Home / Thoughts / Sean's Thoughts / Telling your kids the truth about BIID and your impairment
Telling your kids the truth about BIID and your impairment
Written by Sean on Sunday, September 7, 2008
I don’t have children, so this is a complication that I would not have to face if I managed to become paraplegic. But many of us do have children and have to think about this. What do you tell your children if you become an amputee or paraplegic? Do you tell them the truth? Or do you tell them a "white" lie (though the size of such a lie would make it more grey than white).
Some of our friends have managed to acquire the impairment they need. People like Lily, or Tegumai, or Dave Openshaw, and others. They managed to become amputees. They have children. I’m not sure what they have told their kids. But I think that considering what, if anything, you tell your young ones about your impairment is very important. The question doesn’t just apply to those who succeed in acquiring an impairment. I guess it also applies to anyone who moves to public use of a wheelchair, whether part time or full time.
To me, kids have to be protected. Not wrapped in cotton wool and over-protected, no. But there are things they don’t need to know until they are older and better able to process something as monumental as "I got my leg chopped off because I wanted to". Not that BIID causes a want, we know it’s a need, but since most adults can’t seem to comprehend the difference, how is a child ever expected to?
No, I think it would be too much of a burden to put on most children.
The loss of a limb, or the loss of function in a parent would be quite traumatic for kids. Even if you are happy and "well adapted", and the kids react well to your loss, I would imagine there would be some sort of a trauma. If nothing else other kids at school are doomed to ask, if not to tease them about being different.
And if you burden them with the truth, even if they can comprehend BIID and you tell them about it, is it really fair to do so? I would imagine that the kid being teased about mom having a weird leg, or being repeatedly asked why dad’s only got one leg would be very hard pressed to keep the secret. And if they talk about it, then what? The kid’s friends tell their parents, and the parents decide that they can’t be friends with your kids anymore? Oy vey! That’s no good at all.
Of course there’s another issue here. Kids aren’t stupid. I was 13 when I started going to the medical library at the local university. I don’t know at what age chilren go online nowadays, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a 10 year old was able to Google their parent’s name. If you’ve been open about why you lost your leg in public, and spoken to journalists about it, yet haven’t told your child, don’t you think they will learn the truth online? Then what? You’ve been caught lying to them. They are unlikely to really get it. They’ll see the sensational, but not the pain you’ve endured all your life until you got where you needed to go. It’s not fair on them.
In the end, perhaps the only safe course of action for your kids is to not tell them about BIID until they are adults or old enough to understand at the very least, and even then maybe not, and keep the thing private and not speak to the media/press about it.
So there you go, just a few thoughts from someone who doesn’t have kids. Take them or leave them. Your mileage may vary. I’d be interested in hearing from those of you in that situation.
Tags: Amputee, BIID, Child, Children, Impairment, Kids, Paralysed, Truth
This entry appears in Sean's Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You may have your say, or trackback from your own site.
4 Comments
An internet pal had acquired the amputations he needed. Not cheaply, not safely and they were, in fact, extreme. He had grown children who lived away and he told them he had gone to another country to get the surgery done for a specific medical reason. He never told them it was BIID and never intended to.
Adding children to any equation certainly does change the outcome. Would we be able to continue to support our families or be able to meet future financial goals and not be a burden to adult children?
As for being 100 percent truthful I say only if BIID is passed down to the next generation. Otherwise, we risk alienation from our families. We can not expect our children to understand what the general public will not.
Is everybody with older or grown children 100 percent honest and forthwright when it comes to the contents of a will? Probably not. Is everybody honest with adopted children about the child’s origins? Suicide of a relative?
Most of this stuff can be disclosed only on a need to know basis, nobody is the wiser, the kids are not traumatized, life goes on.
There can be no general rules here. It depends on your situation, the age of your child, the personality of your child, your relationship with your child. My fifteen year old sees me in leg braces or wheelchair these days. He is a very accepting person. We have a close relationship with no secrets. So I have told him everything. It is not a problem. I told him about being an intersexed lesbian when he was nine. That wasn’t a problem either.
Post your comments
© transabled.org - 1994-2008 - All Rights Reserved.
1 On 8 September, 2008, Claire said:
I use a wheelchair to manage my BIID and have self-injured, although mildly. I have kids. They know NOTHING about BIID and will not know anything until they are adults. My wish is to not tell them anything until they are well into their adult years and then, only on a “need-to-know” basis.