What Father's Day is really like as a disabled dad
And that was me. I embraced the role, even though all that activity didn't prevent the development of, ahem, a bona fide dad bod. Until that is, l I had an uncomfortably close encounter with a cement truck. Fun fact: the padding offered no protection.
My first thought when it hit was that my children (one born, one on the way) would be left without a father. I had almost no contact with mine growing up. I had no relationship with him. I didn't want to leave my children in the same place. It was a horrifying thought, on top of the physical agony and the fear of death.
Nightmare number two was this: Am I wearing the loud and obnoxious purple boxers that came as part a three pack? It is a universal truth that if you buy three packs of boxers, one will be horrible. Would the ghouls hanging around to watch the show see them when they pulled me out, put me on a stretcher and started the first aid? Fortunately, no. Turns out mine were a utilitarian black. The icky purple ones have since been binned.
Coming out the other side and learning to live with disability inevitably changed my most important job, and thus the day celebrating it. Kicking a ball about? Not going to happen with a paralysed right leg. Pushing a swing? Same thing.
Another painful truth is that I not only missed my daughter's birth, I missed out on a lot the other stuff in the early days while I was busy trying to coax my body into doing things it didn't want to do – like walking. I can manage a little. But I'm bad at it, I need a pair of sticks and I still manage to fall over and break bones a lot. So, I use a wheelchair most of the time.
The new, disabled dad bod inevitably complicated things. I never used to mind my kids jumping on me before. But dad 2.0 was apt to scream loudly when this happened. That's before we get onto the subject of PTSD, panic attacks out in public and the like. One of the women who witnessed the infamous Orkney Island shooting, of a waiter in an Indian restaurant, described it like this in Amazon's documentary: 'You don't move on from trauma. You just live around it.'
Very true.
Even when mine had been addressed (well mostly, I still periodically see a therapist), trips out – one of the joys of parenting – became massively more complicated because of the extra level of planning required. No longer could we just jump on the tube and go somewhere on a sunny day, or indeed on any day. First we had to check that our destination was accessible. Then we had to assess the route to see if it was even possible to get there. Then we had to work timings out and what medication we would need to take with us.
Londoners often like to grouse about the capital's public transport system, but they are spoiled compared to much of the rest of the country. Unless you're disabled, of course. Transport for London – TFL – has become an expletive in our house, believe me.
My wife actually got very good at the planning part. So when I took my daughter to see Taylor Swift, she handled the logistics. If there was a degree in disability science, she'd get a double first without having to extend herself.
But I still find the lack of spontaneity frustrating.
There were a few compensations. Using the disabled queue at theme parks is kind of handy. But even that's a mixed blessing, as I realised when I heard a mother's venomous hiss about me being one of 'those special people' at Peppa Pig World.
I wanted to wheel up to her and tell her I'd happily trade my position in the queue for a properly working body that didn't torture me. But we made do with one my wife's patented 'teacher glares'. You don't want to be on the receiving end, believe me.
My wife often gets more angry about the crap I have to deal with than I do. Disabled dad survival tip: having a tiger partner makes life, and parenting, a lot easier. Oh, and try Legoland. It's another favourite family venue, but the people there seem a lot nicer.
The wheelchair did sometimes come in handy on trips when our children were younger, because you can sling a rucksack over the back and you can also put a tired and grouchy child on the operator. A 'daddy ride' used to cheer my daughter up. It cheered me up. It helped get me fit, too.
'Active dad' – just on wheels. And that's what I became. I even ended up taking the sports wheelchair I used for playing basketball into school to give a talk about keeping fit while disabled. I seemed to get cool points for doing that, partly because I let my children's friends have a spin. Sports wheelchairs are fast – and a lot of fun.
Plus, all that activity means that today's 'dad bod' is less dad bod than it was.
Working from home – for I joined the revolution long before the pandemic hit – also meant I saw a lot more of my kids when they were young than most fathers get too. A rare an unequivocal plus. And it has given them a perspective that others don't have. My daughter, in particular, doesn't like it when she sees me getting grief. She has a keen sense of justice. What's fair, and what's not.
