Re: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother
How true it is about the assumption that someone with disability cannot be leading a normal life. One of the questions I have to tackle is how, despite being blind and therefore incapable of reading anything printed, I remain a writer. Well, the logic of that beats my wit and I had to pause for a long moment to explain how I work. Funny but also frustrating since it is hard to demystify certain strong assumptions. Subramani -Original Message- From: accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] On Behalf Of Sanjay Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:29 PM To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in Subject: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother Please don't blame me for its nontechnical nature. I hope many blind parents of this group--both present and future will enjoy reading this article. I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother (By Amie Slavin. From The Guardian, U.K., (c) Aug. 8, 2009) Hard labor, as a lifestyle choice, has more to recommend it than I could have guessed. From those first few hours of holding Sophia, my firstborn, curled on my forearm learning to breastfeed, to the most recent round of pre-breakfast Ride a Cockhorse, bouncing two fine ladies on my tired knees, I have been a fan. But I always knew that parenting would present different challenges for me, compared with more mainstream mothers, because I have been blind since 1997. The practicalities of bringing up children without eyesight are not, for the most part, nearly as hard as you might think. Changing nappies isn't especially difficult if you're used to doing everything by touch. There's no mystery about it. I don't explore fecal matter with my fingers, neither do I leave my baby half-cleaned. I simply use a combination of touch and smell to determine how cleaning is progressing, and if it gets out of hand and I begin to lose the will to live, well, 10 minutes suffices for a bath and change of clothes: foolproof. Feeding is also achievable, if slightly more exciting. In the early days of weaning, I would collect a spoonful of food with my right hand while lightly resting my left hand on her right shoulder. In this way I could monitor the position of her head and use my thumb to assess the in (and especially out) flow. I didn't aim the spoon directly in but used my fingertips to detect her mouth and its degree of openness. Next would come the lightning transition from obliquely hovering spoonful to precisely administered tasty mouthful without jabbing the gums, touching the soft palate or twanging the lips or tongue. Running my household is more complex, yet still not impossible. Recently, for instance, while sorting laundry, I flicked the corner of a duvet cover into Sophia's abandoned water cup, tipping it on to the floor. I reached for the kitchen roll and knocked over a brand new bottle of multi-surface cleaner which, defying its sealed status, sloshed its contents liberally over the kitchen's cork tiles. Throwing kitchen roll onto the spilled water, I set about wiping up the surface cleaner. My wonderfully helpful (and terrifyingly valuable) new guide dog instantly joined in, diving first into the surface cleaner (to my panic) and then, on my rebuff, seizing the water-soaked kitchen roll and dancing off with it. Flustered and swearing by now, I chased and caught the dog and paper, sending one from the room and the other to landfill; mopped up the surface cleaner, recaptured my laundry and began to congratulate myself on a household crisis averted. Brimming with competence, I returned to make the supper I should have started half an hour earlier. Deftly chopping three huge garlic cloves in record time and hurling them at the hot pan ... I missed completely! Still, avoidance of these annoying minor disasters is possible by taking extra time and using forethought. I am working hard to establish good enough relationships with my daughters that they don't get any ideas about taking advantage of my blindness. So far, I've come down hard on Sophia's I've finished my food but I don't want you to feel, (obviously unfinished food then), and her plaintive aside to her father, Don't let her touch my wrist because she'll make me wear long sleeves, and it seems to be paying off. I'm hoping to instill in them the understanding that I am able to detect bad behavior by means more sophisticated than mere eyesight. I'm unlikely to win future battles with my girls along the lines of You're not going anywhere dressed like that. I'm actually quite at ease with the reality that they must be taught to respect and value themselves enough to make their own good decisions on dress and behavior as they grow into their teenage years. But the most difficult thing to deal with is not changing nappies, or feeding and cooking, or the exhausting minefield of sightless household management (even the most difficult of such things are possible to overcome by letting go of pride sufficiently to ask for help, if
Re: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother
Material development is unlikely to compensate for under-developed feeling to be a good human being. Subramani -Original Message- From: accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] On Behalf Of payal kapoor Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 2:53 PM To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in Subject: Re: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother this is so true. don't know too much personally about parenting, but the attitude of people to speak with blind persons as if they do not exist is evidently no digfferent in any society that we may live in. and these societies belong to the developed nations, no less... No material in braille r accessible formats puts them and their developed status to utter shame, i must say. wonder if any of this will ever get better and we, as blind citizens with all of our talents and mingling with the mainstream society will continue to live lives as children of a lesser god? - Original Message - From: Sanjay ilovec...