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A Penny Saved is Agency Earned [Guest Post]

This week on the Weekly Wisdom blog, Randall Oldenburg teaches us about the benefits of financial planning (including budgeting, saving, and investing) for disabled people. Randall Oldenburg is a freelance writer and aspiring disability rights activist living in Minnesota. His current preoccupation is exploring the many relationships between personal finance and the disability experience. In doing so, he hopes to assist and inspire other disabled people in their own financial and existential pursuits individually and collectively.

A Penny Saved Is Agency Earned: How Basic Financial Education Is Helping One Man With Cerebral Palsy Stay Sane

For many people, doing a budget is a task reserved for the number crunchers among us. Doing a budget happily — that’s the perverted behavior of a masochist.

What follows is not an argumentative piece. This is merely the story of how I became such a masochist — not just a person who budgets, but also a person who plans, saves, and invests in themselves and their own future.

This is the story of how I received the gifts financial education has given me.

A Sense of Control

Cerebral Palsy (like other disabilities) has a tendency to take control from those whom exist with it as a feature of their lives. I am one such person.

I can’t control when my legs fail me and when they don’t. I can’t stop my hands from aching even as I write this, and I can’t stem the need to take frequent breaks to save my eyes undue strain. No matter how actively or rigorously I scorn these needs, they are still needs: I am routinely and viscerally reminded that I am not in control.

But in the world of personal finance, I rediscovered some of that lost control.

“Maybe I can’t drive to get groceries, but if I budget well, I can help buy them.”

“Maybe I can’t pay all of my medical debts in one swoop, but if I learn how debt works, I can make a plan; I can win the long game.”

“Maybe I can’t work 40 hours a week, but I can learn about business: I can learn to set up systems so that somehow, someday, I will be more than just a cripple who takes and doesn’t produce.”

“I can’t sleep at night because of the guilt. But someday — if I keep learning slow and steady — I will repay my loved ones. People to whom I owe everything, and who graciously insist no debts exist.”

These are the thoughts which echo, not always so coherently, off the walls of my mind — the thoughts that are kept in check by one thought alone: I am learning.

A Much-Needed Preoccupation

To those with Cerebral Palsy, chronic fatigue is sometimes a nagging aspect of life.

I will say, regarding the particulars of this topic, only that there are more days during which I feel useless, than days during which I feel useful.

In this context, learning about financial matters is not merely a means to an end — a reliable pathway to fast cars, fast lovers, or fancy watches. The quest to become financially literate is a much-needed oasis; a kind of “in between” state, wherein even a person such as I often am, a person with few spoons at any given time, might enter into the realm of the productive. By my lights, to learn is to produce.

Connection In Abundance

If you have read to this point, you may have had the following thoughts, among others: “Why is this guy so concerned with ‘producing’, and what’s so special about personal finance? Couldn’t you get these benefits from any other hobby?”

I will spend less time addressing these questions, which I am merely assuming in the first place, on account of the fact that my own experience has been the evidence for this piece thus far.

In my experience, the personal finance and business community is unique in many different ways.

Never have I been insulted by a member of the personal finance community, nor have I ever been told I shouldn’t or couldn’t participate merely because of my physical condition.

My questions are happily answered, my personal experience seems valued, and a small army is ready and willing whenever I have concerns about access to some resource.

In particular, the following YouTube channel’s have been great sources of connection: Roberto Blake, The Financial Education Channel, The Wild Wong, and The Financial Diet.

Most other areas of interest cannot boast such a general culture of helpfulness and respect, not just for disability, but for me as a disabled person.

It is for the above reasons that personal finance (in my experience) has not only been a source of control and preoccupation, but also a source of abundant and healthy connecting to my fellow humans.

With that, my other fellow humans, thank you so much for reading and letting me share my disability wisdom.

Follow Randall on Twitter: @TheRealRandallO

Dating and sexuality, Family

#Disabled and Child-Free: Disability and the Right of Reproductive Choice

Today on the Weekly Wisdom blog, I’m going to share something personal.

I’m 33 years old. My husband and I just celebrated our five-year anniversary. We have no children, and that’s by design. We’re a “child-free couple” as some might say. And, this afternoon I will be receiving a birth control implant in my arm, which means there’s a 99.95% chance that we will be staying child-free for at least the next 3 years.

