Letter to Louis by Alison White , a mother of a child with cerebral palsy, is published by Faber today.
One of the things that we found most shocking about the book is the callousness or perhaps carelessness of people’s reactions to a mother with a disabled child:
- A fellow mum talking about how ‘perfect’ her own child is.
- The nurse who calls Alison ‘Ermintrude’ when she brings her expressed milk to the intensive care baby unit.
- “Look at him. That’s an apology, that is!” says another nurse.
- From Louis’s own grandmother: “There’s something not quite right about him. He’s not like any baby I’ve come across before.”
- The homeopath who attributes Louis’s cerebral palsy to his father not being present at the birth.
- The shoe shop worker who says that it is not her company’s policy to sell shoes to people who cannot walk in them!
We have 10 copies of the book to give away to online community members.
To be in the draw, post the things people say to parents of disabled children…
