I am feeling really emotional right now. I used to be an avid magazine reader and I turn the pages with my nose. I am now trying to get rid of my rather large collection of magazines by looking at them while my is watching college football and making a lot of noise.
I started with Inked Magazine and got rid of a couple after nosing through them. Then my husband asked if I wanted a Y.C. Young Children Magazine aka as “Y.C.” is the journal for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). I have been a member of NAEYC since 2006 or 7 during my junior and senior years of college where I was finally heavily into the early childhood curriculum and doing observations at the Child Development Lab. Later I would do my practicum work as well as my internship there. I even worked there for a year after college before I started my graduate school program in Early Childhood Education.
The issue of Y.C. was from the winter of 2021. It had a little boy in a wheelchair being lowered from a school bus via a wheelchair lift. This was something I did throughout my preschool through high school years. I felt a bit annoyed by the lack of masks since it was during the height of the pandemic, but I just wanted to read it because it was about inclusion in the classroom of all abilities and teaching children without disabilities to see the disabled in a positive light.
With the current situation in our government trying to move the Special Education from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services makes the enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) harder to enforce and implement than ever before. Not to mention that IDEA is supposed to guarantee that every child with a disability is given a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment possible. Instead of being forced to sit in a “special classroom,” children are included in the regular classroom and are provided with the necessary support to be successful. I was one of those children who eventually worked my way into the regular classroom full time by the time I was in the third grade. Everyone benefited from having me in the regular classroom full time.
As I read some of the articles, and saw some recommended children’s books about disability, I thought about how I have written my own children’s book about my life with severe cerebral palsy. It’s real, it’s positive, it’s diverse, and features both non-disabled and disabled children in it. I usually prefer the person-first language because I don’t consider myself to be cerebral palsy only. I am so much more than my disability, but yet, my disability impacts every single aspect of my life. It always has and always will.
After so much heartache trying to get my children’s book illustrated and so much money, I thought I could work with a certain local marketing guy and I tried to do so. Unfortunately, we are living in strange, difficult times especially if you are competent in a certain vascular virus running rampant. If that’s not enough, the country in which we now find ourselves in the United States has gone backwards in so many different ways. Now my book is just sitting here waiting for me to publish it. I wanted it published before the pandemic. I never thought I’d be in this position of having a lot of major obstacles that I can’t control.
I’m looking for a marketing agent that would understand my situation. I can’t do this alone. Not anymore at least. When my last book was out, which is no longer in print due to the evil publisher being corrupt, I felt like I had to jump up and down to get noticed. Then I got hate from Christians who believe that God wants children to be spanked/hit. I did extensive research on the subject and found that the few verses that implied the use of corporal punishment on children actually meant the opposite. Discipline and guidance are what they truly mean. Plus, all corporal punishment is harmful to children even if they grow up to deny it and seem fine…Sounds familiar to the vascular virus running around, doesn’t it? Thousands upon thousands of peer reviewed research shows that corporal punishment especially “loving” spankings are very harmful to the developing brain and social-emotional development of children. Years of research. Yet, some people still insist that they have to inflict pain upon their children from young ages to make them grow up to be great people. Just like people do when confronted with the years of research regarding the harm done to the body by the vascular virus, especially when people are repeatedly infected with it.
So I sit here lost in the world and missing being the early childhood professional that I used to be. I miss interacting with the precious children. And I desperately want to help the disabled and non-disabled communities to learn about disability and inclusion especially with all the exclusion happening for six years as well as the government ruining the inclusion of children with disabilities. Not to mention that the government has weakened the Olmsted Law that says that people with disabilities should be able to live in their homes and communities instead of being institutionalized. Institutions are and always have been horrible places for the disabled. We’re not patients. We are human beings with different abilities. We deserve to be in society and in our own homes with the appropriate support.
I hope something will happen to help me help others as well as change society somehow. Right now, I feel like crying and I probably will.
Children are our future and if we don’t protect them and teach them kindness, we have no hope for the future.