@gmail.com To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:28 PM Subject: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother Please don't blame me for its nontechnical nature. I hope many blind parents of this group--both present and future will enjoy reading this article. I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother (By Amie Slavin. From The Guardian, U.K., (c) Aug. 8, 2009) Hard labor, as a lifestyle choice, has more to recommend it than I could have guessed. From those first few hours of holding Sophia, my firstborn, curled on my forearm learning to breastfeed, to the most recent round of pre-breakfast Ride a Cockhorse, bouncing two fine ladies on my tired knees, I have been a fan. But I always knew that parenting would present different challenges for me, compared with more mainstream mothers, because I have been blind since 1997. The practicalities of bringing up children without eyesight are not, for the most part, nearly as hard as you might think. Changing nappies isn't especially difficult if you're used to doing everything by touch. There's no mystery about it. I don't explore fecal matter with my fingers, neither do I leave my baby half-cleaned. I simply use a combination of touch and smell to determine how cleaning is progressing, and if it gets out of hand and I begin to lose the will to live, well, 10 minutes suffices for a bath and change of clothes: foolproof. Feeding is also achievable, if slightly more exciting. In the early days of weaning, I would collect a spoonful of food with my right hand while lightly resting my left hand on her right shoulder. In this way I could monitor the position of her head and use my thumb to assess the in (and especially out) flow. I didn't aim the spoon directly in but used my fingertips to detect her mouth and its degree of openness. Next would come the lightning transition from obliquely hovering spoonful to precisely administered tasty mouthful without jabbing the gums, touching the soft palate or twanging the lips or tongue. Running my household is more complex, yet still not impossible. Recently, for instance, while sorting laundry, I flicked the corner of a duvet cover into Sophia's abandoned water cup, tipping it on to the floor. I reached for the kitchen roll and knocked over a brand new bottle of multi-surface cleaner which, defying its sealed status, sloshed its contents liberally over the kitchen's cork tiles. Throwing kitchen roll onto the spilled water, I set about wiping up the surface cleaner. My wonderfully helpful (and terrifyingly valuable) new guide dog instantly joined in, diving first into the surface cleaner (to my panic) and then, on my rebuff, seizing the water-soaked kitchen roll and dancing off with it. Flustered and swearing by now, I chased and caught the dog and paper, sending one from the room and the other to landfill; mopped up the surface cleaner, recaptured my laundry and began to congratulate myself on a household crisis averted. Brimming with competence, I returned to make the supper I should have started half an hour earlier. Deftly chopping three huge garlic cloves in record time and hurling them at the hot pan ... I missed completely! Still, avoidance of these annoying minor disasters is possible by taking extra time and using forethought. I am working hard to establish good enough relationships with my daughters that they don't get any ideas about taking advantage of my blindness. So far, I've come down hard on Sophia's I've finished my food but I don't want you to feel, (obviously unfinished food then), and her plaintive aside to her father, Don't let her touch my wrist because she'll make me wear long sleeves, and it seems to be paying off. I'm hoping to instill in them the understanding that I am able to detect bad behavior by means more sophisticated than mere eyesight. I'm unlikely to win future battles with my girls along the lines of You're not going
Re: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother
I think the way we take this also matters. We are the subject matter experts about screen readers and other assistive devices, but visually dependent people are not. So it becomes our responsibility to spread awareness about such technologies. True, it is tiring but who else can do this task? We have to devise creative ways to do so and stil accept the fact that it is a never ending process. One very effective way could be to embed such messages in movies / TV serials, but as of now they don't go beyond Braille. For example, the movie Fanaa could be a good platform,, but we get to know about such movies only when they are released. In one TV serial one of the character becomes blind, but they could only thing of Braille. She was cured very soon so nothing could be done. Regards Dinesh An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. John Gardner -Original Message- From: accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] On Behalf Of Subramani L Sent: 08 November 2009 05:26 PM To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in Subject: Re: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother How true it is about the assumption that someone with disability cannot be leading a normal life. One of the questions I have to tackle is how, despite being blind and therefore incapable of reading anything printed, I remain a writer. Well, the logic of that beats my wit and I had to pause for a long moment to explain how I work. Funny but also frustrating since it is hard to demystify certain strong assumptions. Subramani -Original Message- From: accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] On Behalf Of Sanjay Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:29 PM To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in Subject: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother Please don't blame me for its nontechnical nature. I hope many blind parents of this group--both present and future will enjoy reading this article. I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother (By Amie Slavin. From The Guardian, U.K., (c) Aug. 8, 2009) Hard labor, as a lifestyle choice, has more to recommend it than I could have guessed. From those first few hours of holding Sophia, my firstborn, curled on my forearm learning to breastfeed, to the most recent round of pre-breakfast Ride a Cockhorse, bouncing two fine ladies on my tired knees, I have been a fan. But I always knew that parenting would present different challenges for me, compared with more mainstream mothers, because I have been blind since 1997. The practicalities of bringing up children without eyesight are not, for the most part, nearly as hard as you might think. Changing nappies isn't especially difficult if you're used to doing everything by touch. There's no mystery about it. I don't explore fecal matter with my fingers, neither do I leave my baby half-cleaned. I simply use a combination of touch and smell to determine how cleaning is progressing, and if it gets out of hand and I begin to lose the will to live, well, 10 