Leap Frog
I’m a child of an era when disability was not understood as it is now. And still there is so much that is in the unknown category.
This weekend, as I met with clients who must deal with disabled children who are in their home, and also try to teach the children who are not disabled about the need to understand and make allowances for the differences, my own upbringing flashed before me.
For some disabled children and adults, emotional development centers around the ability to develop in pace with their peers. For others, emotional development might be delayed by two to five years.
A younger sibling might surpass the older sibling in emotional maturity and leave their sibling behind. I like to think of this as leap frog for siblings. The pain and confusion for both siblings can be an issue. It can unravel the order of things in family structure. Jealousy and questioning about treatment can surface. If the disability is one where intelligence is not affected, the pain can be greater than the norm. As I heard my clients talk about all of this, my mind flashed back to my own youth. I had not been ready for certain things, but was in other ways far more mature than my peers, who didn’t have a clue about things in life that I had already had to confront and think about. I hadn’t thought about all of it in some time. It had become second nature to me.
I went off to an out-of-state college at eighteen and returned home to lovely California at twenty. I was then in a place to understand what I wanted and needed from a school. The fact is, I made a better decision at twenty for my future education. To be fair, most adolescents aren’t really ready to make major life decisions at younger ages. I knew where my interest was and took my time getting there, and in my thirties, I felt ready to follow the education I needed to fulfill the goal I had set long ago.
In 2011–2013, I participated in the rehab program at Visio Loo Erf in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, and discovered that a culture will influence how the disabled are viewed as being able to work or having to sit it out. I remember thinking that, of course, I’d go back to work after I’m done here. Many didn’t have that attitude and would spend their days not fully engaged in life. That fifteen-month period of my life turned out to be a learning laboratory for my future life path. I was exposed to a side of disability I had not seen before.
I’ve spoken about the value of work, and how it is physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. I’m beginning to understand how deeply the disabled are shortchanged in the “work” department when others perceive or judge that they can’t grow to their full potential. This weekend I was reminded that there are disabilities that will prevent some children from being able to go off to school when they’re eighteen, and still others who are told that the proper path is higher education when the trades might suit them better. We need capable people who will thrive in the skilled labor area. My sink needs a plumber, and my home needs a serious electrician. There is a shortage.
Is the world demanding unrealistic behaviors of this generation? I’m beginning to think that it is. While book education is great, the world needs plumbers and electricians. We need those who can fix broken things and make them work again. We need long-haul truckers, gardeners, and construction workers, to list just a few of the areas where skilled labor is necessary. The skill of the laborer is essential to our world economy.
There are plenty of jobs that need doing, and the disabled might be good with their hands or see a path to repairing things that others can’t repair because our brains don’t see things as theirs do. The five-year-old kid who takes things apart because they want to know how it works is saying something loudly.
Skilled labor does not denote a low intelligence. The women and men who have cut my hair are skilled in understanding what my head needs to look like. They can picture it when I can’t. The carpenter knows how a piece of furniture should be made in order to function well. We need these gifted people!
Why do we force unrealistic things on people? What is it about career paths that panics so many? Keeping up with the Joneses?
I sit here writing this and think about the pain in my clients’ home, how some of it has been scripted by society, and how other parts of it might be due to not understanding the power of work that someone can do. The leap frog will be played out once again. It is played out in homes in Western society often.
I remember back to my childhood. My father couldn’t fix much at all but had a friend who was an on-call anesthesiologist at the local hospital. On his days off he liked to tinker. He said it relieved the stress from the intense work he was doing. He was our plumber. Knowing him taught me the value of the trades. And so, now I ask myself why there isn’t more of a dialogue about the trades.
A quick Google search brings up a good starting point for information on this subject: the US Department of Labor blog. Further searches will bring up articles on things the disabled should consider when opting to go the skilled labor route.
Having stated the above, and having known a guy who plumbed for the relief of it, I must mention that skilled labor needs to be valued for what it is: essential to society and its smooth functioning. High school education in the US would do well to make a case for the trades rather than singling out students in relation to “intelligence” level. The guy driving a forklift might do so because he wants to think about the book or art that is created in his head. The woman in the bakery may be using her knowledge of physics to engineer a cake that defies the norm and looks and tastes incredible.
We value the artist, and we sing our favorite songs. We marvel at the tech of a well-designed software program and are thankful when our doctor can explain what is wrong with our bodies, and why. When I need an electrician or a plumber, I’m told that I’ll have to wait because there is a shortage of skilled laborers that can do the job.
Not all work requires a higher level of education. Some work requires skilled labor and a knowledge of what makes something work. It would be nice to see students graduate and do what they want to do and have the skills to do, and not be shamed because they aren’t headed out to get more education. Our family plumber knew his physics and could save a life in the surgical theatre. My client’s kid is intelligent and understands physics. Most plumbers or electricians get the physics of clogs, flow, and making things work when things must work.
I hope that Western society will soon settle down to allowing for career paths that make sense for each of us.
