We've Got This: Stories of Disabled Parenting by Eliza Hull

Author:Eliza Hull [Hull, Eliza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, Marriage & Family, Family & Relationships, Parenting, General, People With Disabilities
ISBN: 9781743822241
Google: clFEEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Black Inc.
Published: 2022-03-01T20:42:40+00:00

BRIAN EDWARDS is a proud Wiradjuri man and a disability advocate with Absec and the NDIS. Before becoming blind, he played rugby league for more than ten years with the Redfern All Blacks. Now he plays cricket with people who are blind. He is a DJ and has travelled the world performing.

Kristy Forbes

from an interview with Eliza Hull

I HAVE FOUR WONDERFUL children; they’re twenty-three, fifteen, ten and seven years old. They’re all autistic – and so are my husband and I. As a family, we live our lives in a way that is aligned with neurodivergent identity, culture and lifestyle.

When I was pregnant seven years ago with my youngest, I was feeling happy and positive: my baby was on the way. I went to a regular check-up with a midwife, and she turned to me and said, ‘Well, you wouldn’t want to have any more children – that’s enough for someone like you.’

I thought, what the hell does that mean? I couldn’t get my head around it. Was she referring to the fact that my children are autistic? Did she think I didn’t want to have any more autistic children? Then I realised she had said for someone like you: she was referring to the fact that I’m a disabled mother.

I’m proudly disabled; I have a really healthy sense of self. So when she said that, I thought, wow, you have no idea of the discrimination in what you’ve just said, how disempowering it is, and how potentially disconnecting that could be for a mother and child. You have made gross assumptions about my ability to parent based on the fact that I’m autistic. It’s so hard to sustain a positive identity when the very people you’re going to for support have attitudes like that. And they don’t even realise how wrong it is.

I think these attitudes exist because we’ve been writing about autism in the same way for eighty years. Textbook autism is very different to real-life autism. The current diagnostic criteria for autism describe distressed or traumatised autistic people: they don’t describe what an autistic person looks like when they’re well supported, accommodated and understood. That’s me. I’m an autistic person who, after forty-two years of struggle, now works diligently to support myself. I’ve worked hard to put together a toolkit and a network of supports. That, and I have a dose of privilege.

Most people wouldn’t know I’m autistic until they see obvious signs, such as stimming or rocking. Medical professionals tend to subscribe to what’s in the textbooks: they don’t listen to the lived experience of autistic adults – there is a vast gulf between the autistic community and autism ‘experts’ (who are neurotypical).

I haven’t always been proudly disabled, but having children has enabled me to navigate internalised ableism. I now challenge my thoughts. I pull myself up when I have those moments where I think this is because I’m autistic or this is because I have ADHD. I have my children in mind when I talk to myself like that.

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