So Father's Day? It is still a bit different. It always will be. But we've learned to work with it. You adapt, because you have to – but also because it's worth it.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
7 minutes ago
- The Independent
AMA and other medical associations are kicked out of CDC vaccine workgroups
U.S. health officials have told more than a half-dozen of the nation's top medical organizations that they will no longer help establish vaccination recommendations. The government told the organizations on Thursday via email that their experts are being disinvited from the workgroups that have been the backbone of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The organizations include the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 'I'm concerned and distressed,' said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert who for decades has been involved with ACIP and its workgroups. He said the move will likely propel a confusing fragmentation of vaccine guidance, as patients may hear the government say one thing and hear their doctors say another. One email said the organizations are 'special interest groups and therefore are expected to have a 'bias' based on their constituency and/or population that they represent.' A federal health official on Friday confirmed the action, which was first reported by Bloomberg. The decision was the latest development in what has become a saga involving the ACIP. The committee, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. CDC directors have traditionally almost always approved those recommendations, which are widely heeded by doctors and greenlight insurance coverage for shots. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before becoming the U.S. government's top health official, and in June abruptly fired the entire ACIP after accusing them of being too closely aligned with manufacturers. He handpicked replacements that include several vaccine skeptics. The workgroups typically include committee members and experts from medical and scientific organizations. At workgroup meetings, members evaluate data from vaccine manufacturers and the CDC, and formulate vaccination recommendation proposals to be presented to the full committee. The structure was created for several reasons, Schaffner said. The professional groups provide input about what might and might not be possible for doctors to implement. And it helped build respect and trust in ACIP recommendations, having the buy-in of respected medical organizations, he said. Workgroup members are vetted for conflicts of interest, to make sure than no one who had, say, made money from working on a hepatitis vaccine was placed on the hepatitis committee, Schaffner noted. Also disinvited from the groups were the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, the American Geriatrics Society, the American Osteopathic Association, the National Medical Association and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. In a joint statement Friday, the AMA and several of the other organizations said: 'To remove our deep medical expertise from this vital and once transparent process is irresponsible, dangerous to our nation's health, and will further undermine public and clinician trust in vaccines.' They urged the administration to reconsider the move "so we can continue to feel confident in its vaccine recommendations for our patients.' Some of the professional organizations have criticized Kennedy's changes to the ACIP, and three of the disinvited groups last month joined a lawsuit against the government over Kennedy's decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccines for most children and pregnant women. In a social media post Friday, one of the Kennedy-appointed ACIP members — Retsef Levi — wrote that the working groups 'will engage experts from even broader set of disciplines!' Levi, a business management professor, also wrote that working group membership 'will be based on merit & expertise — not membership in organizations proven to have (conflicts of interest) and radical & narrow view of public health!' HHS officials have not said which people are going to be added to the ACIP workgroups. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The Guardian
9 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Why the US is burning $10m worth of birth control
There are few better metaphors for the receding status of American women than one offered up by the Trump administration at a medical waste disposal facility outside Paris this week: rather than distribute nearly $10m worth of birth control, which had been purchased by USAID and was destined to be given to women in low-income countries, primarily in Africa, the Americans decided to burn it. The incinerated contraceptives included 900,000 birth control implants, 2m doses of injectable long-acting birth control, 2m packs of contraceptive pills and 50,000 IUDs. The medicine is just the latest in the far-reaching fallout from cuts made by the so-called 'department of government efficiency,' or Doge, a project in which Elon Musk and a group of his very young, overwhelmingly male acolytes unilaterally slashed congressionally appropriated funding to government programs they did not like. The cuts have been devastating for non-profits that work to improve women's health and safety worldwide. Sarah Shaw, an associate director at the global family planning group MSI Reproductive Choices, says that the cuts will put women at risk as they strain their health with unplanned pregnancies and seek out illegal abortions; other women who are denied access to birth control will lose out on the opportunities for education, professional development or remunerative work that can help them escape abuse, rise out of poverty, pursue their talents and ambitions and better provide for the children they already have. When MSI attempted to buy the contraceptives, the administration would only accept full price, which the organization couldn't afford, she said. Several non-profits, including MSI, had offered to pay to ship and repackage the supplies, according to another representative. But the Trump administration refused, partially due to federal rules the prohibit the US from providing such goods to groups that perform, provide referrals for or offer education about abortions. In addition to the cost of purchasing the contraceptives, American taxpayers will now be on the hook for about $167,000 for the cost of burning them. It's just the latest in a series of signs that the Trump administration is turning against the provision of birth control, particularly the safe, effective and woman-controlled hormonal methods that have been a