In this second of three excerpts from "Disabling America," which is published by WND Books, Perry explains how his parents helped him succeed without the assistance of government money, regulations and accomodations. Get your copy of Perry's eye-opening book at ShopNetDaily.

She asked me, "Do you blame your mother?"

The woman had just sat down next to me. I looked at her for the first time in my life and queried, "Excuse me, what did you ask?"

I was attending a California wedding and knew nobody in this huge reception hall except for my wife, Jayne, and the bride.

She continued, "I asked if you blamed your mother ... for your disabilities?"

I said, "You must work either in the psychiatric or legal profession to ask a complete stranger such an insulting question."

She said that she was a psychologist. I quietly but promptly moved to a different table.

I often stop to remind myself how grateful I am. I was born, educated and entered adulthood in a pre-ADA world.

I can hardly imagine how different life would be if I had been born after 1990. That is, assuming I was born. I cannot take for granted that a doctor or some state-funded social caregiver assigned to my mother would not have tried to convince her that I could not fully enjoy my life with only one leg and a grand total of three stubby fingers.

I invite you into my own life for the next few pages. I ask that you let me describe being handicapped in America past and present. If I had been born without handicaps there is no way I could write this book for you. How else would someone be able to view the Americans with Disabilities Act honestly and with passion? I'm not saying that one must be handicapped to understand, approve or disapprove of the ADA. I'm not saying that one cannot understand if he or she hasn't walked the proverbial "mile" in my shoes. What I do hope to clarify is that the ADA always resounds loudly with me because of my handicaps, whereas it obviously does not fully impact many others who have no such problems.

Many handicapped people have been born since 1990, the ADA's genesis year. Some of them will thrive in life. Some of them will do OK. Some of them will not do well. In other words, their successes will mirror the lives of those without handicaps. Having said that, why does the American government work to hamstring these folks further with the ADA? I think my life would have been much worse, perhaps horrible, if they had passed the ADA before my birth.

Because of when I was born, I'll never know if I could have overcome my handicaps with all the added obstacles the ADA puts in front of people like me. Such factors would have impacted me negatively but to what extent I'll never know. Programs I could have been assigned to would attempt to teach me how to walk, how to write and when to take prescribed medicines and routine counseling – for only with their medications and counseling could I possibly cope with my disabilities. Such nonsense would have been detrimental to my future. I need no crystal ball to know that because I know myself well.

I do imagine a worst-case scenario. Chances are much more probable that I would have turned out somewhere between my current life and my imagined worst-case scenario, but I'll tell you that worst-case scenario in a few moments. It's startling.

This is the kind of book that becomes personal between readers and the writer. The book's opponents will take a different personal view from those who read it and grasp my contention that the Americans with Disabilities Act and regulations and laws related to it harm the very people it purports to help. Many people feel differently. But in these controversial pages, I'm opening my life to you and giving you an insider's look at how the handicapped face life. Fortunately, I can almost count the number of people on one hand who have been as rude to me as the woman described in this chapter's opening. And considering my hands, that number is very low.

Success is relative

In July of 1961, I was born the only child of Glen and Bettye Perry. They are still my happily married parents. By itself, that makes my life a success. I didn't cause their marriage success, but rather it was they who caused my success in life. And I'd do without any other success, whatever "success" happens to mean, as long as I still have them as parents.

I was born with a total of three fingers and one leg. My fingers are short, only one of which has a partially mobile joint. My right leg ends at my knee and cones down dramatically thereafter.

The origin of my problems is unknown. I was not a "thalidomide baby." Thalidomide was a drug that appeared in 1957 to help West German pregnant women overcome morning sickness. Its use spread for only a few years because a direct link was discovered between thalidomide and physical deformities. These days, it's only doctors who ask me if I was a thalidomide baby, perhaps because it's been so long out of the mainstream of consciousnesses. Good riddance.

There was no apparent outbreak of other handicapped infants around that time. Both my parents were healthy when I was born. Thanks to healthy parents, I was a healthy child. They say the nurses called me "fatty." I'm still working on that problem.

