One in 9 children has a disability. Holy shit! That was the headline in yesterday’s Times. My heart broke as I was imagining schools overrun with wheelchairs, sports day mixing blade runners with the two-legged minority for the sake of inclusion. Poor little kids painting pretty pictures holding the pens with their toes. It was all very upsetting, in my knee-jerk mind.

Then I read on. These are not so much ‘disabilities’ as, more… ‘disabilities’.

You can’t spell the word ‘dog’? You’re fucking disabled. Get a certificate from the school nurse and take it to the Department of Social Security and start claiming your benefits. (The school takes a 10% introduction fee which is ongoing and contractually binding).

Why don’t you want to go to school, today, Billy (he, her, she, woof), are you feeling poorly? Oh, you’re feeling depressed! Well, let’s get some nice happy pills and the doctor will certify you and we can use the benefits to start saving for Barbados.

Can’t you sit still and just watch YouTube for an hour, eating chocolate biscuits? Why do you always want to run around kicking a football, riding your bike, or playing innovative and creative games with your pals? I think you must have PTSD!! Or is it ADHD? One or the other, I’ll get a referral.

It’s not that ‘disabilities’ have increased by about 80%, more that they’ve just included about 80% more ‘things’ into the general category of ‘disability’. Behavioural traits, mental attitudes, shit spelling, crap at sums, ginger hair, crooked teeth, everything now is ‘a disability’ whereas before kids were either normal or odd. Clever or stupid. Nice or extremely violent. Able or moronic. So now we have a thousand pigeon holes, all with wonderful, technical, psychobable names in which to place the most normal child into a ‘category’ which is not only labelling them with a disability but then allowing parents to claim certain benefits as a consequence. Cynics might say that certain types of parents would possibly exploit this system by making little Jimmy (she, theirs, baaaaah) claim unusual discomforts or anxiety, just to capitalise on the world’s most gullible benefit system driven by a society so forced into political correctness so that even the most innocuous and insignificant little moan must be labelled, categorised, pigeon-holed and worn as a badge for life. With pride. A ‘get me out of life’ card.

Ok. Enough considered and balanced debate.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxxx