How to Ask About a Disability — Without Making It Weird

A parent of children with different abilities on navigating curiosity, intrusion, and how to ask questions in ways that are respectful and kind.

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTION

If you've watched any superhero movie or political drama, you've heard that "knowledge is power." And with that power comes great responsibility.

As the parent of two children with different abilities, I get asked a lot of questions — and I hear from just as many people who hold back, worried about being invasive or nosy. Both responses come from a good place. Neither quite knows what to do with the other.

There is no etiquette book called When Is It OK to Ask About Someone’s Disability? (and if there is, I haven’t found it). Even if there were, no one seems to agree on what it should say. One of my children can’t really speak for themselves. The other can, and has told me how exhausting it gets to explain, over and over, to every new person.

So here’s what I keep coming back to: if knowledge is power, how do we ask for it without taking too much from the person we’re asking?

When we ask, people get tired. When we don’t, we can come across as cold or avoidant. Sometimes we’re called out for getting it wrong in either direction. Why is something so ordinary — a question — so hard to get right?

Part of the answer is that the information being asked for is personal, often medical, and most of the time, the person asking doesn’t actually need to know. Humans are curious, sometimes morbidly so. There’s no shortage of writing on why we’re drawn to what we perceive as different from “the norm.”

But curiosity, on its own, isn’t a claim on someone else’s story.

People who get asked a lot work hard to come up with quick, witty responses just to avoid becoming the unpaid biology teacher of every new room they enter. A video I found helpful came from the creator @ani_logs, who appeared in a clip by magician Carisa Hendrix. His point, roughly: imagine a stranger walking up to ask why your eyes are brown. For people with visible disabilities, this is just how they are.

They don’t always want to talk about it, and they certainly didn’t sign up to explain it on demand.

There's a counterweight here worth naming. Knowledge can also keep people safe. The War Amps' long-running PlaySafe campaign — fronted for years by Astar, a robot mascot built from spare parts who taught a generation of kids to stay clear of dangerous machinery — exists because real information about real injuries prevents more of them.

That kind of public education is different, though, from walking up to a stranger in a grocery store. One is information offered. The other is information taken.

So what do we do, when asking can be intrusive and not asking can leave us in the dark?

Start here: the issue isn’t the question.

It’s the implication that you deserve an answer.

Before you ask the question, ask yourself why. Are you offering help? Trying to understand someone you care about?

Or are you, perhaps even without meaning to, assessing whether the person in front of you has earned the accessible seat they’re sitting in, or the parking spot they pulled into?

It is not the job of strangers to police whether someone is “disabled enough” to use the supports they need. Many disabilities are invisible. The young person in the priority seat, the adult walking from an accessible parking space, the kid who looks fine in line at the pharmacy — they don’t owe anyone proof.

Some of the hesitation you may sense when you ask a question comes from exactly this: a lifetime of being challenged by people who assumed they were entitled to an explanation.

So begin every conversation assuming you might not get an answer, and be willing to be turned down. A simple “Do you mind if I ask about…?” does a lot of work. It hands control back to the person you’re asking. Would you hand your personal medical history to a stranger in line at the checkout? Probably not — and neither would they.

If they say yes, listen well. If they say no, thank them and move on. Don’t make them manage your disappointment.

And when the conversation is over, remember: it isn’t your story to tell. Ask before passing what you learned along to anyone else. What seems minor to you is someone else’s lived experience, and that is a big deal to them.

With great power comes great responsibility — and most of us have no idea how much power we actually hold in an ordinary conversation.

---

Thank you to sponsors of The Owen Sound Current Writers’ Fund, who make these community contributions possible. Contributions from the community do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of The Owen Sound Current and its editor or publisher.