Mom’s friend has recently said, that our ecology is daunting and humankind is screwed because look how many “ill children” are born. She thinks that “ill” is about children born with different disabilities and certain disadvantages. She insisted that they were less before or they didn’t even exist. I flew into a rage and started telling violently that all those “other” children have always been but in the shadow for many years. Society didn’t spot them. Society crossed them out of its life.
In my childhood, there was no child with Down syndrome, Cerebral palsy, ASD (autism spectrum disorder). However, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist. In those days.
Such children were immediately marked as “biological material”. The parents were insisted to refuse from children. As babies, they were taken to orphanage forever, they weren’t allowed out. They were, but not in our surrounding.
We lived in a quite isolated community in which children were supposed to be healthy, smart and white. Yes-yes, it was a miracle for our yard community to see a black man.
We didn’t know for a long time that these people exist, let alone the possibility to interact with them.
The world changes. I’m 38 now, my daughter is 6. She takes me to the playground to introduce me to her friend and says: “Mum, this is Cheerful Sasha”. I ask again: “Sasha?” Nadiya insists: “No, this is Cheerful Sasha”. Sasha has Down syndrome, he’s laughing merrily. He asks: “What is this? A bow?” Before I manage to answer he pulls the tie, which holds the skirt, I catch the skirt and we’re giggling gaily. Sasha says: “I got it, the bow holds your legs”, and we burst out laughing. It’s a hell of awesome remark “the bow holds the legs”. Our laughter attracts Sasha’s dad and I see him sighing with relief that his boy is accepted by the children playground world. Nadiya has one more chummy. Dima is special as he knows different kinds of insects and bugs but he can’t stand adults in his world. He mostly speaks numerically and only with children and his mother. He looks into insect’s eyes but never into the speaker’s. That’s why he always wears dark glasses.
I wouldn’t know what Dima is about if Nadya hadn’t told me. Watching Nadiya’s attitude I think about him not as a special but as an ordinary child with his own needs. Some, for example, love screeching and mudding themselves and this one simply doesn’t want adults to talk to him. He loves insects, bugs and numerals.
Sometimes it seems like we are getting out of the cave in terms of our perception of “otherness” and “specialness”. Yes-yes, smart and adult holding gadgets, looking over our shoulders with fear, we realize that except us, bipedal and stereotypically-minded, there are other people. We learn to live with them, co-work and communicate. We learn to respect their wishes and needs. I believe that my daughter’s generation, or even earlier, will grow up and it won’t see otherness in them. They will study at the same schools and universities, go dancing and do karate, play the same piano, share books and, after all, work together. Society will only benefit from it.
What about mum’s friend… She agreed that collective blindness is guilty, not ecology.
Tatusya Bo
