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I was recently gifted with some old family home videos. Watching them triggered a flood of memories of my grandparents. And I can’t think about my grandpa Dave without being reminded of one strange conversation that lives in infamy inside my mind.

My paternal grandparents, Ina and Dave, lived just a few miles from us, and they provided a lot of childcare for my sister and me. We spent many after-schools and weekends at their home. I often recall my sister being in the TV room with Grandma, while Grandpa and I would sit on the couch in the living room and argue about life.

Grandpa was smart as a whip, caring in his way, but stubborn. He held his convictions tightly. And I-well, I was insatiably curious, highly logical, and some might have called me “feisty” as a child. It took a while for my emotional and practical intelligence to catch up to my book-smarts. And, as you will see in a moment, I took things very literally.

So, Grandpa and I would debate about everything. We went back and forth, but he would always win. He had literally ten times as much life experience as I did, and far surpassed me in verbal reasoning skills. Plus, he held clear authority in our relationship. Regardless of who was right and who was wrong, only one of us could play the “go to your room” card, and it wasn’t me.

So, he always beat me. Except this one time.

It was such a significant life event for me, I remember the date: September 16, 1992. A Wednesday just after I had started the second grade. On this Wednesday afternoon my sister and Grandma were otherwise engaged, and I was on the couch happily cuddled up with my grandparents’ little Yorkie/shih tzu dog, Archie.

For the life of me, I don’t recall how Grandpa and I got on this topic. But, I vividly recall him telling me that “dogs can lick people, but people *can’t* lick dogs.”

I insisted this was untrue. Because, technically, people *can* lick dogs! I explained that humans and dogs both have tongues, and if a human has a tongue, she definitely *can* lick a dog.

Grandpa’s rebuttal was biblical. God created animals and humans separately, he said. God intended for humans to have dominion over animals. Animals and humans are different, so even though animals can lick us, we *can’t* lick them. God said so.

I figured out what I had to do. Believe me, I really didn’t want to do it, because I knew where Archie had been playing out in the yard. And I was terrified of the repercussions for openly defying Grandpa. But, I knew I was right. People *can* lick dogs, darn it. I needed to beat him, just this one time.

So, silently, I leaned down to Archie on the couch. I stuck out my tongue just far enough, and I licked him. For those who want to know, he tasted-well, about how you’d expect.

And then I sat up and braced myself for the scolding, or disciplinary action that would inevitably follow my sassiness. And….Nothing happened. After an agonizing moment of silence, Grandpa changed the subject. Surely, I thought, I’d hear about it later from Mom and Dad. But no, we had a nice dinner that night, with no mention of my unhygienic adventure.

There are several explanations for my victory. Perhaps Grandpa just didn’t see me do it. Perhaps he did, but decided to just let it go. But, I choose to believe that the incident taught both of us a lesson in the fallibility of “can’t.”

A “can’t” statement is like a scientific hypothesis. It is very hard to prove, but very easy to falsify. All it takes is one counterexample, one demonstration of ability, one silly little girl licking a puppy on the couch, to prove that something is possible. That something might be difficult, it might only be possible under certain conditions, it may not always be desirable, it might go against commonly accepted conventions. But, technically, if one person does something, it “can” be done.

The disability world is dominated by “can’t” statements. And some of them are valid. No matter how hard I try, I can’t read the writing on your T-shirt or tell you what color it is. Some people truly cannot walk, speak, hear, or breathe without assistance. Or they can do these things only with great effort or expense.

But then there are so many other “can’ts” that are unnecessarily placed in our way by outsiders. Sometimes, people insist we “can’t” because they’ve never seen a disabled person succeed at the thing, or they lack the imagination to consider how the thing could be done. Others create artificial barriers-physical, environmental, attitudinal, or policy barriers-making our participation in certain activities impossible. Still others simply don’t want to depart from how things have always been done-which, to me, is similar to the biblical argument “because God said so.”

