Susan Senator

I contemplate these questions every single day. I always wonder if he wants more, and if he’s really enjoying what I provide for him. The “should have” is something I wrestle with constantly. It honestly hurts not to know, and to be fairly certain I will never know. I so get this!

Re:
“Here goes, the horrible question: Do people with disabilities sometimes feel inferior because of what they cannot do, because they must depend on others? Oh, how Ableist of me to ask that, but I want to know, I want to hear about it.”

That question isn’t horrible. If that question is “Ableist” — if “Ableist” means noting that competence in any area _isn’t_ incompetence, and preferring the former, and recognizing that preference as rational — then I am Ableist (as I was LONG before anyone, including myself, I knew I was disabled and not, say, lazy or capricious), so make the most of it.

When (often!) I still feel worthless and sub-human (like an ugly, unlikable, not-quite-rational animal) over my various incompetences and inabilities (temporary or, more often, foreseeably permanent),’this is because I WAS, for decades treated as worthless and sub-human. My feelings aside — for I strive daily to help my feelings be governed by my knowledge, rather than the other way around — what I think is true on this matter is what you have so well expressed in the paragraph below the one I quoted: the paragraph about each of us requiring things to be made and done for us, that we must pay for (or that SOMEBODY must be willing to pay for (and, ultimately to create), one way or another, if those goods and those services are to exist at all. And not all payments are monetary: those whom we love, and who love us, “pay” in a coin that no mint ever stamped: their value to us. (If no human being could be of value to any other human being, then no form of human interchange could ever have been invented, including trade and money and all the rest of it.)

Re:
“I wonder what would happen if philanthropists decided to freely offer their time & share their wisdom with the disability community.”
Having seen what happened when people with anything valuable (time,knowledge, etc.) were persuaded — or sometimes forced — to “freely offer” it instead of money (and/or to “freely offer” it instead of being paid), I can state that the results are seldom an improvement.

Re:”I think time is worth more than money” — only st times: not eternally, not absolutely and forever and irrespective of circumstance or context! Money, after all, comes from someone’s having already exchanged his/her time (and labor, and/or wisdom/knowledge/other things) for that money (as a sort of “storage mechanism” of the time/effort/other resources exchanged). There are occasions, many of them, when providing money is worth more than providing time, or labor, or other things— otherwise, there wouldn’t BE money, only barter. (Example: when I need an attorney — a disability rights attorney, perhaps — or any other professional, being able to pay for “x” hours’ worth of his/her services means MUCH more to me — and will do me MUCH more good — than having that professional do “x” hours of washing dishes in a group home, or most of the other things I have heard called “giving freely of oneself.”

Re:
“Would they really understand?” That depends on each individual — and on what, precisely, you are asking if they “understand”: whatever that is. (It is not clear to me, from that message, what the author wants all, or any, of the people s/he’s discussing to “understand.”

Re:
“How would they deal with interactions that might make them feel even the smallest bit uncomfortable?”
Again, that depends on each person — and on each interaction. If — and only if — someone values the particular interaction/the other person/etc. highly enough that’s s/he considers the particular level of discomfort involved to matter less than that … then — and not otherwise — that person has a reason to interact with me, and I welcome this.
Too often it’s otherwise — the othe person does NOT, over all, want to be in that interaction, or with that person, but is doing it against his/her overall interests/choices/preferences and out of “duty” or some such thing (he or she doesn’t value the other person, the interaction, etc., enough to make the discomfort a fair exchange for the value gained; s/he figures it is not worth it overall). When that’s the case — when I’m being cared for/interacted with/etc. precisely because the other person DOES NOT WANT to create that care or be in that interaction to happen, but is doing it “for duty’s sake” or the like — I do not want OR welcome that. (I state this as someone who has been on both ends of such forced interactions, such “do it BECAUSE you hate to, BECAUSE you note that there is nothing in it for you” sacrificial arrangements. I have been the kid who was played with ONLY because the teacher or parents commanded some other kid to “go play with her because nobody wants to, so people must be forced to do it for free” and I have also been — at other times — the kid who was thus forced. (To be played with, or cared for, out of duty and under orders — in other words, not because anyone thought I was worth it, but precisely because no one thought I was worth it — was, and remains, as repugnant and damaging to me as it would be to anyone. Psychologists are familiar with the lasting damage that is done, for instance, when a mother tells a child: “I do not actually want you in my life; the reason that I’m providing you with food and a home and the time and effort I spend on you is that it is my socially commanded duty: my own preference would be NOT to provide these, so you’re getting them out for pure duty, not as if I thought you were worthwhile enough to me that I’d WANT to lift a finger for you. I am required to do it voluntarily, so here I am [sigh].” It is as wrong and damaging from anyone else (to say in effect, “Here, I’m saving you because you are NOT worth it”) as it is from a father or mother.

Re:
“I wonder if their experiences would change the way they view ability, and money.”
Again, that depends on who is doing the viewing — and on what is there to be seen.

Re:
“Unfortunately, everything comes at a cost in the disability community.”
Everything comes at a cost in ANY community —’or even if there is no community. (If there were only one human being on the entire Earth, EVERYTHING s/he gained would very obviously come at a cost: the cost of his/her own physical and mental effort.) Leaving aside that I do not regard disability as a “community” (shudder at such deep and unspeakable heresy, if you think you must), everything comes at a cost ANYWHERE: that fact is simply easier to notice when disabilities are involved. (As the saying goes: there is no free lunch. Someone, somewhere, is paying — always.)

Re:
“For our children, nothing is free, not even friendship.” That is true for every child and man and woman — it is just more obvious when the potential friend has some characteristics that make him/her less likely to be chosen for a friend.