Parenting
Perspectives on Parenting©
by Nancy Lambert Davenport
Nancy Davenport's Column:
For Richardson News 05-15-94
Copyright Nancy Lambert Davenport 1994
Disabilities need not limit people
I have had to eat my words a few times. As a result of those indiscretions, I have learned to avoid making broad statements about what people with cognitive deficits can and cannot do. In addition, I now have flags go up and whistles blow in my mind when I hear or read someone else trying to limit the activities of entire groups of people simply on the grounds of their disability.
For instance it displeases me to hear some caregivers discourage people with cognitive disabilities from marrying. They give various reasons. The favorite is "what if they have children?" as if in this day and age marriage is what magically causes children. Another is "they do not understand the responsibilities of marriage?" Actually most of the people I know with cognitive disabilities comprehend love, loyalty, and long term relationships clearly better than most of the people in the U.S. who have married then chosen to divorce.
The U.S. government seems to be of a similar mind in limiting people with disabilities and enforces the law as usual through the purse strings. The law states that survivor benefits (of a parent who was a government employee) "are payable to UNmarried disabled adult children. The law specifically precludes payment of recurring monthly survivor benefits to children who are married" in section 8341 of Title 5 United States code.
It's the same type of law as the one that does not allow a person with disabilities to have savings, own property, or earn over a certain amount in order to get some very necessary benefits. That law is being worked on but has a way to go.
Robert Johnson, a man with Down syndrome recently said, "I have had several girl friends and may some day want to get married, so I think the cited law [concerning survivor benefits] should be changed." People like Robert Johnson may want to improve their status in life, open a few options, and not be tied down to living at home with aging parents or residing perpetually in a dormitory environment; yet, because of the laws he is unable to rise above that without losing all his benefits.
Some laws are going to have to change and some mindsets reformed in order for our people with disabilities to move forward and upward in their standards of independence. It cannot remain an "all or nothing" situation with their benefits. The line needs to be drawn a little less firmly, allowing them room for growth without cutting them off.
I do not think anyone wants to encourage people to be more dependent whether they are the unemployed, the poor, or people with disabilities; yet our laws more and more are leaning toward discouraging independence. We who are more-able can help by being aware that people with disabilities are also people with many wonderful abilities who may need help in some areas and not in others. That awareness alone will take us a long way toward helping them be even more independent.
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Nancy Lambert Davenport
EMAIL: nancdave@swbell.net
URL: http://www.nancyldavenport.com