”Cut off and ignored” indeed

For me, the biggest question this BBC article raises is, why does it focus on parents rather than people with disabilities theirselves? It details how the lives of two or three fairly severely disabled kids have been effected by the lockdown, yet completely ignores the points of view of disabled people ourselves. If these parents feel ”cut off and ignored”, how do they think their children feel?

3 thoughts on “”Cut off and ignored” indeed”

Kate Caryer says:

May 27, 2020 at 5:43 pm

and talks about teenagers as they are babies

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1. tiiroac says:
  
  May 27, 2020 at 6:18 pm
  
  Exactly – the article treats the disabled people as though they were totally passive, with no thoughts or opinions of their own.
  
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JEH says:

May 30, 2020 at 9:11 pm

Because this article is about the impact on parents/family and so it is about their experience of having no income, no support and a very dependent disabled child (adult child but with many physical needs)
I have read other articles about being a disabled person in the current situation.
I find it very interesting that there is often much criticism of parents within the disabled community…and I do agree that sometimes it is entirely justified…and it is often around the issue of how parents have no concept of being a disabled person (true) and so shouldn’t speak on behalf of their disabled kids (sometimes true). However I very rarely see disabled commentators admit that they cannot imagine what it is like to be the (non-disabled) parent of a disabled child and that it may be quite hard sometimes. I would never ever profess to knowing exactly how it feels to be my disabled child, just as i know he has no concept of being me. But that doesn’t mean we don;t respect and value each other. And I think the parent in this article is absolutely correct when they say that unless you have a disabled child you just don’t really understand the impact that the current situation has on a family like theirs, and ours and many thousands of others.
This is not meant to sound as abrupt as it does! I’m not furious, just trying to make a point and an observation.

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