“Asking questions is not the opposite of staring at a disabled person. Is it? I mean it doesn’t make much sense – but it’s often how the dialogue around this goes. E.g. ‘I’d rather they asked questions than stared’. But why on earth would we be choosing between one and the other?
Society has often been fascinated by the details of lives absolutely categorised as other. (I mean, see freak shows.)
Questions are not necessarily about acknowledging humanity – they can be about the opposite.
Our privacy has to trump others’ curiosity. ”
Lucy & James Catchpole – February 2021
“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.”
Lucy & James Catchpole – March 2021
James and Lucy Catchpole run a children’s literary agency – The Catchpole Agency – from their home in Oxford, UK. They have two daughters, write a bit, and post on Instagram @thecatchpoles. Not necessarily in that order.
James is the author of What Happened to You? – a picture book about a disabled child who encounters an awful lot of questions. Now James and Lucy have co-written a sequel – You’re SO Amazing!
They’ve written one chapter of an adult book – We’ve Got This: Essays by Disabled Parents. You can also find them on their blog.
And Lucy put this website together – she could do with a cup of tea.
“I wanted to write a book that would have told me as a child that it wasn’t incumbent on me to answer questions – it’s personal, it’s a very personal question. Even as an adult it taps down into vulnerabilities and trauma that you don’t necessarily want to go near even with friends, let alone with people you’ve never met..
We all have to learn we don’t ask questions of strangers. Somehow children have to learn to extend that rule to a group not traditionally afforded that common courtesy – disabled people.”
James Catchpole – from the video on the left. Spring 2020
What Happened to You? 