My infancy was normal. I crawled when ready to do so. I got my first artificial leg when it was time to walk. So I walked. It was time.

I began picking up writing instruments a few months later. I used both hands to hold crayons, pens, and pencils. A well-meaning orthopedic doctor told my parents that he could operate on my right hand so that the two fingers there would close to grasp a pencil. This would give me an opposing grasp in that one hand. He performed the operation. As soon as I recovered, I picked up my crayon with both hands and began drawing again. I still use both hands today to write. I simply cannot fathom what is wrong with the two-handed method I use to write. I obviously didn't see why I should change back when I was 2 years old either.

When I went to school, they graded elementary students in penmanship. I don't know if they still do today. (If not, they should.) I got As, Bs and Cs for penmanship throughout my schooling. I distinctly remember that if I wrote well, I'd get As, and if I got sloppy, I'd get Cs – just like all the other kids who found out their penmanship grade reflected how hard they'd tried to avoid sloppiness. I never considered that my hands' physical layout had anything to do with my penmanship because it didn't. When I try to do something well, I do it better than when I'm sloppy. Just like everybody else.

My mom's contribution

My mother was a teacher. So she did what teachers used to do, and that was teach me to read and write. When I got to kindergarten it was obvious to all that I was abnormal – I could read – so that year was often spent on my teacher's lap, in front of the class, reading books to my classmates during story time.

Mainstreaming was not an experiment that would hit the public schools for 25 or more years, so my reading skills were encouraged in school. When I entered the first grade, I would leave my regular class to attend an advanced three-student reading seminar for an hour or so daily. The reading was challenging, though I didn't like the fact that the other two students were girls.

I was promoted from the first grade to the third grade along with one of those other readers. One of the girls. My father kidded me that I skipped the second grade because the second-grade teachers didn't want me. He would be policed into counseling today for saying that. Back then, I thought it was as funny as he did, so I repeated the joke for years when someone asked why I skipped the second grade. From my experience, I can relate the only problem with skipping the second grade: You will be the only high-school freshman who cannot yet drive. That's a difficult one to hide.

My mother's contribution to my mental and emotional capabilities made everything else in life possible for me. Today, self-esteem is taught as a priority in schools and counseling sessions, but that seems so backwards to me. Being able to read, at 4 years old, the road signs your family drives by instill a lifetime of self-esteem.

My dad's contribution

When I was about 3 years old, my father brought home a baseball, a baseball glove, a bat and a football. That's what fathers do when their sons turn 3. Sons then pick up the baseball, glove, bat and football (not all at the same time) and begin playing. So that's what I did.

Dad took me to all the local minor-league baseball games. We went to college football games. We spent a lot of time together. Unfortunately for the both of us, my mother was hospitalized with tuberculosis for nine months when I was around 3. Every Sunday, his only full day off from selling tires so we could eat and pay the mortgage, Dad would drive me 100-plus miles so we could spend the day where my mother was hospitalized. It takes a real man to do that while raising his boy. It takes a real woman to hold up to the strain of being away from her husband and young son. Neither of my parents knows that, as an adult, I have several times come to tears thinking of what toll that must have taken on them.

The nights were for Dad and me. He took me to any and all games in town – baseball, football, hockey – we didn't care what it was; we loved it. I knew all the players on the Tulsa Oiler baseball team. They'd invite me into their dugouts and onto the field before each game. Naturally, Dad got me my own Tulsa Oiler baseball uniform to wear because no self-respecting 3-year old would have shown up to a game without one.

With all of this going on, I couldn't wait to play ball. One day Dad took me outside, gave me the bat and tossed a baseball to me. So I hit the ball. I recall running around imaginary bases sometimes after hitting the ball. I was always a fast runner. Dad then handed me the baseball glove and walked away – so I put it on. He tossed me the baseball. So, I caught it. Some time later, it was football season. Dad threw a football pass to me. So I caught it. Took me awhile to catch a pass while running because that takes some practiced coordination. I practiced, got some coordination, and then I could do it. My dad thought I'd be a good football kicker. He was wrong: I couldn't kick worth anything and still can't today, though I did become an incredible punter. What is vital for you to understand is that my father did not start out trying to figure a way for me to hold the bat. He just gave me the bat. If he had first attempted to rig some kind of strap to it, I doubt I could have ever used a bat. My father did not get a leather-smith to make me a special baseball glove. He just got a regular glove at the store, and I put it on and used it every time I played.