minutes suffices for a bath and change of clothes: foolproof. Feeding is also achievable, if slightly more exciting. In the early days of weaning, I would collect a spoonful of food with my right hand while lightly resting my left hand on her right shoulder. In this way I could monitor the position of her head and use my thumb to assess the in (and especially out) flow. I didn't aim the spoon directly in but used my fingertips to detect her mouth and its degree of openness. Next would come the lightning transition from obliquely hovering spoonful to precisely administered tasty mouthful without jabbing the gums, touching the soft palate or twanging the lips or tongue. Running my household is more complex, yet still not impossible. Recently, for instance, while sorting laundry, I flicked the corner of a duvet cover into Sophia's abandoned water cup, tipping it on to the floor. I reached for the kitchen roll and knocked over a brand new bottle of multi-surface cleaner which, defying its sealed status, sloshed its contents liberally over the kitchen's cork tiles. Throwing kitchen roll onto the spilled water, I set about wiping up the surface cleaner. My wonderfully helpful (and terrifyingly valuable) new guide dog instantly joined in, diving first into the surface cleaner (to my panic) and then, on my rebuff, seizing the water-soaked kitchen roll and dancing off with it. Flustered and swearing by now, I chased and caught the dog and paper, sending one from the room and the other to landfill; mopped up the surface cleaner, recaptured my laundry and began to congratulate myself on a household crisis averted. Brimming with competence, I
Re: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother
this is so true. don't know too much personally about parenting, but the attitude of people to speak with blind persons as if they do not exist is evidently no digfferent in any society that we may live in. and these societies belong to the developed nations, no less... No material in braille r accessible formats puts them and their developed status to utter shame, i must say. wonder if any of this will ever get better and we, as blind citizens with all of our talents and mingling with the mainstream society will continue to live lives as children of a lesser god? - Original Message - From: Sanjay ilovec...@gmail.com To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:28 PM Subject: [AI] I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother Please don't blame me for its nontechnical nature. I hope many blind parents of this group--both present and future will enjoy reading this article. I'm Blind--and I'm a Good Mother (By Amie Slavin. From The Guardian, U.K., © Aug. 8, 2009) Hard labor, as a lifestyle choice, has more to recommend it than I could have guessed. From those first few hours of holding Sophia, my firstborn, curled on my forearm learning to breastfeed, to the most recent round of pre-breakfast Ride a Cockhorse, bouncing two fine ladies on my tired knees, I have been a fan. But I always knew that parenting would present different challenges for me, compared with more mainstream mothers, because I have been blind since 1997. The practicalities of bringing up children without eyesight are not, for the most part, nearly as hard as you might think. Changing nappies isn't especially difficult if you're used to doing everything by touch. There's no mystery about it. I don't explore fecal matter with my fingers, neither do I leave my baby half-cleaned. I simply use a combination of touch and smell to determine how cleaning is progressing, and if it gets out of hand and I begin to lose the will to live, well, 10 minutes suffices for a bath and change of clothes: foolproof. Feeding is also achievable, if slightly more exciting. In the early days of weaning, I would collect a spoonful of food with my right hand while lightly resting my left hand on her right shoulder. In this way I could monitor the position of her head and use my thumb to assess the in (and especially out) flow. I didn't aim the spoon directly in but used my fingertips to detect her mouth and its degree of openness. Next would come the lightning transition from obliquely hovering spoonful to precisely administered tasty mouthful without jabbing the gums, touching the soft palate or twanging the lips or tongue. Running my household is more complex, yet still not impossible. Recently, for instance, while sorting laundry, I flicked the corner of a duvet cover into Sophia's abandoned water cup, tipping it on to the floor. I reached for the kitchen roll and knocked over a brand new bottle of multi-surface cleaner which, defying its sealed status, sloshed its contents liberally over the kitchen's cork tiles. Throwing kitchen roll onto the spilled water, I set about wiping up the surface cleaner. My wonderfully helpful (and terrifyingly valuable) new guide dog instantly joined in, diving first into the surface cleaner (to my panic) and then, on my rebuff, seizing the water-soaked kitchen roll and dancing off with it. Flustered and swearing by now, I chased and caught the dog and paper, sending one from the room and the other to landfill; mopped up the surface cleaner, recaptured my laundry and began to congratulate myself on a household crisis averted. Brimming with competence, I returned to make the supper I should have started half an hour earlier. Deftly chopping three huge garlic cloves in record time and hurling them at the hot pan ... I missed completely! Still, avoidance of these annoying minor disasters is possible by taking extra time and using forethought. I am working hard to establish good enough relationships with my daughters that they don't get any ideas about taking advantage of my blindness. So far, I've come down hard on Sophia's I've finished my food but I don't want you to feel, (obviously unfinished food then), and her plaintive aside to her father, Don't let her touch my wrist because she'll make me wear long sleeves, and it seems to be paying off. I'm hoping to instill in them the understanding that I am able to detect bad behavior by means more sophisticated than mere eyesight. I'm unlikely to win future battles with my girls along the lines of You're not going anywhere dressed like that. I'm actually quite at ease with the reality that they must be taught to respect and value themselves enough to make their own good decisions on dress and behavior as they grow into their teenage years. But the most difficult thing to deal with is not changing nappies, or feeding and cooking, or the exhausting minefield of sightless household
