Emma Bennison has been completely blind since birth. She has a Bachelor Degree in music where she became a classically trained singer, and is now Acting Director of Access Arts Inc. Emma and her blind husband have two children, their own band, one seeing-eye dog (retired since this interview was conducted), and their own house in Brisbane’s Northern suburbs.

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Emma:            I’m pretty paradoxical, I suppose. I always do think it would be great to have an exciting job and I always felt that it was very important that I did have a decent job, earning reasonably well. I wasn’t what I would call ambitious, but I just knew that I wanted to do reasonably well. Not end up sitting around on the couch, watching Days of our Lives, you know. I also thought, as a teenager, I kind of had it drummed into me that I would never be able to have children, that being a mother would be far too difficult and that I should just not worry about it too much. That probably came from my parents. So I hadn’t really thought about the whole work and family balance thing, although I always knew that, if I did have a child, that I wanted to be able to stay at home with that child. That was something that I really aspired to and something that I still struggle with, the fact that I can’t and I don’t. So but yeah, but then, as I got older and I got married, I guess I started to think about children and I thought, you know – I guess because I’m very much obviously in love with my husband, would be nice for us to have a child together.  I kind of thought, well, yeah, but you know, it’s going to be really hard, because both of us are blind.

Facilitator:       Do either of you have any sight at all?

Emma:            Vaughan, my husband, has a little bit of light perception, but nothing to really write home about. He can sort of see very vague outlines sometimes, but not – nothing that really helps him that much.

Facilitator:       But you’re completely unaware of the light.

Emma:            Yes. I remember even, when I first got married – I was unemployed at the time – so I did a lot of research around parenting as a blind person and finding that there was just hardly any information out there. Things have gotten a bit better.  But eventually I found an email list for parents with disabilities and started asking some questions. Suddenly the light bulb sort of clicked on that actually, yes, people do it. It’s not impossible. In fact, you know, not even that difficult for people. So that was sort of – once I realised that and then Vaughan and I started having some very robust discussions about it, about the fact – you know – that it could be done. I was sort of saying but how are we going to do this? How are we going to do that? I was very much into the detail. He was saying don’t worry about it. We’ll be right.

Facilitator:       The detail of it.

Emma:            Yeah. How are we going to keep a child and how are we going teach appropriate table manners and the everyday things.

Emma:            Yeah. So – but I suppose that the advantage to all of that was that Vaughan won the battle. Once I decided that we were going to do that I was probably a bit obsessive. I am quite obsessive. If I decide that I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it and that’s the end of it. So then I sort of went on a big mission. It took us quite a while to get pregnant. But in the meantime, I had a huge mission of trying to find all this information and trying to figure out how we were going to get every single little thing. I just, you know, had these little impressions in my head. It did – but probably, as a consequence of that – and I also had a couple of miscarriages before falling pregnant with our son. So as a consequence of that, I suppose, by the time it actually happened, everything just seemed far easier, I think, from what it otherwise would have. I’d covered all the bases. I was so well read, you know. Vaughan was as well by osmosis I guess. But it seemed a lot easier in reality than what we thought it would be.

Facilitator:       So when you say well read, using a text to Braille converter?

Emma:            Oh, internet. I did a lot of internet research.

Facilitator:       How do you read the internet if you can’t see?

Emma:            Well I’ve got a computer that has a voice synthesiser on it. So everything that comes up on the screen, it reads it through a screen reading software package.  You can also get a Braille display. I’ve had a Braille display that plugs into the computer. You can get a Braille output. It refreshes. It has pins that move up and down. So it refreshes the dot.

Facilitator:       Your dog. What’s his name?

Emma:            That’s Oscar. He’s Vaughan’s. I have had two in the past. I had one when I went to uni, had him since he was about two and a half years old. He was great but he was epileptic. So I ended up having to retire him. Then the second one, I was breastfeeding my son at the time and it just didn’t work. He needed a lot of attention and I just couldn’t give it to him.

Facilitator:       One thing I’d never thought of was that the dog, of course, has needs. They have their job to do for you but you have to meet the needs of the dog too.

