Why Don’t YOU Get Off?
Parenting under the intolerant gaze and judgmental mutterings of ableism.
“You’ve got to think about the big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.”
- Alvin Toffler
Soothing Lullaby
Did you know that Twinkle Twinkle Little Star has 5 verses? Yup, and I learned them all. On the bus home from the food coop that day, I was humming them softly, under my breath.
I continued to hum the same tune the entire bus ride. I was hoping my high strung baby would stay relatively soothed in his carrier as I navigated groceries and the unsettling gaze of our fellow riders. The humming was monotonous, but it kept us both calm. For everyone on that bus, I sang under my breath again and again, all the way home. I knew from experience that it sounded better than the alternative — his screams.
It wasn’t really the incoming meltdown I feared, and tried to postpone. I knew he would recover from overwhelm, and sometimes errands have to get done. It was the judgmental scowls, “advice” and crooked eyebrows as a result of the meltdown that I dreaded. They all came anyway, eventually, but that day on the bus, I got…
