starts with pausing before we ask the invasive question, before we make the careless joke, before we turn someone’s body into public property.