Emma:            Yeah. Really that’s a big factor in the decision making processes that people go through. Have I got time to meet the needs of the dog? Yeah. I mean, dogs take a lot of energy. Particularly in the first 12 months. Once you get to know the dog and the dog gets to know you and everything sort of settles down, it gets easier. But in the first instance  it does take time. While I had a small baby, I haven’t got time. He was acting out, you know, having some unfortunate behaviours like weeing on the floor and things.  Which kind of says to me this isn’t working. At the moment, I literally wouldn’t even have time to think about a dog. Much as I wouldn’t mind having one at times, but it can be just as good in many ways. Because you can still get around.

Facilitator:       Are dogs part of your story?

Emma:            Well part of my historical story. I mean, certainly, when I was at uni, I moved out. That was probably one of the hugest kind of transitions of my life was moving from home, where I was basically – I had three older brothers and sisters and there was quite a big age gap. So I was basically an only child. Then moved into a college on campus, and had, in my second year, got the dog. I found, at that age and that stage of my life, that the dog was a huge saving grace, because not only was it about a companion and a great mobility tool, although not always a great mobility tool.

Facilitator:       Why…?

Emma:            It did tend to get me lost on occasions. But – well it’s always possible that I got myself lost and he helped. I just remembering the answering phone message that said sorry I can’t take your call. I’m probably out getting lost. So if I’m not back within 24 hours, please send out a search party. That was how bad it got, at one point. But the other really interesting thing about having the dog was that it enabled people to talk to me. It gave people a talking point. It meant that, when I was at uni, people would come up and talk to me. It was the way I got to know people. I had spent much of my first year sort of not knowing really many people at all on campus, like in my course.  At the college, I knew people because I knew – oh you cannot live with people for a whole year and not get to know people. I was part of the college choir and I was doing a few extra curricula things, where the groups were smaller and people got to know people. But you know, uni’s such a big place and people don’t talk in lectures often and tutorials can sometimes be a bit stilted. So it was hard. But having the dog made a huge difference. But what also happened then was that, when I retired him, I’d go into a shop and kind of think oh my god – you know, I just remember thinking what do I do? It was like a whole aspect of my identity, very, very tenuous as it was, at 18 years old or 19 years old, had been lost. It took me ages to get over that. It really took me a long time.  It took me a very long time to decide that, yes, I was going to try for another dog. Because I just thought no way, because I had invested a huge amount of emotional energy in that dog. Because I was so young, it was a lot of investing in. I didn’t have a boyfriend. I didn’t have any children. At this stage it was studying, my dog and my immediate family. When I look back on it now think that dog probably saved me in a way. He gave me an identity that I wouldn’t have had, at that age, and gave me confidence that I wouldn’t have because I wasn’t particularly confident, especially having come out of an all girls kind of school environment and feeling very unsure of whether people would accept me in the college and uni environment.

Facilitator:       Did you go to a school for people who are blind?

Emma:            No.

Facilitator:       So it wasn’t your first experience of mainstream.

Emma:            No, it wasn’t.  I won’t say it was always easy. But I was integrated when I was in grade four.

Facilitator:       When you say that, “I was integrated”, what does that mean to you?

Emma:            That’s the word I’ve been brought up on. It’s not really my chosen language.

Facilitator:       Okay. So how would you describe it?

Emma:            I just say it’s shorthand for saying, I started attending a mainstream school. It’s very longwinded. Because I suppose, you I went from attending a special school, where there were maybe five or six people in my class, to attending a mainstream school were there were 23 kids in the class and a lot of novelty value there. It was very novel, having a blind child in the class. People wanted to play with the Braille machine and do all that kind of stuff. Then it moved into the teasing of, well, you know, I’m going to take your hat and run away with it. I’m laughing at it now. I wasn’t laughing at it at the time.

Facilitator:       No, I bet you weren’t. So they did this sort of thing. They take your hat and run away because you can’t see.

Emma:            Yep.

Facilitator:       Is there an adult equivalent of that kind of behaviour?

Emma:            Yeah. Well I think there’s discrimination generally. There’s a bit of an adult equivalent of that kind of behaviour, people saying –whether intentionally or not-  we haven’t considered a person with a disability as possibly needing access to that restaurant or that service and so on. But I think, as adults, people are more willing to take you on your merits.