So, why am I sharing something this personal on my professional blog? What’s this got to do with disability?

Absolutely nothing. Zero, nada. And that’s the point.

Sometimes it’s assumed that disabled people shouldn’t have children. It’s thought that we can’t be fit parents or provide good homes. Or, it’s thought that we shouldn’t pass “bad genes” on to the next generation. Not too long ago, some disabled people in the United States were involuntarily sterilized. Even today, a disabled person’s right to parent is only protected in a handful of states. On the flip side, when a disabled person does have kids, some people assume that the kids are supposed to act as helpers or even take care of the parent. The kids may be seen as means to an end.

My and my husband’s choice to be child-free has nothing to do with my disability. I know I could be a good parent with the challenges of my disability, and I couldn’t care less if somebody inherited my blindness. I am child-free because I simply have no desire to be a parent. I’ve never been a “kid person” and the idea of living with kids 24/7 and having them depend on me for their basic survival terrifies me. I’ve felt since adolescence that I have skills and talents in other areas, but childrearing isn’t one of them. I’ve never felt the biological drive that other women say they have to pass on their eggs. I do care deeply about the coming generation, I love my niece and nephews and care about my friends’ children, I have generative and nurturant instincts I follow in other ways. I am in awe of the vital work that parents do, but it’s just not for me. Perhaps there’s a deep reason related to my own childhood and the fact that I couldn’t wait to grow up, or perhaps it’s just an orientation I have, in the same way that some people have always longed to become moms or dads and see that as fundamental to who they are. Although I haven’t wanted kids, I’ve always wanted to marry a man ever since I read the proposal scene in Little House on the Prairie when I was in third grade.

People with disabilities run the entire gamut in terms of our orientations toward gender, sexuality, and parenting. Our families, partners, friends, and healthcare providers are wise when they support our freedom to make choices about our own bodies and our own lives.

Three years ago I had just moved to Seattle and I had a well-woman exam with a new doctor. At the end of the exam, she told me that if I ever did decide to become pregnant, I could come to their prenatal clinic and that she would be happy to prescribe prenatal vitamins. I could have gotten offended that she was just assuming I would want babies someday, but instead, I was delighted that this doctor didn’t see my disability as an impediment to parenting if that was what I wanted. She offered me the same services that she would offer her other 30-year-old female patients, and was willing to provide support so that I could have a healthy pregnancy. This helped us establish a higher level of trust in our patient-physician relationship.

The freedom to choose a child-free married life is not one I take lightly. Around the world, many disabled and nondisabled women cannot choose this life for a variety of reasons. Others long to become parents, but face physical, attitudinal, financial and other barriers. As much as I will defend my own right not to have kids, I will fight to the end so that my disabled brothers and sisters who want to parent have the right to do so.

I am grateful that, as a blind girl, I received early sex education at home and braille books about birth control so I could learn about all of my options without the information being filtered through another person. I am grateful that I grew up hearing that any orientation I developed toward sexuality and parenting would be valid. I am grateful that my spouse respects what I want to do with my body. (Even when we were toying with the idea of parenting, he suggested we could adopt if I didn’t want to deal with pregnancy and birth). As I prepare for my appointment today, I am grateful that the White Cane laws will allow me to get there independently, and the Americans with Disabilities Act means I can get help signing the informed consent and reading the aftercare instructions for my implant. I am grateful that my implant will only cost $30. I am most grateful for systems and supports protecting my basic agency to make decisions.

Many of my disabled brothers and sisters still struggle to realize their family dreams. Some are barred from romance by well-meaning, or ill-meaning caregivers. Others have suffered sexual abuse that has a lasting impact on their experience of relationships. Still others are isolated and go to bed each night longing for a partner they cannot find. Some of my disabled brothers and sisters have fallen quickly into marriages or parenthood they didn’t really want, because they feared they could find nothing else. Our family freedoms are still restricted by widespread lack of transportation and accessible, affordable housing; healthcare barriers; and the widespread belief that we can’t or shouldn’t govern our own family lives. Let’s work together to build a world where all of us, including the disabled among us, can have the family lives we want.

disability's in the work place, PreEmployment Transition Services, Solidarity, The coming generation

RISE-ing Up and Changing Lives in Northern Virginia

A few months ago, I blogged about my career journey
And my recent half-time contract working with the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia on our Project RISE youth transition program. I haven’t written much on the program here, partly since I try to keep the Weekly Wisdom blog content relevant to a national or international readership, and also to protect the privacy of individual students. However, since our program recruitment is in full swing right now, I wanted to take this chance to share a bit about what we’ve done, get the word out about our future plans, and perhaps inspire others to consider developing similar programs. (Plus, this is my professional blog, and Project RISE is a big part of my professional life at the moment).

