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While exchanging pleasantries with a woman selling peanut brittle at an open-air market on Mother’s Day, my mom and I were told that we’re really adorable.
We were contemplating the samples we had just tasted and deciding which one of us would pay for a bag of the brittle to take home. Nothing about that scenario sounds particularly adorable, right? Apparently, though, it’s quite charming to watch a mother and daughter engage in mundane discussion about sugary treats when they happen to be sitting side by side in power wheelchairs.
The simple act of going out in public with my mom ensures that we will get comments like this regularly. Part of me does understand why people are compelled to make a fuss over us. My mom and I are quite the pair. We look alike, sound alike and act alike. In fact, we have nearly everything in common right down to our physical disability, Larsen syndrome, which is genetic. As such, people seem to perceive us as a bit of a phenomenon.
Complete strangers often remark that my mother appears to be my sister. My mom loves this, along with the shock people express when they learn that I’m her 22-year-old daughter. But beneath their amazed comments on my mother’s youthful appearance, I often pick up on a hint of incredulousness about a disabled mother raising a disabled child.
At the same time, without even knowing our full story, many people claim to be inspired by the sight of my mother and me, It’s rather paradoxical: On the one hand, most of society is quick to doubt that someone with a disability has the capability to be a good parent; on the other, because people think she is “Mom of the Year” simply because I’ve made it to adulthood.
My mom is a great mom. She has never given her role in my life anything less than 100 percent. She has always taught me to make things work, even when our disabilities pose frustrating complications, which tends to be the case on a regular basis. That being said, our goal has never been to be a sob story or a success story.
Our goal is to live our lives. Some people find us precious and others find us pitiable, but neither mode of thinking is accurate, and both feel condescending. Our disabilities may make our interactions different. For instance, I will often help my mom with taking off her leg braces in the evening or picking up things from the floor when she drops them; she’ll help me make my bed and always has dinner on the table. But the loving help we give each other is far from unique. There is a physical balance that we’ve mastered, and when we both happen to need assistance and may not be able to help each other, we have my equally awesome dad (who happens to be able-bodied) to keep things steady.
My mother and I are just a mother and a daughter, like many others, and luckier than many. We fight, we disagree, we get on each other’s nerves. We love, we hug, we spend hours picking out clothes for each other. Some days we’ll be snippy, and other days we’ll be full of laughs and affection. At times, we’d rather be in separate rooms, but usually we’re a team. Our bond, much the same as so many mothers and daughters we know, is complex and unbreakable.
Sharing the same disability has undoubtedly united me with my mother in unusual ways, but we want the world to know that there is really nothing unusual about who we are. We’re just another mother and daughter, buying peanut brittle.
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