My father is smarter than everybody behind the ADA who assumes every handicapped child, adult and senior citizen need help. Those regulators force the world to adapt instead of waiting for the disabled to determine, and then seek, what they actually need.

If I had not been able to throw a baseball, catch a baseball, hit a baseball, catch a football or punt a football, then that would have been OK, too. Dad did not expect me to be able to do all those things because not every boy can do all those things. I just happened to be a boy who could. Had I required any kind of contraption to make one or more of those things work for me, Dad would have been the first to get it made for me.

I never threw a football when I was younger. I'm not sure why. Dad would toss it, I would catch it, then I'd punt it back to him. I plainly remember realizing one afternoon, years later, when I was 12 years old and still a football fanatic, that I'd never attempted to throw a football pass. Throwing a football requires much different work than throwing a baseball. You must grasp the larger-than-your-hand pigskin in such a way that, with the laces facing up, your wrist can snap the ball at the last second to spin the ball into a perfect spiral. Otherwise, the ball flies end-over-end and never hits its target. Could I throw that perfect spiral pass? If not, I had enough to keep me busy. It turned out that I could.

Both parents' contribution

As you can see, the primary contribution my parents made, the most important contribution to my life, was that they treated me like a son. They didn't treat me like a handicapped son. But I had handicaps. Both they and I had to deal with my hands and leg. I'd often come home from running or playing ball with skin blistering inside my artificial leg. That pain was horrible. I have a higher tolerance for pain as an adult because of all the pain I had with my leg as a child.

I happened to be able to do all the ball-related activities I wanted to do to keep myself happy. But I was not exceptional at any of these activities (though I was a better punter than anybody else my age for years). I was just average. But life brought many things that I could not do. Two weeks at a summer camp, for example, never entered our minds. I don't sleep with my artificial leg on and getting to the showers and bathrooms simply didn't make summer camp alluring to me.

Someone gave me a guitar when I was about 6. I couldn't play it! How could I manipulate chords with one finger while strumming with my other hand? I put the guitar aside after about eight minutes and went on to something else. I really wanted to be able to shoot a bow and arrow when I was a kid. It seemed everybody had one of those rubber-tipped arrow sets. I really never found a good way to do it. I couldn't because I had three fingers. Yes, my handicap kept me from being able to do these things I wanted to do. But the handicap didn't depress me and neither did finding things I couldn't do.

Fortunately, as an adult I no longer want to shoot bows and arrows. I'm a great marksman, and my pistol, semi-automatic handgun, rifle and shotguns fill that void when I participate in my now-favorite activities of target practice and skeet shooting.

I find things all the time I can and cannot do. That's life. My parents' attitude was: Here's a guitar, if you need help we'll get it, if not then have fun, and if you just can't do it, there are plenty of other things in life. I would guess that 19 out of 20 people I know with a full set of fingers cannot play the guitar. Yet in my nightmares, I can envision ADA officials trying to think of ways to eliminate guitar sales because of how they harm the self-esteem of those who haven't the finger set needed to play a B7 chord.

Formative years were dangerous

Then the whirlwind began. What transpired between my hitting that first baseball and today will give you my idea of how the Americans with Disabilities Act could have ruined everything for me. Only when you see what you have, do you begin to imagine how many things could be taken away by different circumstances and approaches to life.

Throughout grades three through 12, I was an average student. My academic excellence began and ended with the skipping of the second grade. Fortunately, I loved playing the trombone, and so my marching band, jazz band and orchestra grades helped offset some of my lower grades, and I ended up with average grades upon graduation.