This past spring and summer, we served 18 students ages 14-21 who are blind or visually impaired and live in northern Virginia. During monthly interactive group sessions, our students explored careers, wrote resumes and cover letters, practiced professional interaction, and learned nonvisual skills for independent living and travel. We also had a lot of fun! Students learned from each other and from our dedicated blind mentors who are all either working professionals or older college students.

This summer, I had the pleasure and challenge of coordinating work experiences for nine of our students. These included competitive summer jobs, volunteering, or internships geared toward specific vocational goals. We had a student intern in a medical research lab, another at a commercial bakery, and a law firm. A fourth student had a music internship tailored specifically for him, and I will get to see him perform his original music tomorrow evening. It was challenging to find positions for students spread out across a fairly wide geographic area and with a variety of specific vocational interests. But the reward for the students, for us, and for the employer partners has been well worth it.

Since the program started in February, the growth we have seen in individual students is striking. I’ve observed shy students who barely said two words to anyone at the first session, going up on stage to debate with their peers and reaching out to professional contacts on their own. Students with partial sight who voiced discomfort or disdain for their white canes at the beginning began willingly carrying them to our events. Older students modeling self-advocacy for younger students and honing their own leadership skills in the process. These gains may not be tangible at the moment, but they will undoubtedly translate into success at school, at work and in life.

As a pre-employment transition program, we have to provide a specific set of services under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Our curriculum may seem complicated, but when I think about what makes our program so impactful, the most important active component, in my mind, is something that is barely mentioned in the regulations. Yet it is something that resonates with my own past. The summer after 7th grade, I recall going to a day camp for nondisabled teens, coming home one night, and bursting into tears. Such melodramatics are very rare for me, and in fact, that was the last time I have ever seriously cried. It was a reaction to years of accumulated microaggressions and the sense that I didn’t belong among my peers, or even in the broader community where I knew few other disabled people. At that particular point, I had nowhere to go emotionally but up.
It was less than two weeks after that night when I first met
my blind best friend
And the tide began to turn. As I found a blind peer group, and later found blind mentors, I was reassured of my belonging. I stopped blaming my disability for frustrations in my life. And I gained the confidence to move beyond my comfort zone.

The community we have established in Project RISE is, in my view, directly responsible for the incredible gains we have seen. Many of our students may be the only blind or disabled person in their family, their school, or their local area. Some have grown up with the daily microaggressions of ableism. Others are losing vision and wondering if their dreams must be deferred. Through our community, they are getting the support to relinquish misconceptions and to embrace their identities as blind people. They are learning that there is a place where they belong and that their dreams are possibilities. As evidence of our community’s strength, 13 of our 18 students will be returning this fall.

Spurred on by the success of our first term, Project RISE will be having another full year of monthly meetings in the northern Virginia area. We are also expanding to offer quarterly meetings and mentoring to blind and low-vision youth across the state of Virginia. To learn more, check out
the Project RISE website
and
follow us on Facebook!

Disabled voices, Solidarity

“Everything in Nature Goes in Curves and Circles”: Native American Conceptions of Disability [Repost]

As Kim E. Nielson notes in A Disability History of the United States, Native American conceptions of disability are unique in that they don’t really exist. There is no language equivalent or even translatable concept for the word disabled, the closest translatable phrase is simply “being different.” … Native Americans do not prescribe to ideas of othering simply because there can be no other in their concepts of reality. Nature is constantly changing so “normalcy is an ever changing process of coming to balance.” Disability is therefore seen as a difference that can be integrated into society. Disability is “only an element of the individual’s existence, not the defining element.”

This week my husband and I are celebrating our five-year anniversary on the beach boardwalk in Ocean City, MD! You can find me listening to my copy of Kim Nielson’s A Disability History of the United States.
Here’s an interesting essay introducing how disabilities are conceptualized in Native American culture.

