Parental Attitudes Can Make the Difference

Parental Attitudes Can Make the Difference

Future Reflections Winter/Spring 1990, Vol. 9 No. 1
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PARENTAL ATTITUDES CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE
by Barbara Pierce
[PICTURE] Whatever the weather, wherever the place, Barbara
Pierce now travels (cane in hand) with genuine confidence
and independence.
Editor's Note: Barbara Pierce is the able Assistant
Editor of the Braille Monitor, which is the
monthly publication of the National Federation of
the Blind.
The other day a friend told me about a child that
attends the day-care center where she works.
Apparently the little fellow has recently had
surgery to remove cataracts, and it has left him
legally blind. So far this child is doing well in his
interactions with other youngsters, and he seems
to be adapting well to his limited sight. His
mother, however, is not. She seems to have
withdrawn herself emotionally from her son. She
has actually told his teachers that he has no future.
On the one hand, she is overprotective,
leaving instructions that her child be prevented
from engaging in certain kinds of play; but on the
other, she withholds from him the support and
encouragement that every blind child needs so
desperately.
Thinking about this mother's agony and what I
might do to help, I was reminded again just how
formative parental attitudes are for children,
blind youngsters included. When I was small, it
was very important to my mother that I look at
the people with whom I was speaking, whether or
not I could actually see them. She also insisted
that I be neatly and appropriately dressed. As I
grew up, paging through Seventeen did not interest
me at all since I could not see the pictures, but
she taught me to care about fashion, color, and
style as well as the importance of making as good
a visual impression as possible. All these values
my mother communicated to me in a thousand
little ways. She did not indulge in long lectures,
though I got my share of sermonettes after lapses
in my behavior or my dress, and for these and the
life-long impact they had on me I am eternally
grateful.
But I also remember what happened when my
father announced to me that I was to begin learning
to use the long white cane. I was sixteen, and
my sight had been so poor for a number of years
that I had never begun the normal process of
going places by myself. My first reaction was keen
anticipation. My friends were getting their
drivers licenses; I was being given something
roughly equivalent, though more precious because
it was so personal and so long-delayed. I
yearned for the independence that is the
birthright of us all. Like all teen-agers, I wanted
freedom, but until now that impulse had been
stifled by my inability to move around confidently
on my own. I could hardly wait to begin my
lessons, but there was a two-week delay. And
during those fourteen days the damage was done.
It was no one's fault. My parents had had no
contact with competent blind adults. There was
no Parents of Blind Children Division; in fact,
they hadn't even heard about the National
Federation of the Blind. All they understood was
that blind beggars carried white canes. They had
seen pathetic blind people creeping along the
streets of Pittsburgh, randomly poking their
white canes at objects and other people. They
must have been appalled at the prospect of their
bright, well-adjusted daughter being reduced to
such a means of mobility.
I don't remember that they said a word about
these impressions to me. My father did warn me
that my mother was upset about the cane, and he
suggested that I keep it out of sight as much as
possible. I began to realize that there was to be
no excited chatter about what I was learning and
where I was going. I would not be given errands
to run for my mother. We were to pretend that
the cane did not exist. I would use it only when
there was no other option, and in my loving family,
there was always another option.
By the time I met my travel teacher, I was
frightened of the ordeal ahead and repelled by
the idea of the white cane. He was going to make
me travel places alone. People were going to
stare at me. Students who did not realize that I
was blind would know the truth. If I could have
swallowed that cane, I would have done so.
I became an expert at getting rid of it. As soon as
I got to school on the days when I was to have a
travel lesson, I would get permission to go early
to my locker to dump it--I certainly would not
have been seen dead carrying it on other days.
When I returned from school at the end of travel
lesson days, I slid the cane quickly down along the
wall beside the front door where it lay concealed
behind the curtains until I could spirit it off to my
room later. On days when my lesson kept me tied
up on expeditions after school, I agonized because
I knew that my mother was at home worrying
about what might be happening to me. There
was no triumph in these small victories over dependence;
they were paid for by my mother's
anguish. And the cost seemed to me entirely too
high.
On balance, however, I was very lucky. The travel
instruction I received was very good, and even
though after I finished my three months of lessons
I did not use it again until I went to college,
I managed to remember what I had been taught.
Above all I am lucky because twelve years later I
found the Federation. There, for the first time, I
met healthy attitudes about blindness, Braille,
and the white cane. Though delayed, I finally found again the satisfaction in independence that
had been snuffed out fourteen years before.
Now that I am a parent I know with painful clarity
that all of us make mistakes in raising our
children. For the most part my parents did it
right. They were determined that I should have
every chance they could give me to succeed in
life. Their instincts were largely sound and their
attitudes healthy. Because they had no opportunity
to modify their negative attitudes about
blindness, however, they inadvertently made my
mastery of the alternative techniques of blindness
harder than it needed to be. Seeing that a
child learns Braille and efficient use of the white
cane is just as important a part of raising a well
adjusted blind youngster as is teaching social
skills and personal care. If parents have positive
attitudes, these will be communicated to the
blind child. You can make the difference.
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