My parents' struggle to save enough to buy me a Hammond organ that I wanted so very much when I was about 8 gave me the ability to appreciate musical instruments. I'd joke that because of my hands I had to play by ear. Playing the organ actually led to my trombone playing. About the time I started those organ lessons, kids stopped playing the organ in general. I would play my Hammond organ for Tulsa's largest bank, The First National Bank, each Christmas season in their lobby when I was in high school. All the newspapers, radio and TV newscasts thought that was a big deal for me to do, and it was fun, but around my peers I never stressed my keyboard ability too much. It just wasn't hip. So I played the trombone.

About those average grades: I maintained just enough of an average to get by, with lots of help from my band-related classes, because I was lazy! I am unsure what happened during those years other than the continued degradation in public education, but I did enough to get by and no more. Let me bring you back to the Americans with Disabilities Act here and tell you why I think my teen laziness is critical to this book's discussion: If absolutely anybody had offered me special courses, special assistance, special accommodations, any excuse whatsoever that might have taken away my own responsibility from having to study or do any mundane task related to learning, I would have jumped at the chance!

I do not imply that most handicapped people who utilize aspects of the ADA today are not self-reliant, and I want to stress that. But I experienced years, very formative years, where I would have been completely harmed by such offers. As it was, without that kind of "help," I was basically a teenager who got by. I was one of those "good kids" because I never really did anything really bad (too often), but I never did anything really good either. I could have gone either way, and just a nudge from the ADA counselors could easily have pushed me into an attitude of entitlement for the rest of my life in spite of the solid foundation my parents gave me.

Here's proof of this. When my tenth grade math class got to geometry and it was time for the test, my teacher took me aside and said that she knew I couldn't handle a compass, ruler, and protractor, so during the test I was to go to another teacher's planning period and she would take the test for me. I would tell her what to do, and she would draw the answers as I described, using the geometric tools that had been taught. My immediate thought was this: Wow, if I don't know an answer or if I show uncertainty on any part of this thing, she'll surely give me a hint. She did. I got a far better grade than if I had not had my helper.

What neither of those teachers knew was that I had been drawing my Marvel comic book heroes for years. To draw the background buildings and water tanks and cities, I had been using the compass, protractor, and rulers I had at home near my drawing tablets. I figured what they didn't know would only help me. But in reality it didn't help me at all. If they had first asked if I could handle the test on my own, I would have said yes. They assumed, however, that I couldn't. This was long before the school system began getting the real big bucks for labeling students "disabled," so such situations are far more numerous today.

Great expectations

I knew my parents wanted me to go to college, but that meant studying, and I didn't want to start that. Even so, I was a voracious reader. From an early age, I studied fields such as electronics, classic books, comic books, self-help (it was the 1970s), vitamins and natural health care (before it was cool), and many subjects nobody else my age knew or cared about. I read at least one book during each school day as long as it had nothing to do with the class subject. I finally resolved how to attend college, not have to study, fool my parents, have fun and still get a degree. I'd major in psychology!

I applied for college a hundred miles away because I wasn't too keen on my parents knowing how little I planned to work at school. The small, struggling university welcomed my mediocre high-school performance, and I enrolled as a first-year psych major. I knew I could ace any class in psychology without effort because during junior high and high school I'd read maybe a hundred psychology and counseling books, and I knew how simple that subject would be. My plan was in place. After four years, I could coast through life being a psychologist, which would give me plenty of time to read what I wanted, play the trombone and still get paid without having to maintain a real skill set.

A funny thing happened on the way to my freshman year.

The summer before I planned to train for my career in psychology (wink), a friend who managed a local Radio Shack asked if I wanted want to work as a stock clerk during the week and a sales clerk on weekends. I loved electronics, stereos, CB radios (my handle was Blue Jeans) and scanners. I devoured each new Radio Shack catalog that arrived and spent hours in Radio Shack when I went to the mall. I thought: Get paid for doing what I would have paid them for? Where do I sign? Take me now, God; my life is complete!

By the way, nowhere on my employment paperwork did a check box appear asking if I had a disability. Those were the good old days. Just last week, I filled out a doctor's office form. It had next to "Sex" three choices: Male, Female and Other. A classic joke has become a sad reality in my lifetime. It's like we're living in a "Seinfeld" episode, except this one isn't funny.

