Sensiblility

             Feisty Pants has been working REALLY hard at being a better student, so among other things she has been rewarded with a hair appointment.  Unlike her sister and I, who have to be talked into a haircut and/or sedated and bound, FP loves getting her hair done.  She wanted a pixie cut , which she got and looks cute, except for one thing.  One thing which brings up a really big pet peeve of mine.  It's boring.  Seriously.  The haircut she originally picked was edgy- her father and I  talked about it before agreeing.  Not because it was edgy, but I was concerned she wouldn't like it afterwards.  But youth should be a time of daring and excitement and rebellion and mistakes and making adults roll their eyes.   So we said the heck with it, go for it.  If it's a mistake, it'll grow back in. (She gets this done at school, which has a cosmetology class.)  But somehow it got lost in translation and her haircut, while cute, is not the edgy one she wanted.  In fact, it would be perfectly acceptable on a 50 year old woman in sensible shoes. . It's not that the haircut is actually bad. It's not. It's cute. But it wasn't the one she picked.  It's less extreme than what she asked for.  It's a limit she didn't pick and I don't like seeing one imposed on her.

                     And now we come to my pet peeve.  Why oh why do we impose awful limits on the disabled? It's bad enough what we do to typical  girls.  Their toys are all frigging pink.  They are expected to be 20 pounds underweight and their dolls are all either infants or hypersexualized  anorexic teenagers (Can we say Madonna/whore syndrome, boys and girls?)  We bitch at strong girls by calling them "bossy" and lionize trophy wives as if that were a honorable profession.  We are sold plastic surgery as "empowerment" as if paying for the privilege of a limit on what we should look like is power.  And all of that is before we add disability to the mix.  

                      With the disabled, the problem is that everything is all so effing sensible.  Their shoes are sensible.  Their clothes are sensible.  Their equipment comes in sensible colors.  Where are the orthopedic versions of doc martin boots?  Where are the easily donned leather jackets and velcro closed studded collars?  Where are the Hello Kitty wheelchairs and Vampire Hunter D knee braces?  Where are the glittery, rhinestone studded scoli jackets?  It's like we all expect the disabled to fade into the background where we won't have to confront our fears and nervousness about them as if it's their problem instead of our hang up.   Why can't disabled children have equipment that looks like their parent's worst nightmare like any other child?  Where are the tie dyed orthotics, scooby doo eye patches, death metal apps for acc devices?  Children should be seen and heard and, when it comes right down to it, rebellious and annoying and loud. Even disabled children, ESPECIALLY disabled children. The disabled are not meant to be treated like hotel bathrooms.  They should never have to be sanitized for our emotional safety.  They will have plenty of time to enjoy boring later, when it actually seems so, well, sensible.