My Kids Knew Their Dad Was Enough
by Bruce Sexton
From the Editor: Bruce Sexton is a blind father, disability rights advocate, and policy strategist. He holds a Juris Doctor degree and has worked across education, technology, corporate, and government sectors to advance equity and inclusion. Bruce has held multiple leadership roles within the National Federation of the Blind, including service on the board of the National Association of Blind Students and various state-level positions. He has also led large-scale public engagement initiatives, supported the launch of a school for blind students in India, and advised executive teams on systemic change. Bruce has written about his role as a blind dad in our pages before. Here is his latest lovely contribution:
I never had to tell my kids that I was enough. They just knew.
They knew it in the rhythm of my steps, pacing the same loop through the house—kitchen to hallway, through the living room, and back again. They knew it in the steady hum of my voice as I sang lullabies, my arms burning from their weight, holding on until sleep finally won. And when I sat down, finally ready for relief, only to hear them stir and start again, they knew it in the way I stood back up without hesitation.
They knew it in the evenings as they got older, when I ran my fingers over Braille pages, working to decode the dots and give them voice fast enough to keep the story flowing. It took work—pulling meaning from the raised dots, turning it into speech in real time, making sure the words held the same magic they would on any other page. Some nights, my brain was taxed, my focus slipping, but I kept going because that’s what you do when you want your kids to grow up with stories. Because that’s what parenting is. Besides, Library Lion was one of their favorites, and mine as well!
They knew it when I read to their preschool classes, letting tiny hands explore the Braille so they would understand it before they ever thought to question it. They knew it when I sat in their grade schools, giving them and their classmates the experience of having a blind parent in their world, just a dad doing what dads do.
They knew it when we walked through an airport or down a busy street, moving together, my hand on their shoulder or theirs brushing against mine. I was always the parent, leading in ways that had nothing to do with sight.
They knew it at restaurants when I handed them the menu and asked them to decide not just what sounded good, but what they actually wanted. Not just pointing to a picture but speaking up and ordering for themselves. Little things that weren’t so little—the quiet practice of knowing their own minds, of using their voices, of understanding that their choices mattered.
And that’s the thing—parenting is struggle. Sometimes it’s exhaustion, sometimes it’s patience wearing thin, sometimes it’s carrying more weight than you think you can hold. Some of that, for me, is because I’m blind. But none of it has ever meant that my kids carry me.
People assume blind parents depend on their children, that our kids must fill in the gaps, take on responsibilities they shouldn’t have to. But my kids don’t exist to make my life easier. They aren’t my guides or my caretakers. They are my children. And like any children, they are learning, growing, building their own place in the world.
I parent the way any father does—through love, through effort, through showing up even when it’s hard. My blindness doesn’t change that. It changes the way I do some things, sure. It forces me to problem-solve in ways most parents don’t have to. But it does not shift the weight of responsibility from me onto them.
My children do not carry me. They walk beside me. And if the world wants to keep telling stories about us, let them. But let it be this one.