I loved that first week at Radio Shack stocking, putting those precious batteries and cables and eight-track players on the shelves. On my first Saturday, I was supposed to wear a tie because I would be handling the small spillover sales so the full-time sales staff could handle the larger merchandise. This was a very busy store on weekends. Ironically, it turned out that I knew far more about those products than the full-time sales staff. Customers asked me questions, and I knew the answers. Customers asked other salespersons questions, and I would have to answer those, too. At the end of the day, the sales were tallied. I was the top salesperson for the day. I would not turn 17 for a month, but I was a success at something, and the ADA had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Ken, my manager, immediately told me to show up for work in a tie every day that I wanted to work. The second month I worked, July, I had the highest sales in the Tulsa region, and that included about 25 stores. I may have accidentally grabbed that confidential sales report where I was listed as No. 1 the moment my manager filed it away because I still have it in my scrapbook. Ken, if you're reading this, I ask your forgiveness.

In August, Ken told me that nobody in Radio Shack knew anything about something called the company's first "microcomputer." He said that the headquarters simply had no training in place yet to teach the sales staff. Neither Ken nor anybody else in the store knew how to turn it on. He told me, "If you want to sell one of those things you should open the manual and learn what it says." I loved electronics, but I didn't have a desire to learn computers. I did enjoy my July commission check though, so I figured I could learn enough to be the first to sell a computer in the store.

I stayed late and opened the computer manual to page one. A new love entered my life. I sold three computers in August.

With my August Radio Shack commission check, I bought one of those microcomputers to take with me to college. As soon as I arrived, I scoured the technical libraries for any and all books about computers. They were advanced, difficult to understand and written by computer programmers who programmed well and wrote badly. I took every single computer course offered by that university (a grand total of four) my freshman year. I realized that I'd do better at computers if I knew something about math. (I had previously learned that you don't have to know math to pass the subject in high school.) I signed up for introductory math courses each of those two semesters and loved math for the first time in my life. I increased my self-instruction on the computer to cover areas the college simply was not advanced enough to teach. This was 1978. The odds are great that I was the first college freshman in the world who spent more time at his own computer than at college parties.

I earned straight As my second semester. My course load was heavy on the math and pre-user-friendly computer subjects, but for the first time in my life I had a passion that was consistent with a career path. I made plans to move home and attend the University of Tulsa the following year where they had a more advanced computer science curriculum. Because I didn't change my psych major my freshman year, I had to complete the courses I had enrolled in. But I didn't want to waste time, either. I made sure to attend psychology classes only on exam days. And, yes, I aced them.

My life flew when I began my real college courses in my real major of computer science, which they called "Information Systems." The first national magazine for the Radio Shack computer appeared on the stands. I never learned how to write well in school, but I knew that computer. I wrote an article and mailed it to the magazine. They sent me a check a week later and published my article in the next issue. I wrote another article, and they sent another check. I thought, "This is quite a racket!" I kept doing it. I liked the money, and I liked seeing my articles in the store magazine racks. I had no idea at the time where that would lead me.

Some have told me my adult life should be published as an autobiography. I disagree. It was my childhood journey that was important. My adult accomplishments just reflect what went before.

To see what a pre-ADA world enabled me to do, perhaps it's important to see my career path from college to the present. I hope parents of handicapped children who read this can take extra hope at this path of mine.

I graduated from the University of Tulsa with a 3.7 GPA and a computer science degree.

I was president of Kappa Sigma, a college fraternity. I was president of Omicron Delta Kappa Honor Society and treasurer of Mortar Board Honor Society. In my senior year, the college alumni voted me one of the college's "Ten Outstanding Seniors." I then received the highest award possible, the University of Tulsa's "Man of the Year."

I went straight into the college's MBA program and received my master's degree with an emphasis in corporate finance.

