What Families are Up Against
Among the barrage of back to school paperwork for a preschooler and a kindergarten there it is was. An unassuming invitation for after school dance classes. A description that says this particular program enrolls children who are at least 5 years old, live within the Cincinnati area, and are willing to attend class in dance appropriate clothing every week. And then, ever so subtly, an additional stipulation. In order to participate, they require that children “do not require special needs assistance for a physical or mental condition.”
And there it is. An explicit “You Are Not Welcome Here.” I’ve heard from families of people with developmental disabilities that this experience is a common one for them. The metaphorical door slammed in their faces. It happens at birth of their child – what is meant to be a joyous day, is met with avoided eye contact… It happens when looking for childcare – we can’t take your child given the circumstances... It happens when enrolling and advocating for a typical Kindergarten class… It happens for soccer teams and theater groups and summer camps and scouting groups and after school rec center activities... A variety of voices saying, “No.” “We just can’t...” “We won’t be able to…” “Surely you understand…”
This rejection can be explicit and in your face offensive, degrading, dehumanizing – someone calling a person “retarded.” I find however, that more often, they are the brief, and everyday occurrences that send the message verbally or otherwise that a person’s presence if disabled, isn’t welcomed, isn’t valued, and frankly, is inconvenient to everyone else. And in our folder, and in take home folders all across the school district, families of children with disabilities were also reading that flyer. It’s just a flyer for a children’s dance class, you may be thinking. Surely, there are other dance classes? Ones that children with disabilities can go to? Yes, it is just a flyer, and yes, it is just a dance class. And yes, there are other dances classes specifically for children with disabilities. What we are noticing is the instinct instead to separate, distance and push away, instead of asking “might there be a way to include everyone who wants to dance?” These rejections reinforce the explicit or implicit message you do not belong here. This isn’t for you.
That while we said children who are at least 5 years old, live in Cincinnati, and can wear their tap shoes and dance pants each week, we obviously didn’t mean those kinds of children. While it’s just a flyer and just a dance class now, it quickly becomes a classroom, an apartment or house, a job, community and friendship and love later. The rejection is cumulative, the isolation it is creating is compounded over time. When this rejection is constant, what does that do to you? Your family? What you start to believe about your community, your neighbors, your friends, your own family? I don’t know the gutting feeling of my child not being welcome, of hearing no over and over again. But I can certainly bring it to light and work against the culture that believes this to be okay. That some of us get opportunity, invitations, and welcomed and some of us just don’t, and won’t, and can’t isn’t okay.
At Starfire we’ve thought a lot about how to approach the work with an understanding of what people with disabilities and their families are up against. And, while my children have no interest in dance and we wouldn’t sign up anyway, and they don’t have disabilities so they wouldn’t be excluded had they wanted to, this is something that all other families would also receive in their take home folder. And just because it doesn’t affect my children, doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect our children.
