“Don’t ever think that parents get used to having a child with a disability”
Those were the two sentences that defined us. Not immediately, but over time they turned Frieda and me into often reluctant, usually frustrated, and frequently very angry members of the disability movement.
We don't have a disability, either of us. At least I don't think so. But we have frequently been spoken to by experts in words of one syllable. We've sat in front of them with that sinking feeling, the realisation that this person thinks we're not the full shilling. We've been patronised by politicians, had all sorts of assumptions made about our backgrounds (particularly the assumption, which has only sometimes been true, that we are "socio-economically deprived"), told that we had been given a special gift, and promised the sun, moon and stars by every Government minister we've ever met.