Facilitator:       So you think children are crueller?

Emma:            I think children are extremely cruel. But I also think that, as an adult – I mean I’m far more able to say hey that’s not okay. I’m not going to sit back and let you do that. I’m not going to sit back and let you overlook me, just because I happen to be blind. I suppose I’m very lucky in the area that I work in, that there is an inherent understanding of disability issues. Maybe subconsciously that’s one of the reasons why I’m working in this area. But I’ve never explored that.

Facilitator:       Professionally, what are you?

Emma:            I’m as assistant director at Access Arts. Basically that means that I’m the second in charge and that I have management responsibility for some of the programs and the organisation. 

Facilitator:       What was your uni degree?

Emma:            Bachelor of Music. That’s not my initial thought, when I think about what I do, because it’s become so secondary. But having said that, if I didn’t have my degree, I probably wouldn’t be where I am. I certainly appreciate the fact that I’ve got it. I still utilise my musical skills to some extent. I mean, I’ve worked with some staff, some Access staff, and we have an acapella singing group that we call Inclusion Fusion. It’s the special one. I direct that and do some of the arrangements throughout. So I do get to utilise those skills, but it’s certainly not what I think of when I think about my work. For a long time, after I got my degree, I didn’t actually use it at all. I went and did a whole lot of admin work and worked for the government and a lot of other stuff, because I felt that I didn’t have – you know, I didn’t have enough admin skills. I knew I needed to get those. I felt that was important. I was also quite sick of music to be honest. I actually almost went and did a contemporary music degree, because I just wanted to do something different. I was so kind of over the competitive nature of classical music training.

Facilitator:       Right. So you’re a classical singer?

Emma:            In a past life.

Facilitator:       Did you used to sing opera?

Emma:            Yeah.

Facilitator:       Did you have to learn those languages?

Emma:            I didn’t have to learn all the languages. But I certainly had to learn the songs in those languages and I had to know the translations and things like that.

Facilitator:       For me, I would read to learn. How do you do it?

Emma:            Well, it was all in Braille. So the words are on one line and the music is on the next line. It’s not a system of staff notations, it’s a horizontal system, rather than a vertical system. So it’s like reading a book, like reading a line of text. The notes are just written on the page and then they use octave signs to denote what pitch that it will be. But what I had to do at uni was to get a person who would read the music out for me. If we had something that we had to learn, like a song or something, he read music out to me and the words and I would Braille it, because that was the quickest way, at that time, to get it done. Because if you sent it away, it could take – you know, six to eight weeks. By that time, the term was over. But then it’s become much easier to go to uni now than it was 10 years ago. People who are there now would probably shoot me for saying that. But I think it is. It’s got to be. Because most of the lecture materials are emailed through to people. So it’s just got to be easier.

Facilitator:       How was it for you in primary school?

Emma:            They used to have what they call a Braille to print converter. I’m showing my age now. It was like a box. On top of the box would sit the Braille machine. As you type, it would depress these little strings that were on top of this box. That would then send the code to the printer, where it would translate the code into print and that to the printer. It would print out. You had all these funny commands that you had to remember, like space, line, space, space would print. I don’t remember thinking it was too difficult at the time. But right now, I think how did I learnt that? I think this is probably what started my eternal fascination with all things technological. I mean, it’s so cool to be able to write a note for my mum and then print it out.

Facilitator:       Right.

Emma:            I mean that sort of thing was just cool. I still kind of sit there, on my computer everyday – maybe not so much recently, but before I was quite busy – and sort of go oh wow, isn’t this brilliant that I can do this stuff? I can read my email and I can read the documents that people are sending to me and it’s instantaneous and I don’t have to wait. Because my whole school life particularly – and uni, to some extent – was characterised by waiting. Waiting for people to come so they could do the Braille or waiting for the transcriber to get it done or waiting for somebody to read the book. It’s funny, isn’t it, how life changes. So the Braille to print revolutionised the way that people were able to function in a mainstream sort of environment. Then from that, I got what was called a Eureka, which was the equivalent of a Braille laptop for blind people. It was a huge thing at the time. I still haven’t seen anything that topped it myself. I think it was just fantastic. I had everything that you could possibly want.