We need to question the “can’ts” leveled at us. We need to examine where they come from, and what factors could turn them into “can” possibilities. We need to not just accept what authorities tell us.

Let’s consider the common statement about how blind people “can’t” drive automobiles. Technically, I “can” drive a car. I did it once in an empty parking lot with a ton of verbal guidance from my dad. Could I drive a car on the highway without crashing? Maybe, but I’m not going to test that hypothesis. Based on how much sighted drivers rely on vision to gauge their position relative to other drivers, I think there is fairly strong evidence that my driving on the highway could be dangerous.

But what I can do is examine what conditions would need to be present to overturn the “can’t.” What would allow a blind person to drive on the highway? In fact, blind people have been asking these questions for a while now. The National Federation of the Blind has developed some ideas of technology that could enable a blind person to drive. Now that autonomous vehicles show some promise, we are in discussions to ensure that such vehicles will be fully accessible to drivers with disabilities.

When I reflect on that long-ago moment with Grandpa and Archie, I think about the experience of all those who committed civil disobedience to fight for the rights I have today as a disabled American. Those people had far more to fear than a time-out from Grandpa. Some of them went to jail, or risked doing so, to guarantee that disabled people could access public spaces. The act of civil disobedience is risky, messy, and uncertain. But when we know we are on the right side of justice, sometimes it’s worth it. In our movement today, we cannot become complacent. We must rely on the younger generations to question what may seem to us like long-accepted truths. Our quest for equality depends on the agitators, or as Grandpa would say, the “smart-alecs” among us. I didn’t like being called a “smart-alec” at the age of seven, but today it’s a label I carry with pride.

There’s one more layer to this story. Grandpa was a disabled man. He had chronic arthritis from age 17 on. He was also the son of Lithuanian immigrants, growing up during the Great Depression, and the first of his family to go to college. Grandpa found a successful career as an accountant that made use of his brain instead of his legs. But, undoubtedly, he was subjected to many “can’ts” throughout his life. Some he overcame, but others persisted. Likely, he was told he “couldn’t” do things that my generation takes for granted. My defiance of authority is a privilege that Grandpa didn’t have in his youth. I wonder what “can’ts” I accept as fact today, that will seem ridiculous when I reach my 70s.

Grandpa died just before I started middle school. I have often wondered what it would be like to have an adult conversation with him. I wonder if he will like my spouse, or approve of my career. I don’t know these things, but I am grateful for the intellectual sparring matches we had in my childhood. I am glad he took the time to engage my mind. And I hope I can use it to make him proud.

“We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that people living with impairments can experience negative effects tied more directly to their bodily conditions. People with impairments that involve, for example, fatigue, pain, depression, or chronic illness may want both to overcome social barriers and discrimination that oppress all people with disabilities, and to voice their desire to remove or address the troubling accompaniments of their impairments, through medical or other means.”

“I want to have more energy and less pain, and to have a more predictable body; about that there is no ambivalence….Yet I cannot wish that I had never contracted ME, because it has made me a different person, a person that I am glad to be, would not want to have missed being, and could not imagine relinquishing, even if I were ‘cured.’ … I would joyfully accept a cure, but I do not need one.”

“Some conditions of the body may be inseparable from physiological suffering (e.g., living with chronic pain or nausea), but the ways of life that people form within them may be quite valuable, and the suffering they experience may play some significant constituent role in what brings the value.”

“There are, I think, many versions of disability pride.”

A central principle of Disability Wisdom is the idea that impairments are not always negative for everyone all the time. In fact, when I give training presentations, I often start by distinguishing between impairment and disability. “Impairment” is a physical or mental difference, while “disability” is the disadvantage that can occur when attitudes or environments are incompatible with that difference. This concept is often known in academic circles as the “social model” of disability.