cornerstone of healthcare policy for decades and which were a precondition of women's advancement in work and education over the past 60 years. In April, the Trump administration abruptly announced that it was suspending a large swath of the domestic service grants distributed under Title X, the program meant to help low-income Americans access birth control, STD treatment and other sexual and reproductive healthcare. Of the 86 Title X grants awarded for fiscal year 2024, nearly 25% were 'temporarily withheld', mostly based on highly suspect allegations that the grant-receiving institutions – including 13 Planned Parenthood affiliates – had failed to comply with Trump executive orders banning things like DEI programs. Eight states now receive zero Title X dollars: California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee and Utah. Alaska, Minnesota and Pennsylvania have also lost most of their contraception funding. The domestic cuts – along with the exclusion of Planned Parenthood clinics from Medicaid reimbursements – mean that American women, too, are now facing dramatically greater obstacles to accessing birth control. Clinics that relied on Title X funding are now set to close: 11 Planned Parenthood clinics already have, including in Democratically controlled states like California. Planned Parenthood says that cumulatively, the cuts could lead the organization to close about 200 of its 600 clinics nationwide – a devastating cut to abortion providers in particular that will make a wide range of reproductive services inaccessible to women regardless of where they live. But the Trump administration is not merely forcing these programs for women's health and dignity go up in flames. They are redirecting them to better suit their preferred cultural outcome: one in which women's lives, ambitions and talents are all subordinated to the task of childbearing. The New York Times reported last month that the White House is redirecting Title X funds that once went to birth control to instead fund an 'infertility training center' and programs in something called 'restorative reproductive medicine'. If Title X's original aim was to help American women control their fertility so as to build healthier families and to enable them to pursue other aims – like learning or work – in the new administration's version, the program exists mainly to encourage women to have more children. But the switch should not be seen as a genuine investment in infertility, an often devastating condition with which many Americans struggle. Because the new Title X priorities do not, by and large, direct more money to IVF. Trump promised, on the campaign trail, to make IVF free. But the procedure, which has opponents on the Christian right, is not included in the administration's new priority of 'restorative' reproductive medicine, a practice that avoids controversial fertility treatments; instead, doctors seek the 'root cause' of a woman's infertility, which may involve telling them they can conceive with proper diet and exercise. In government, money allocation is a statement of values. With its dramatic cuts to contraceptive funding at home and abroad, the Trump administration is making its values clear. It does not value women's health; it does not value their dignity, their control over their own lives, their aspirations, their earning potential, their desire to be freed from ignorance, or poverty, or the abuse they suffer under the hands of husbands and fathers. It does not value their ability to control their own bodies, and by extension, it does not value their ability to enter the public sphere. It does not value their dreams, their gifts, their hard work or invention or aspiration to anything other than making babies. American women, like women everywhere, depend on birth control to live lives of freedom and to pursue their dreams. But because of the Trump administration, those dreams are going up in smoke. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
The Guardian
44 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump officials plan coverage for weight loss drugs under Medicare and Medicaid
The Trump administration is planning a pilot program to cover 'miracle' weight loss drugs under the government health insurance systems for low-income people and retirees, Medicaid and Medicare, in a move aimed at tackling the US's chronic obesity problem. Such a plan was previously proposed by the Biden administration in its final months before Donald Trump re-entered the White House after winning a second term in office in the 2024 election. Now the Trump administration intends a five-year experiment in which the Medicaid program and Medicare drug coverage plans will have the option of covering the cost of drugs selling under the names Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound for 'weight management' purposes, the Washington Post reported on Friday morning, citing documents from the government's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This type of medication, known as GLP-1 drugs and originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, have gained popularity for their ability to reduce body weight by suppressing appetite and slowing digestion. But their high cost, typically between $5,000 and $7,000 a year, has raised concerns about long-term affordability and such a plan now under consideration by Donald Trump would come at a hefty cost to the public purse. Insurance coverage for such drugs is currently typically approved when patients have other conditions that are often tied to obesity, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The new proposed plan would permit state Medicaid programs and Medicare Part D insurance plans to voluntarily cover GLP-1 drugs, including those from the market leaders Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the report said. Lilly and Novo are leaders in the weight-loss drug market, which some analysts expect could bring in more than $150bn in revenue by the next decade. Lilly's shares were up nearly 2% in premarket trading on Friday. The initiative is slated to begin in April 2026 for Medicaid and January 2027 for Medicare. If it clears the way, it would mark a shift in federal policy after the administration said earlier this year that the programs would not cover weight loss drugs. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Lilly and Novo did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. The plan could expose division between CMS head Mehmet Oz, who has previously praised such drugs, and health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has criticized their high cost and how they are not a substitute for a healthy lifestyle.
