By Lucy & James Catchpole

All children have to learn not to ask personal questions of strangers. This is particularly important when we think about disabled children – nobody should be expecting disabled kids to ‘educate’ about their disability. They aren’t living teachable moments – they’re children. Let them play.

What should you do if your child yells at a disabled person? You probably already know the answer…

What should you do if your child yells at A PERSON? What should you do if your child shouts WHY DOES THAT MAN HAVE NO HAIR? You probably don’t ask the man why he has no hair – or send your child over to ask. Or worry that without asking, you’re not educating your child about hair loss.

You’d probably mouth ‘sorry!’, tell your child we all look different but we shouldn’t shout personal questions at people, and move on. Which works! Just apply it to disabled people, too. See also: asking pregnant women how the baby got in their tummy.

We really are just asking for the same level of privacy and common courtesy as everyone else .

We’re NOT trying to police other disabled people’s responses – if you’re comfortable answering questions that’s great. We ARE asking that every disabled person is not expected to provide teachable moments on tap.

Most of all, disabled kids are not teachable moments. Let them play.

When the subject of children and questions comes up, we often hear a variation of “it’s impossible to stop kids making embarrassing comments! We mustn’t stifle their curiosity” – as though what’s being asked is impossibly complicated. 

But what do these adults do when their child makes an embarrassing comment about literally any other person?  As parents we negotiate these situations already – whether it’s a bald man, a pregnant woman, someone with a nose piercing. 

Literally just… do that. The same thing you do with all these other people. 

Some disabled people do welcome questions, and we have absolutely no issue with that. But that cannot be the default.

We can’t start from the presumption that every disabled person – child or adult – should provide teachable moments on tap.

— Lucy Catchpole

A version of this first posted on Instagram, April 2021 – embedded below, and on thecatchpoles.net, here.

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