Parenting As A Civil Right

If you read my blog with any regularity, you know that I hold no one in higher esteem than my mother, who passed away in 2010. She was a really fine woman, and a terrific mother. I cannot imagine a more supportive, loving person to have as a parent. She was not perfect, and she had a temper, but she was never stingy with love and/or praise. Her love for all of us kids was unconditional. Everything about me that is good, today, I can trace back to my mother. She was a phenomenal parent.

My mother was also a person with multiple disabilities. I mention this because there are people who believe that men and women with disabilities cannot be parents. They think that the need of a wheelchair, or a service animal or assistive technology makes a person unfit to parent a child. This sort of thinking is just plain backwards. Parents don't love and support their kids with arms or legs, eyes or ears. A person with a chronic illness or limited mobility can love and nurture a child just as well - or as badly - as anyone else. Parenting is not about how well a person can see or hear or speak, but about how well they can show love, set boundaries, and create a safe environment where children can meet their full potential. My mother's chronic respiratory disease, degenerative bone disease, kidney failure, and blindness prevented her from doing many things in life, but they never prevented her from being a great parent.

To state that a person is unfit to parent because of her disability is no different than saying a gay person is unfit to parent because of her sexuality, or that a black person is unfit to parent because of her ethnicity. It's a bigoted concept, plain and simple, and any move to deprive a good parent of custody of her child based on the fact that she has a disability is a violation not only of her civil rights, but of her fundamental human rights. Unfortunately, this is exactly what a woman named Jessie Lorenz is going through, right now.

Jessie is a nationally recognized disability rights advocate whose expertise regarding accessibility, workplace accommodations for people with disabilities, and the Americans with Disabilities Act has served the City of San Francisco, Google, Schindler Elevators, Yahoo, Facebook, and UPS, to name just a few. Her work in this area has garnered an invitation to the White House, for this year's 25th Anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act. She is a Paralympic gold medal winner.  She is one of the most independent, self-sufficient people I know. She is incredibly knowledgeable about cutting-edge technology, which she uses every day when she goes to work as Executive Director of a not-for-profit organization specializing in disability rights advocacy. She is a single mother of a wonderful 4 year old girl who I am happy to have as a little friend.  Jessie is also blind.

Jessie, who has had custody of her little girl since the day she was born, finds herself in a position where, suddenly, her fitness as a parent is being challenged. The only issue at hand? The fact that she has a disability. It seems insane to me that such an allegation - that a person who is blind is unfit to parent - would even be entertained by the justice system. Unfortunately, we have not yet reached a moment in American history where the discriminatory nature of such a charge is universally recognized for what it is:  prejudice and an attempt to deprive a parent who has provided her child with the only stable, supportive home environment she has ever known, of her basic human rights.

If you've read this far, I urge you to read Jessie's own words and, if you can, offer your support. I ask, too, that you share this link with people you know. This sort of discrimination can happen to anyone with a disability. It could have happened to my mother - the thought of which makes me sick. People with disabilities are regularly discriminated against in school, in the workplace, in the housing market, in the business sector and, sadly, in Family Court. This is not someone else's problem - it's OUR problem, as a society, and it's OUR job to fix what's broken so that future generations will not inherit a world where discrimination is the order of the day.

Being There

A few days ago, I got back from visiting family. It was a great visit, but a difficult one. It was my first time visiting since losing my mother. Life without my mother has been so hard, at times. I don't mean to get all dark - I'm actually very happy in my life, right now - but there are moments when I don't even know how I manage to get by in a world without my mother. She loomed large for me.

While visiting, I spent a lot of time with my nephews. Their parents are going through a pretty messy/nasty break-up. Their dad - a man I always loved as a brother - has decided that a break-up with his wife means a break-up with his children. The children he was always so close to. The children who he always said were his best friends. The youngest child - my beautiful, 6 yr old nephew - can't understand why his dad never calls, never picks him up for visits, anymore, and doesn't respond to the many phone messages he's left him. In his six year old mind, he's done something to cause this, and there really is no way to let him know that nothing that's happened is his fault.

There's no way to explain to a six year old that the father who was always such a great guy has recently turned into a self-centered asshole who is more interested in pissing off his ex-wife, than in loving his children.

Witnessing what this abandonment has done to this precious boy made me think about my own parents. I adored (still adore) my mother. She was my best friend. When I think about why losing her has had such a profound effect on me, the reason is ridiculously clear: I miss her because SHE WAS THERE. She was there for me. Always. Every day. She offered unconditional love and support. She never walked away. She always answered my calls. I knew, absolutely, that I could count on her. That's it, and that's everything. She was always there, and now, she isn't. Of course there's a huge, gaping hole. When I made mistakes, she was there. When I was obnoxious, she was there. When I needed bailing out of situations, she was there. When I did anything that warranted recognition, she was there. When I was sick, she was there. When I woke up in the morning and needed someone to talk to over a cup of coffee, she was there. When I said I was in love with a woman and was going to move to the other side of the planet to build a life with her, she was there.

I am not saying that we never argued, or that we never got on one another's nerves.

I'm not saying that my mother was a saint.

If anything, I'm saying that she was so very human.

What I'm saying is that she was there. She didn't walk away. She didn't turn her back on me, ever. She was always there, and I always knew she'd be there. I could count on her to be there for me. Because real parents don't leave. They just don't. I'm 45 years old and, if my mother were alive, today, she'd still be there for me. I was so blessed, for so long, that not having her makes me ache.

It's natural for a 45 year old to ache like this. A six year old isn't supposed to. A six year old shouldn't have to ask himself what he's done to make his father leave. A six year old shouldn't be having dreams about telling his dad not to cut into a friend's birthday cake, and then having his father walk away in anger over being denied a slice of cake.

You probably won't read this, but in the slim chance that you do: Be as mad at my sister as you like. Hate her, for all I care. Call her whatever names you like. But, be a man, when it comes to your kids. Be there, asshole.

© 2012 Lana M. Nieves

Limited Licensing: I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the Creative Commons Attribution license, granting distribution of my copyrighted work without making changes, with mandatory attribution to Lana M. Nieves and for non-commercial purposes only. - Lana M. Nieves