Facilitator:       So basically it was a Blackberry?

Emma:            Yeah. It was about the size of an A4 size sheet of paper. That was 1988, when I was starting high school. So that was pretty amazing at that time.

Facilitator:       How did you get access to all these things?

Emma:            Well the Braille to print – I think we got a grant for. I was a bit young to quite remember that. Then I know that the Eureka, Mum and Dad were very, very against, but I think they ended up having to eat humble pie. I think the local church parish assisted with donations. Because I don’t think anyone could have denied the need for it. Because it meant that I could go from class to class and not have to trail a Braille machine around, because Braille machines are quite heavy. I got very strong.

Facilitator:       So do you think, if you hadn’t come across the Eureka, you wouldn’t have been able to go to a mainstream school?

Emma:            It would have been much harder, much harder. I don’t know how I would have done it. I know I would have, because I know that other people have done it in the past. I know I would have, but I think it would have been a lot harder. I know that, when I went into year 11 and 12, there were some question marks sort of about well how is she going to it? How is she going to do research and da-da-da? You know, we managed to get through it all obviously, because I’m here.

Facilitator:       Yeah. Because I was wondering if you needed help with work, how do you prove its your work and not the influence of whoever is reading to you or helping you find resources?

Emma:            It’s very hard. It’s always been a question that I’ve struggled with. Again, that’s one of the things that are possibly much easier now, because people have more access to literature, electronically. But at that time we’d go through the books. I used to say I want this chapter, this chapter and this chapter. They would read it onto audio tape. Then I would have to listen to it and decide. You know, distil the information.

Facilitator:       Who was the person to read it?

Emma:            When I was in years 11 and 12, we had a teacher aide who was employed specifically as a reader, with that kind of stuff. I’ve forgotten for how many hours she was employed as a reader. But that was something we kind of had to fight for. Once it was put in place, it worked extremely well. I had some very good teacher aides. I suppose the thing that helped was, because I did have a very articulate way of saying no this is the argument I want to put across. So can you find me articles on this that support this theory or don’t support that? That made it easier for me. If I hadn’t been able to kind of get that across, I think it would have been more difficult. But there are always grey areas, unfortunately. People don’t want to talk about it. But I think there are grey areas, in terms of how do you know that it’s your own? I mean I’ve never had any doubts in my own mind that I was above reproach. But you know, it is a good question and it was one that I’ve always struggled with.

Facilitator:       What are the grey areas do you think?

Emma:            Oh, I just think – you know, just sitting down together with someone and you’re going through text, it’s very difficult for them not to be, in some ways, putting their own opinion forward, just by default, by what they’re choosing to read or what they’re not choosing to read. So they may even inadvertently be saying something and you’re taking that onboard. I think it’s easier the older I get. Because – well I’m not doing any research at the moment. But you know, I know that I would have no problems now and especially with the internet, having that free access to so much more literature. It wouldn’t be a problem now. It wouldn’t even be an issue. But yeah, it’s certainly something I struggled with in the past.

Facilitator:       But you’ve overcome that.

Emma:            Well yeah, yeah, definitely.

Facilitator:       You’ve completed high school and completed a university degree. Were you blind from birth?

Emma:            Yeah.

Facilitator:       It must have been very strange for your family.

Emma:            Yeah, it was. It’s really interesting, because they – well I was premature, to start with. I was 13 weeks premature. So we had that trauma to start with. Then, around about six months later, they found out that I was blind. They had never really had a lot to do with blind people before. So the questions that they had were specifically – probably particularly my mum –how on earth is she going to get up and down the stairs? How is she going to find her way around the house? All very valid questions for someone who’s never had contact with a blind person before. Though I suppose the downside of that was that it meant that when an expert said to her you should give her this as a child, she didn’t have anything to counter that with. So there were difficult times. But to her credit, well to their credit, they did really stand up for what they believed was best for me. While, as I said, there were problems in terms of people teasing me and that kind of thing, but in the longer term, I think it made me a much stronger advocate for myself. I actually had to say no, I don’t believe this is okay and this is – or I really do need those essay questions today, because otherwise I’m not going to be able to get it done. And if I don’t, then I’ll have to have an extension. You know, just negotiating that. So seemingly fairly insignificant things. But I think it’s made me a stronger person.   If I had been in a unit situation – whilst I don’t have anything against them. I think they’re wonderful things. I’m not necessarily saying that it’s for all people, because I don’t believe that mainstreaming is for everybody. But if I had been in that situation, I would have just – I would [cruised] and I would let people do it for me, because I know…myself.