However, as this excellent article points out, sometimes a pure social model doesn’t fully capture people’s experience with impairments. This may be especially true for medical conditions that cause inherently unpleasant symptoms (such as pain, nausea, or depression); conditions that get progressively worse or vary over time; or conditions that threaten life expectancy. For these types of impairments, people may genuinely suffer and they may desire medical treatment. But, at the same time, people might still place some positive value on having the condition. This article urges medical professionals and disability scholars to take a more nuanced view of impairment, disability, and chronic disease.

Rethinking disability: The social model of disability and chronic disease

“Anyone who knows me can tell you that in my world, ‘let’s share a fun fact!’ is roughly equivalent to ‘let’s take a field trip to hell on a paratransit bus!’ Oh, wait. That’s redundant.”

“Well, friends, before you die just thinking about fun fact circles, today I am sharing a fun fact about myself that I think is pretty neat: I can pee out of my belly!”

“The Mitrofanoff procedure, in a nutshell, involves the creation of a channel between the bladder and the surface of my skin. The channel is created using an unlikely hero, the appendix, which has been repurposed from uncool, rejected vestige organ to nifty pee tunnel.”

“In short, due to my disability, I can’t transfer to the toilet independently. That means a lot of waiting around and wiggling while waiting for an assistant, a lot of pee anxiety, and about 43213421 people seeing me sans pants.”

“I have neurogenic bladder, meaning that my brain and bladder are basically drunk texting each other.”

“In my case, I did not need an augmentation, because as the urologist put so eloquently, ‘you have a really big bladder.’ I’ll be adding this special trait to my resumé, as I’m sure it is prized by employers worldwide.”

“You find out who your people are when you’re peeing your sheets and receiving emails from the chuck sheet company encouraging you to take a quiz about which color diaper matches your personality (yes, really…and I know you were curious, so, purple!)”

“But it feels indescribably good to have more freedom (peedom?) and privacy as I navigate life on wheels.”

This week on the Weekly Wisdom blog, I’m sharing this humorous piece from Kathleen Downes. Ms. Downes blogs about her life in a “squeaky purple wheelchair.” She shares her experience having a Mitrofanoff procedure to increase her independence in toileting.

I Can Pee Out of My Belly!

Parenting is an important life activity for many people-with and without disabilities. Many adults with serious mental illnesses (SMI) are parents. They can be good parents with the appropriate supports in place. However, as this research shows, parents with SMI may face scrutiny from the child welfare system. In this study,  researchers looked at data from more than 28,000 U.S. parents. They found that parents with SMI were eight times more likely than parents without SMI to be contacted by Child Protective Services (CPS) and 26 times more likely to have their children removed from their homes. Fathers with SMI were at especially high risk of losing custody of their children. Although CPS plays an important role in protecting children from abuse or neglect, false-positive reports can have devastating effects on both children and parents. The researchers point out that parents with SMI may not seek needed mental health services for fear of being reported to CPS. They recommend a greater focus on parenting supports for people with SMI. They also recommend that we pay more attention to structural challenges faced by parents with SMI and their families, such as poverty, under-employment, and a lack of access to housing and healthcare.

Read more about the research here

“Imagine sitting at a restaurant with your friends, and the waiter comes and asks your friends for your order, leaving you sitting there looking silly, when you wanted to order for yourself. It’s kind of like that.”

“Would you want to sit down and play with toys for an hour when you really, really didn’t want to? No? Then don’t do the same to others.”

“If you start walking on eggshells, or alternatively, applauding every little step when you are around someone with disabilities, it’s going to come off as patronising. Just act normal and be yourself – that’s what they are doing anyway.”

“You decide what you want to do in your life – how about extending the same right to your fellow human beings?”

This week, I thought I’d leave you with this simple but informative article. Chances are, all of us have either unintentionally done one of these 11 things, or had one of them done to us. Let’s all be more mindful of how we treat one another.

11 Ways You Treat Adults with Disabilities Like Children Without Even Knowing It