In 1986, I went to work for a Fortune 500 company, and in three years I was the youngest supervisor in the company's huge headquarters. A new world was dawning because the hiring clerk asked me why I didn't mark that I was disabled on my employment papers. I had seen that box, but it never entered my mind to check it. At first I thought she was confused, and then I realized what she was talking about. I told her that I didn't consider myself disabled. I then asked her if the company got special tax benefits if they had more workers who were disabled. She said yes. I let her mark it. I would never in my life allow that today. I would gladly lose the job than take that mark. ADA proponents will say I'm in denial. I'll say I'm not disabled. I'll then challenge them to a rollerblade race, and we'll see who's in denial.

Computers were growing in popularity, and books on computers began appearing in bookstores. But they were still badly written. I sent a letter to a publisher of these books. I was unsure of the protocol, so I just told them in a three-sentence letter that I liked computers, I had written many articles about computers, and that I'd be an excellent author for one of their books. Within two days, an Osborne/McGraw- Hill acquisitions editor called me. One week later, I signed a contract for my first book. I was 25.

After five years, the corporate life was getting in the way of my writing, so I began teaching computers full time at a local college while still writing books about computers.

But by 1994, the teaching life was getting in the way of my writing, so I officially declared myself a full-time author and left the college arena.

In 1997, I was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Tulsans by the Council Oak Junior Chamber of Commerce (the Tulsa Jaycees organization).

Growing up, I was churched but never saved, which is somewhat like going to public school but never getting an education. One night I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. What a waste my life would have been without Him: full success on earth, overcoming perceived odds, all to disappear and be counted as loss in the end. (When the children of fellow Christians ask me why my hands are the way they are, their parents tell them "That's the way God made him." I gently correct those adults and say, "Actually, it's due to man's sin that these kinds of problems exist, but someday I'll have a new body." (That's a promise that no governmental regulation can provide, especially those that offer people false salvation like the ADA.)

I helped produce and guest host a nationally-syndicated television talk show for a few years. I didn't accept payment because it was fun. I always tried to bring up the ADA on every show. I figured that a national broadcast platform was a good place to start talking about this important issue.

My father enjoys being a landlord with several rental properties, so I decided to acquire and fix up several myself. I had a tremendous amount of help from him, but even with that help I couldn't see why people hated being landlords. I made a living helping people who hate computers like them, so I decided to write a book that showed reluctant landlords how to enjoy their job. That book has seen three editions and has been continually in print for a decade.

I was the first author to reach the 2-million-books-sold mark at one of my publishers, the largest computer-book publisher in the world, Pearson Education. They publish my books under the publishing imprints of Sams Publishing and Que Publishing.

Along the way I met and married Jayne. Very special Jayne. The ultimate wife and still my bride. Knowing and loving her has made me a better man. She also helped to solidify my understanding of this book's issues. Jayne has traveled the world with me. For each of ten years, we spent approximately two months out of the country somewhere north, south, east or west, looking at places we'd only dreamed of. From the icy waters surrounding Tierra Del Fuego, to hiking atop New Zealand's ice glaciers, to exploring the hot sands around Egypt's pyramids, we've enjoyed and learned about God's creation. Being an author has its advantages for me and for you. The advantage for you will be seen when you read a later chapter entitled "The ADA around the World." We always find our way back to Italy, which is our first love as travelers. A new home has kept us busy for the past three or four years, but we can't wait to return to bell' Italia where we've mastered the language fundamentals and now stay with our dear, across-ocean friends from Venice to Rome to Sicily who know no English. The saddest part of traveling has to be the scores of new international disabled signs that we see popping up via new government regulations in every country.

With more than 75 books under my belt and more on the way, each published internationally and translated into every major language, I've been told that I have written more computer books than anybody on earth.

And it was all because Mom taught me to read and Dad handed me a baseball bat when I was 3 years old.

How it could have been

What could be different with the ADA in my life? Thinking about the detrimental effects of growing up and being schooled in an ADA world depresses me. Therefore, I'll keep it short, because what little I say will ruffle enough feathers in the ADA camp.

I think I would have been a loser. I wouldn't be married. I'd be taking all the disability payments they'd dole out to me. How can I say this while at the same time crediting my parents previously with creating such a foundation? It's because I know myself. During my formative years throughout school, I would have happily taken any and every excuse to ditch all responsibility in my life – and I didn't have many responsibilities to ditch. If someone had told me that I could, because I am disabled, get paid just for being disabled, I assure you that I would have stopped being able to do all sorts of things.

