For decades, parents of children with profound disabilities have faced monumental challenges—often with little to no support. Many have poured their time, energy, and personal finances into caregiving, sacrificing their own health and livelihoods in the process. But as policies begin to evolve, offering new options like paid parent caregiving for minors, a troubling dynamic is emerging: Legacy Resentment and Blood Blame are driving divisions within our community.
These forces are not just harmful; they threaten to derail progress for all of us. Let’s break this down, name the problem, and work together to overcome it.
What Is Legacy Resentment?
Legacy Resentment is the opposition to progress or benefits for others because those benefits weren’t available to you in the past. It’s a form of intergenerational gatekeeping, rooted in the belief that if one generation endured hardship, future generations should have to as well.
In the disability community, this often manifests as parents of adults with disabilities opposing policies that benefit parents of minor children with disabilities today—such as the right to be hired as direct care workers. Their rationale? “We didn’t have that option, so why should they?”
While Legacy Resentment is understandable—bitterness from enduring injustice is valid—it’s also inherently cruel. Instead of using past struggles as a platform for progress, it perpetuates suffering. It denies current and future families the opportunity to avoid unnecessary hardships and fails to address the real culprit: decades-long governmental neglect of disability families across all generations.
Blood Blame: The Weaponization of Stigma
Compounding the issue is Blood Blame—a long-standing, discriminatory belief that children’s disabilities are the result of parents’ moral failings. Historically, this stigma suggested that disability was a divine punishment for a parent’s sins or "bad blood." In modern times, it crops up in the debunked “Refrigerator Mother” explanation of autism. Most recently, Blood Blame had a starring role at the Ohio Association of County Boards May conference.
Today, anti-disability lobbyists are resurrecting these stereotypes to drive wedges between parents. They describe parent caregivers as “greedy,” “lazy,” and even “mental,” portraying us as unfit or undeserving. These harmful narratives dehumanize families and cleverly distract from the governmental failures that created these inequities in the first place.
The Harmful Consequences
When Legacy Resentment and Blood Blame take hold, everyone loses:
Families with children lose critical support. Parent caregivers of minors are forced to fight uphill battles for basic rights, while enduring stigma and vilification.
Families with adults miss out on progress. By opposing change, they inadvertently uphold the very systems that failed them, ensuring that future generations will face the same struggles.
The disability community remains divided. Instead of addressing systemic issues, we waste energy battling each other, leaving profiteers and lobbyists free to exploit the status quo.
A Call for Compassion and Unity
It’s time to break this cycle.
To the parents of adults with disabilities:Your pain and sacrifices are valid. The system utterly failed you, and it’s okay to feel anger about that. But that anger should be directed at the government agencies that harmed you—not at younger families trying to create a better path today. Your struggles have laid the foundation for progress. Let’s honor them by ensuring no one else has to endure what you did.
To the parents of children with disabilities:You are not “greedy” or “lazy” for wanting what’s best for your children. You have every right to advocate for policies that support your family. At the same time, recognize that opposition from older generations often stems from trauma and bitterness due to decades of injustice. Extend compassion while staying firm in your fight for equity.
Moving Forward Together
Progress doesn’t erase past pain; it honors it by creating a better future. We must reject Legacy Resentment and Blood Blame, focusing instead on the real enemy: bad policies that hurt people with disabilities and their families.
Imagine what we could achieve if we channeled all that energy into demanding better from policymakers and profiteers. Imagine a future where every family—regardless of when their journey began—has access to the support they need.
That future is possible, but only if we work together. Let’s turn pain into progress, resentment into resolve, and blame into bold advocacy for all.
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