Confessions of a disabled father

It got to me in no time! She was trying to think of a name for an article she was writing. She wanted it to be for parents of disabled children and she wanted it to be short. If it just said “disabled parents” then someone might think it was for a parent with a disability.

Then I realized… okay, it hit me like a hammer. This piece was never about my own son, who is disabled. This piece and future stories had always been about me. It was ME who was truly disabled and my stories are a journey of how I learned to cope, deal with, grow and heal from this disability.

Children who have physical or developmental disabilities instinctively and inherently KNOW what they are capable of. It is we, the parents, not our children who have the disability.

As parents, we have been bombarded our entire lives about what a parent is and should be. There’s the media, our parents and mentors and role models all throwing around images and ideas about how to be a parent, but NOBODY ever tells you how to parent a child with a disability.

When our child is born, we are also born. We are born blind to what we can do, say or be. We are blind to what our son is capable of.

We are deaf to our own inspiration and emotionally paralyzed by our constant questioning: why me?

We are also reborn mute. We talk about what we need and what our child needs, and often the people and organizations around us can’t hear us.

We are paralyzed with anger and resentment because no one understands what it is like, and we often get tired trying to stand up for people who can help us.

This story is not about your child or mine. There are millions of disabilities and diagnostic categories that our children will fit into. But there is only one place for a parent whose child is born or a child who develops a medical problem. This article is for parents like you.

This story is about offering a course of action, by sharing about the journey to recover from my “birth” as a disabled parent to an adapted parent.