Jennelle Schroder just wanted to be able to care for her baby as much as her partner, Sam.
But before she could do that, she had to hear something that still leaves her bewildered: a stranger told her she shouldn’t have children. Jennelle is blind and gets around with a cane, and the comment, made by someone who didn’t know her, offended her. Her response wasn’t to argue. It was to look for solutions. One of her biggest challenges was finding a stroller she could use while navigating with her cane. After searching for a long time, she reached out online to another blind woman, this time from the UK, who told her about one she could pull alongside her. Another helpful tip came from a support group for parents with vision impairment.
In Brisbane, Sarah Evans knows that journey well. She has macular degeneration, uses a cane and is the mother of two children, aged 11 and 13, both of whom are sighted. She started out as a participant in an eight-week course run by Vision Australia, and today she leads it: they teach parents how to safely trim a baby’s nails, administer medication, keep an eye on children at the park and talk to them about blindness. According to Sarah, the hardest part isn’t the tasks, but the attitudes of family members and strangers. Some parents hear “how brave of you to have children”; others, “how selfish”. She puts it this way: “My children enrich my life just by watching them grow and develop”.
