Please don’t say you’re sorry for my daughter’s difference

 

In honour of Limb Difference Awareness Month I wanted to address something somebody said to me last week, with the best of intentions. I wanted to address why parents like me don’t like to hear it.

“I’m so sorry.”

When the stranger noticed Hero’s limb difference, he put a sympathetic hand on my arm and told me that he was sorry.  

I just blinked. You’re…. what?

As always with me, it takes me a while to process emotions and to understand how I’m feeling. I’m simply awesome at coming up with witty comebacks hours after the event. But, as usual, I was struck dumb at the time.

I’ve had time to think about it now. I’ve had a little more time to work out why I’d rather that stranger had been more sorry for what he said than for my daughter’s difference!

 

Please don’t be sorry, be amazed instead.

Hang around for a minute and you’ll see what this kid can do. If you saw her the way I do, you wouldn’t think she was disabled at all. She can upend a completely full box of toys in a fraction of a second. She can stack a tower taller than her.  She can climb three flights of stairs in the blink of an eye. She can crawl. She can clap. She can sign. She can paint. And, of course, she’s got a beastly right hook!  

So, please don’t be sorry. Be amazed instead.

Please don’t be sorry, be curious instead.

I don’t need condolences, and neither does she. What we’d love is simply awareness from people around us. We’d love it if people weren’t shocked. If people didn’t feel uncomfortable, if the elephant wasn’t always in the room. Why not ask us questions? (To be fair, we might not even know the answers ourselves as so many physical differences are consigned to the “just one of those things” box.) But do find out a bit more about us; you might find something you like!

So, please don’t be sorry. Be curious instead.

 

Please don’t be sorry, be understanding instead.

We don’t need your apologies or your expressions of sorrow. That doesn’t mean that it’s not hard for us sometimes, hard for her parents and hard for her. We can go days, weeks and months without giving her difference a second thought, but then we might crash headlong into an unexpected challenge. She’ll find something she can’t do, when all her friends can. Someone will say something that might break my heart a little. But despite every hurdle, we wouldn’t change her for the world and I can only hope and pray that when she’s older, she doesn’t want to change either.

So, please don’t be sorry. Be understanding instead.

 

Please don’t be sorry, be casual instead.

It’s jarring when someone says they’re sorry; it tells us that they think there’s something less than perfect about our kids, something to be commiserated. Sure, our kids are different. They have mountains to climb that others don’t. But to us they’re utterly perfect. We’re putting more effort, time and energy into building their confidence and self esteem than you could ever see. Yet, one comment is all it takes to unpick those seams and unravel it all. At a pottery painting shop the leader bent over my daughter suggesting that she do some hand painting instead. The lady reached out for her missing hand with the paintbrush. There was a micro nanosecond of hesitation, but then she carried on regardless. She painted my daughter’s little hand and pressed it to the page. I stopped to thank her afterwards and she couldn’t understand why I was so grateful. “There’s nothing wrong with her!” she said. There’s nothing to be sorry for.

So, please don’t be sorry. Be casual instead.

 

Please don’t be sorry, be envious instead.

I say this tongue in cheek, of course, as we’re all about spreading the love! But seriously, there are some occasions when we’re to be envied. We’ve been given a ready-made family that stretches right around the world. We’ve made the most wonderful friends. We’ve got the most spectacular role models for our kids – medal winners, surgeons, fire fighters, athletes and writers, to name but a few. We live in an age where being different is something to be celebrated, not shamed. We live in an age where the most astounding developments in prosthetic technology are being made, right before our eyes. We live in a world where we can be closer than ever to one another. No longer do we need to feel isolated. My daughter will never have to feel that she’s the only one, but likewise she’ll always know that she’s one in a million.

So, please don’t be sorry, be a little envious instead.

 

Please don’t be sorry, be complimentary instead.

It’s ok to be a little worried for us, it’s ok to wonder how on earth you’d cope if it were you, but please don’t say this aloud. Say hello instead! Say how awesomely our little one is getting along, tell us how impressive it is that they can pull down the entire contents of a store shelf with one hand. Tell us how cute they are; I doubt there’s a parent in the world that doesn’t love to hear that. But to a parent of a child with a physical difference, it means that little bit more, it might just make their day.

So, please don’t be sorry, be complimentary instead.