Age is not a disability. Disability knows no age.

[maradydd]

I recently learned that a disabled friend of mine, who has a connective tissue disorder and gets around with the help of various assistive devices and a service dog, has been getting hassled by neighbours who want everyone to park at one end of the street and walk home during the day when kids are playing (and have gotten a city street permit to this effect, though they're using it inappropriately -- they can't legally block residents from driving to their own homes, but they're doing it anyway.)

That alone is plenty out of line, but when my friend went to talk to her neighbours about why this wasn't going to work for her, they blew her off -- one of the reasons being "well, Mr. So-and-so is 92 and he doesn't mind."

News flash, people: being old and being disabled are not the same thing. Some old people are ridiculously healthy and spry -- my granddad was still climbing ladders to fix stuff in the garage when he was 90, and the first indication that nature wanted him to slow down was stage 4 lung cancer. (He died two months later.) Certainly there are disabilities that are more common among the elderly -- you don't see a lot of young people with Alzheimer's apart from that one poor family in Holland -- and many chronic conditions, such as polycystic kidney disease, tend to worsen over time, but being old does not mean ipso facto being disabled.

Everyone reading this will either get old or die young. Some of you will get old and never slow down; some of you will end up with osteoporosis, or arthritis, or diabetes. Perhaps the correlation between age and disability makes some people uneasy around young people who walk with canes or have motorized chairs -- perhaps it makes them think of their own inevitable mortality someday. But people who are young and disabled are disabled now, and it's inhumane to pretend that their problems don't exist.

Perhaps if we can get people to realise that disability and age aren't as causally linked as people seem to think they are, both the elderly and people like my friend won't have to put up with this kind of rudeness any more.

Comments

[deza.livejournal.com]

I regularly hear "You're too young to need a cane" or "you're too young to use a chair." Funny, I didn't realize that crippling bone fusion had an age limit. *eyeroll*

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

I should hope that "I have fused vertebrae" (or, soon, "I just had knee surgery") will shut them the hell up.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

"And you're too smart to think that!"

I don't say it. Usually. These people at least mean well, unlike most of the people who say stupid shit to cripples.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

What happens when you do say it? It sounds like it could be one of those teachable-moment things -- "you're too smart to $foo" isn't something I would expect most people to take as an insult. Does it catch them off guard? Does it provide an opportunity to disabuse them of their wrongheaded ideas?

Not that you don't already have enough on your plate without having to be Ablism 101 instructor, of course. I'm tempted to use the line next time there's an opening in my vicinity, just to see what happens.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

It actually depends on who is saying it. The most common use of "You're too young" is actually well-meaning elderly people, often with a mobility aid themselves, for whom English seems not a first language (these are my frequent seating partners on the bus). I'm afraid I would confuse the kindly old Chinese or Russian person with the "smart" remark, so I just look saintly and say "It can happen at any age"; they tut-tut and say "That's too bad, you poor thing", and that's all right.

From people nearer my own age, I am more likely to say "Oh, you flatter me, but you're too clever for that; I *know* you you understand that disability can happen at any age."

There's also the caveat of what preceeds the conversation. If a casual acquaintance politely asks me why I use the wheelchair, I am likely to say "arthritis"; fibromyalgia is still hanging out under the arthritis umbrella, and it's a quick, simple answer that most people understand. However, arthritis *is* perceived as a disease of old age, so that answer is more likely to lead to a "you're so young for that" sort of comment. I reply that arthritis can strike at any age, smile, and change the subject.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

Oooh yeah. I got crap about my canes, my crutches, and my service dog.

I'm too young to need them, and what's more, I look too healthy.

Pff. Because all disabilities involve visually obvious signs of injury.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

When I was still invisibly disabled, I made a T-shirt saying "I don't look disabled? Well, you don't look stupid. Let's call it even." I wore it on days when I needed the special bus seats and knew I'd get an argument from some elderly woman in high heels.

I've also looked as innocent as possible and said "Oh dear! What does a disabled person look like, then? Should I get my hair cut? It's my glasses frames, aren't they? My optometrist said they were too fashionable."