Funniest conversation I've ever had with a child:
I want to be really, really, fat when I grow up.
Why?
Because then I can have a wheelchair like you.
But I don't use a wheelchair because I'm fat, I use a wheelchair because I have a disability.
(pause) (pause) (pause) How do I get one of those?
Too funny. Right to the point...I want one of those; what do I need to do?
ReplyDeleteHa ha! Was the parent in earshot for this? Because if so I guarantee they have a few more grey hairs now!
ReplyDeleteToo funny. My five-year-old daughter told me that she wants to be bigger than me, bigger than her daddy, and as big as the van. She doesn't have an ulterior motive though that I know of.
ReplyDeleteMy experience is that children "normalize" their environment - and their experience of reality is interpreted as being "normal." My daughter asked me how old she had to be before she could have a hearing aid - and was shocked when I burst into tears!
ReplyDeleteWell it seems you found a kid who has not been brainwashed into the mistaken belief that a person in a WC is "less than" other people. Ya never know what will come out of a kid's mouth....glad it was honest and curious and not unkind.
ReplyDeleteThat is funny. Imagine how excited he would be if he found out the disabilities were "free" - although they cost a lot in other ways. I love kids! It must have been an interesting pause waiting for his thought process! :-)
ReplyDeleteToo funny. I heard recently from the aunt of someone who had been trying out one of those upright robotic walking technologies. He had it on a trial basis but told her recently that he's decided against getting one, and that he thinks that "Walking is over rated." Ha ha!
ReplyDeleteRe, children "normalizing" their environment
ReplyDeleteI once read a story that a Dad wrote about his little daughter. The Dad and the girl were both hearing and sighted, but the Mom was deafblind. For various reasons, the parents had decided that the Mom would do a lot of the work of rearing their daughter, including things like reading stories to her. To enable her to do this, the Dad had gone through all the books they bought for her and put in a Braille translation on each page -- not only translating the text but also including a description of the pictures so if the girl pointed to something on the page the Mom could say, "Yes, dear, that's a duck. What color is the duck? That's right, it's yellow" or whatever was appropriate.
Well apparently one day the family went to visit another family that also had a little child. And the girl went to play with the other child and started looking at all the books. And kept saying that this book is "broken", so is this, so is this book, they're all broken. The child went to get the Dad to find out why the girl thought all their books were "broken". Apparently she thought they were "broken" because the books had no Braille in them. The Dad had to explain that Mom needed the Braille because she was blind, but there is also this other way to read books ...
LOL!
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Again on the "normalization" of the environment... Miss 17 spent quite a few years in speech therapy when younger and her brother (2 years young) was green with envy at the lovely play centre with all the amazing therapy toys. He couldn't wait to be old enough to get speech therapy and was quite an emotional milestone for him when he realized that he learned to talk for free!
ReplyDeleteAndrea, that's a great story! I wish we all considered books without Braille, doors without automatic openers, film without captions, to be "broken." I would have had a hard time disagreeing with that little girl. :)
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