Two at a time we’d race down the hallway, using our arms for locomotion, dragging our legs behind us. I never remember who won; I just remember the fun of the competition. Bobby, Jeannette, and me, Dana and David and Janine—just a little gang of neighborhood kids thinking up games for a rainy day.
Pretty clever to think of only using our arms, right?
Kind of. Actually, it was our way of including my little sister, Jeannette, who had been born with both her hips displaced and never had the strength to crawl on hands and knees like the rest of us. Did we think we were practicing “inclusion” back then?
Of course not. We wanted to race. And since we couldn’t all walk, we thought we’d crawl. And since we couldn’t all crawl, well, why not drag?
Besides, the point of the whole thing was to have fun, and I can still remember Jeannette collapsing in a fit of giggles back in the living room, and Bobby squealing with delight. Mom would serve up fresh-baked cookies and milk when we were done, and no one cared if Jeannette needed a bib and an extra washcloth to get through her snack.
It was natural to include Bobby and Jeannette in everything we did. Certainly the grown-ups expected that we’d play together—so why wouldn’t we? It wasn’t until I was in second grade that I realized there were other people who actually felt sorry for us.
Even as a seven-year-old, I didn’t want anyone’s pity.
My two best friends in the neighborhood didn’t pity us—they just took everything in stride and we adapted to Bobby and Jeannette’s needs. We didn’t do all our activities with Bobby and Jeannette—but we did most things with them. They were our friends, too.
And that, to me, illustrates the beauty of early inclusion programs for children with (and without!) special needs.
How natural, how normal, to take our peers’ differences in stride when we are young. You can’t talk to me? Let’s make silly faces. You can’t walk? Let’s play tickle games. You can’t crawl? Let’s have a drag race.
Kids are inventive. And if the grownups around them expect everyone to be included and treat every child with respect, then the kids around them will follow suit. And when they realize at a young age that everyone is different, but everyone is a person, then it’s not unnatural for them to find ways to relate to people who are differently-abled as they grow older. And isn’t that something we could all benefit from in the world today? A little tolerance. A little respect. And maybe a friendly drag-race or two.
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