I really need to remind the general public that it has only been about 50 years (if that) since it has become expected for parents to raise their disabled children in the community instead of just depositing us in institutions at birth (or discovery of disability)

When deinstitutionalization happened, parents weren't prepared, they did not know what they were doing and I'm sorry I'm gonna offend a lot of people here most still don't

5 decades is a short learning curve to learn to love accept and raise kids that the world largely used to throw away

If you don't believe me just look up the stats on how many disabled people experience child abuse

Also, know that there is a real and deeply ingrained prejudice in society against disabled people

expectant parents saying shit like

"we don't care if it's a boy or a girl we just want the kid to be healthy"

is just the tip of the ice berg

Please understand that pretty much every parent (with few exceptions) who gets a disabled child has to go through finding out that they got a kid that they didn't want

and then they have to keep and raise that kid

and you think prejudice doesn't make an appearance?

You think there aren't scores of parents who have just figured out how to rationalize their prejudices?

You think you as an abled outsider who likely shares those prejudices is in a good position to judge?

Abled parents of disabled children are given a level of cultural deference that they have not earned and disabled people are suffering for it

So please, take anything put out by parents with a grain of salt

They're not all bad but there are a lot of echo chambers

Parenting advice for disabled kids is largely crowd sourced

and no one really listens to disabled people when we say certain things are harmful

You'd all rather defer to a parent

Please always defer first to disabled people

yes even if it is specifically about a nonverbal disability

disabled people who can talk are still going to know if something is oppressive better than a parent who has never been disabled

There are no decades of best practices for raising disabled kids

please defer to us

not our parents

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