I am not implying that everyone who accepts disability-related services and payments is shirking responsibilities. I am speaking for myself. I know myself. But I also know human nature, and if you think other handicapped individuals are not similarly inclined, you're missing something.

People tell me that it's remarkable what I've done in my life. They mean well, but they give me far too much credit. I simply see success as easier than failure – it's easier to sleep at night as a productive citizen with the bills paid. Even easier though would be to be handed everything. Being a victim requires doing absolutely nothing.

Government-legislated wheelchair ramps, wide doors and bathroom grab bars mean that many handicapped people get along better due to changes imposed by the ADA. But it is the cost everyone pays that makes this deal a lemon. ADA-generated discrimination of the handicapped harms them in ways they may never see. Arguing that the ADA benefits many is not just insipid, it is specious.

I do not blame those who milk the Americans with Disabilities Act and all its related perks, lawsuit wins, out-of-court settlements and the lower societal expectations that come with being an ADA victim. I blame the people who created the ADA and who administer it today.

The real ADA victims are the truly handicapped and the general public who pay the bill.

A note to new parents of a handicapped child

I did not know that I was handicapped for many years. I recall someone first telling me that I was handicapped when I was 6 or 7. By then I was past any tendency to worry about it. Then, the world was not set up to remind me of it every time I passed 200 or more handicapped signs as I went down most any street. Life moved forward for me.

Parents of other handicapped children write to me. They ask what I did to succeed. I tell them what I've told you in this chapter. I give them this prescription for the highest chance of their children's success: Raise them as loved children instead of raising them as if they were their loved but disabled children. I tell the fathers to buy baseballs and bicycles for their sons and daughters. I tell the mothers to teach their children how to read and write. Maybe your child won't learn to read.

Maybe your child won't play soccer. Stephen Hawking describes how he was never good at sports and his motor neurone disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis progressed until he was left confined to a wheelchair, a paraplegic, unable to speak. He went on to become the best-known (in some circles, the only known) and most brilliant theoretical physicist in history.

Teach them at home if you want to magnify their capabilities. Homeschooling parents find out quickly that it's even easier to teach some children how to read than it was to teach them toilet training. You will multiply the chance for your children's success a hundred times over if you keep them away from the ADA-approved special service workers that hide in the dark corners of public school yards and lurk behind closed classroom doors.

A handicapped child growing up with schools and leaders telling her she cannot make it without their special treatment will have lower self-respect. The handicapped community has a difficult time building up its self-respect because it's told from its first days in school and even earlier sometimes by psychologists and social workers that it cannot succeed without government services and financial handouts. Thus the handicapped community in general struggles today with self-respect as it is told that it is incapable and incompetent and can only succeed in an accommodated world. Without the ADA, the handicapped would be better off financially and morally than they are today.

Every disabled child in school means big bucks. The more services that child gets, the more the bucks flow. Don't let government strangers use your child as their 5-year-old little profit generator. That is perhaps my strongest advice to you.

The most important developmental input you can give your child is to make all kinds of activities available to him or her. Do this for those normal and not-so-normal children. Instill self-esteem by teaching them how to read, write, play ball, play the piano or whatever they show interest in. If you assume they are different, though, they will be. My parents enrolled me in the local Art Linkletter Tap Dancing School when I was 5. They got me the shoes and I went. I did fine, but if I had not, they wouldn't have forced me.

Do not first assume abilities or disabilities for your child – and I don't care how severe the handicap may seem to outsiders. Everybody is disabled in something. Just don't expect your children to keep tap dancing when they turn 6; if they are boys and have lots of friends, I can attest, they will demand to quit. This chapter's opening account of the psychologist who rudely confronted me about my hands reveals this. Most 4-year-olds are taught to be more polite to strangers than she was to me. Her disability was the shameless assumption that anyone handicapped is a victim looking for someone to blame. I am thankful that my mother was not sitting at the table.

Read previous excerpt: "ADA: 'Abuses Do Abound'"

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