“Everything in Nature Goes in Curves and Circles”: Native American Conceptions of Disability

Braille

How Braille Put Jewish Texts At My Fingertips [Reprint]

“ Two hundred years after braille’s invention, we are blessed with the ability to convert print into a myriad of formats. All of these alternative formats have their advantages, but I cannot overstate the simplicity, flexibility and equivalent access that braille offers. As Jews we value literacy, and by offering our blind congregants access to ritual texts in braille, we are giving them the best opportunity to participate fully in our community.”

This week, I’m reprinting a blog post I published last year on ReformJudaism.org.
It’s about the importance of braille access in my Jewish life. Although the post focuses on my Jewish experience, it points more generally to the value of braille literacy to participation in many settings, such as religious services, where communal reading is a part of the culture and where technology use can be problematic. Here is what I wrote:

Louis Braille was born in Coupvray, France in 1809. When he was 3 years old, he accidentally poked himself in the eye with his dad’s awl, and became blind. When he was 12, he started playing around with an embossed alphabet that had been used by the military to exchange messages in the dark, and by the time he was 15 he had created what we call braille today. In his short 43 years, Louis Braille brought literacy to a group of people who, up until then, could only read and write using raised print letters-which posed practical challenges. The six-dot code Louis Braille created is simple enough for almost anyone to learn (I would contend, simpler than print) yet elegant enough that it can be written in many languages.

I was born almost completely blind, 150 years after Braille’s creation. My parents didn’t know much about blindness, but they quickly committed themselves to two things: ensuring that their older daughter and I would both love to read, and providing both of us with a strong foundation in Jewish traditions and values. During my preschool years I spent four days a week at a local preschool for blind children where I learned the English braille code, and I spent one day a week at a Jewish day school where I learned to recite Jewish blessings by ear.

When I was about seven years old, my parents ordered a braille Siddur for me from the Jewish Braille Institute (JBI) in New York. When I went to the synagogue with them, I would proudly carry my Siddur, and I tried to read along. But I didn’t yet know the Hebrew braille alphabet. At our synagogue, Hebrew wasn’t taught until the fourth grade, but I begged my parents to teach me so I could participate in services. They didn’t know the code themselves, so they reached out to JBI again and got me a Hebrew braille primer. As it turns out, there is much overlap between the English and Hebrew alphabets in braille, with Hebrew braille written from left to right and only a few new symbols to learn. After I studied my Hebrew primer, I was so excited to go to the synagogue and read all the familiar prayers for myself. Most exciting of all, I could read aloud alongside my family during responsive prayer, and participate in silent meditation.

My Jewish education continued, culminating in my bat mitzvah when I was 13. JBI prepared my Torah portion in braille, and I used braille to conduct the service, read from the Torah and present my prepared Dvar Torah. My bat mitzvah experience was identical to that of my sighted classmates.

Braille is the simplest way for a blind person to read independently, but not everyone promotes its use. Some argue that audio-recorded materials should be used instead, but sighted people have not collectively switched from print reading to audio. There are clear advantages of reading, in print or braille, instead of being read to. Audio recordings and text-to-speech technology have a place in my life, but there is no substitute for braille, especially in the tech-free Shabbat service. Listening to a recording would isolate me in prayer, but with braille, I can pray aloud or read along silently, while still immersed in my prayer community and their voices. Braille gives me the flexibility to interact with the liturgy in the same ways as my fellow Jews reading it visually.

The irony is that technology, sometimes thought to “supplant braille”, actually makes braille easier to produce than ever before. Modern braille printers and digital “braille displays” can place braille at a person’s fingertips in seconds. Digital braille displays make braille more portable than ever before. Braille can be used by people with low vision, the totally blind and those who are deaf-blind, the young and the old. I have known people in their 90’s who learned the braille alphabet after becoming blind in old age. Though producing braille in both Hebrew and English can pose some technical challenges, libraries like JBI have the expertise to make this happen.

Two hundred years after braille’s invention, we are blessed with the ability to convert print into a myriad of formats. All of these alternative formats have their advantages, but I cannot overstate the simplicity, flexibility and equivalent access that braille offers. As Jews we value literacy, and by offering our blind congregants access to ritual texts in braille, we are giving them the best opportunity to participate fully in our community.