ID: The words New Blog Post in the upper right hand corner. The title Disability Stigma above the words mobility aids for any age. Beneath that is a box with the title Facts beside the words Diasbled ≠ Elderly and Elderly ≠ Disabled.
Disability can mean a lot of different things. There are disabilities that limit the ability to work and disabilities, like being blind or deaf, that may not affect your capacity to work. Some people are born with disabilities and others become disabled due to injury or illness. Disability can be permanent or passing. Disability isn’t reserved for the elderly. Many people age without becoming disabled. And many people are disabled long before they are elderly. I’m often surprised when people relate disability to age- “You’re too young to be disabled!” But even more frustrating is the way the disability community is erased, often using the elderly as a placeholder for people who are chronically ill and disabled.
Many kindergarten classes celebrate 100 days, marking a milestone of growth and achievement. Last year my nephew celebrated this milestone during remote schooling. I overheard his teacher asking all the students to dress up as if they were 100 years old. She recommended using baby powder in their hair, and looking around for a cane to use. I was surprised and mentioned it to my sister, his mom. When we talked to him, we explained that she had mixed up people who are 100 with people who use canes. While some 100 year olds do use mobility aids, some don’t. And not everyone who uses a cane is 100 years old. He ended up dressing as an astronaut, and proudly explained to his class that John Glenn would have been celebrating his 100th birthday that year. He also took the opportunity to explain that I use a crutch and was only 31, definitely not 100. I was proud of him for dispelling the myths about mobility aids to his kindergarten class.
People will often comment on my crutch. A man once said,”That doesn’t look so good,” while pointing at my crutch. My forearm crutch has a sweet ergonomic grip and a sheepskin cuff. It’s not only functional, it looks great. I remarked that I thought I made it look pretty good. He laughed but then asked, “So what happened to you?” When I explained that I’m disabled due to a genetic condition, he seemed unsure how to respond. Others will just point to my crutch and say, “Car accident?” It seems to be hard for people to imagine that I’m disabled at 32. Almost as if the lack of representation of young disabled people makes it hard for them to make that connection.
Recently I read a Fast Company article about a new “smart cane,” the Can Go. The article described how much the design was tailored to its audience, the eldery. At no point did this article even mention the disability community. The article went on to say “Over 10,000 people are turning 65 every day, and by 2060, about one in four Americans will be older than that.” This statistic is paricularly interesting given that research, as of 2018, showed 1 in 4 Americans had a disability that affected them daily, and specifically 1 in 7 adults are affected by mobility.
Why mention what the aging population will look like in 40 years when much more relevant, compelling data already exists? The article gets close to acknowledging the disability community by listing, “those with chronic problems related to mobility” as one group the Can Go was designed for. But it quickly circles back to research about seniors. Out of 13 paragraphs the words, older people, senior, and silver market make an appearance in 7 paragraphs, while the words disability and disabled are noticeably excluded. Erasing the disability community leads to the interactions I describe above that I face day to day. Reading that article, I would assume canes are only used by the aging community and that’s what makes me, a 32 year old cane user, seem like even more of an anomaly or outsider.
The headline claims, “Can Go is designed to strip away the stigma of mobility aids.” While the smart cane may be designed to strip away stigma through technological advancement, this article only adds to that very stigma by refusing to actively acknowledge the disability community.
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