Gender and disability

This article is on gender and disabilities. Happy and I have been protective to our child with disabilities especially that she is a girl. Our daughter will be twenty years old on 16th December, 2009. She has Cerebral Palsy due to severe jaundice at birth. Due to this condition, she has delayed milestones.

The most affected is her movements, she is now able to move using her knees, she also eats on her own and she is able to bathe and dress herself. To us, as parents, this is a miracle as these are developments which have taken so long to occur, but we praise God that she is able to at least take care of herself. Her speech has also improved a lot, as a family we communicate very well.

Her physical growth has been normal, she is now a young lady, expect that because she cannot use her legs, especially from the knees downwards, one of the limbs is slightly shorter than the other and the limbs are a bit tense.

My wife and I have tried our level best to treat her like any of our other child, but we always feel that she needs extra protection, we have ensured that she is surrounded by family members because we would not want any one of the opposite sex to take advantage of her gender and disability. Initially we thought she would not be interested in boys other than her brothers and male relatives.

She attained her menarch at the age of twelve. All was well, but about the age sixteen, she openly expressed her interest in one of the male local musicians. Each time his music played, she would be very excited and even say she would get married to him. We brushed it aside, but when this musician got married and it was announced in the media, she was really upset, that is when we realised that she was serious.

After this episode, she started falling for different boys, some would be friends to her brothers and others would be boys we pray with at our local church. It would be one boy at a time, we would discourage her and she will stop but she will fall for another one. Each time we discourage her she would really get upset and complain behind our backs, especially against her mummy. She would complain to an auntie that “does mummy think I will not get married?” She would even go into fantasy, that on her wedding day everyone will be happy.

The mother tried to use other methods to discourage her from fantasising. She told her that in our culture it is not normal for a girl to express interest in a boy, it is supposed to be the other way round. She appeared to understand, but behind the mother’s back, she bought some goodies (sweets and chocolate) for a boy and sent her younger sister to give him.

The mother got worried this time, so she consulted one of the workmate who is an expert in psychology and mental health. She was told that at her age, every girl wants to be admired so what she was going through is very normal, all we need to do is to give her parental guidance and even explain to her that her feelings were normal except there is time for everything. This was explained to her and we are relieved with her response.

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