Facilitator:       So you think you could have got away with a bit of learning help.

Emma:            Oh, definitely. God yes. Definitely.

Facilitator:       But not with your own kids and not with your own work now.

Emma:            No.

Facilitator:       Is it a decision you make? I’m not going to accept help.

Emma:            Well no, because I do accept a lot of help. It’s just a question of making sure that the help I accept is help I really need. If there’s something I can do myself and there’s no good reason not to, apart from the fact that – I mean, all parents need help. I mean, irrespective of the situation. It had have been difficult for me actually, because – you know, coming from that kind of belief that, yeah, you know, I should just, as far as possible, try and do all my care myself, to then getting to parenthood and going, well hang on, no, I don’t have to do that. It’s okay to ask for help.

Facilitator:       I wonder if all parents go through something like that.

Emma:            Oh, I think so. Like I’m feeling guilty because I can’t do it all, but then I’m feeling guilty because I’m asking someone for help. I suppose the little process that I go through, in my head, that I don’t really think about, haven’t thought about…but is possibly a bit more kind of complicated, because I kind of think now, you know, am I asking for this because I’m being lazy? Or am I asking because I’m blind? Or am I asking because I don’t know? You know.

Facilitator:       So it is a conscious process.

Emma:            No.

Facilitator:       No, it’s not.

Emma:            Not really. But I do just kind of think to myself, I don’t want to put people out. You know, is this something I could do myself? If so, why do I need help with it? Because I think – I’m really conscious of – and I don’t always get it right. Nobody does. But I’m really conscious of the fact that – especially as a person with a disability – I have to be careful not to over utilise people’s goodwill. I don’t want to be seen as someone who just takes all the time and doesn’t give anything back. Yeah. So I’m just aware of that and I always try and make sure that there’s a balance. Don’t always succeed. I always try and make sure that there’s a balance. But I do think like – you know, I know a lot of people, who I’ve worked with in the past and had contact with in the past, who are just asking for help and wanting people to do things for them. I don’t think it’s conscious, but unconsciously there’s not…well okay, there must be ways that I can help this person out. I think when you’re talking about human capital, you know, to me is much more important, then you’ve got to look at, well okay, if I’m asking someone if they can – I don’t know – buy me something from the shop, so I don’t have to go to the shop or whatever – I mean that’s just a simple example – then what might I do in return. It might – it doesn’t have to be a big thing. But I just think being aware of it. I don’t always succeed at it, but just being aware of it.

Facilitator:       How do you do your shopping? Because there’s not a lot of Braille around.

Emma:            No. I don’t do a lot of that. No, I do a bit of online shopping. We also sometimes will give a shopping list to our local grocery shop and they are happy to go and do it for us, which then gives us the opportunity to go and do some other shopping, which is very handy. Because with the two kids, it’s difficult to get around a supermarket at the best of times.

Facilitator:       Yes, it is.

Emma:            It’s actually quicker for them, I think – I hope – to do it without us probably than with us, at times. So that’s kind of the rationale behind that. But we do do it online quite regularly. Yeah. That’s generally how – and we also have a support worker once a week who assists with incidental shopping. My parents live fairly close. So they’re here regularly. Mostly we do it online ourselves.

Facilitator:       Has there ever been incidents with the kids where you just thought don’t know what I was thinking?

Emma:            Of course. I mean – I can’t think of any off the top of my head. It’s been a good day. Oh yeah, look, I mean definitely. You know, especially when they throw up all over the carpet, that kind of thing, where you just think oh my god. You know, this is insanely ridiculous. How on earth are we ever going to clean that? There are times where I have just called someone and said, look, can you come over because this is just out of control? I can’t be 100 per cent sure that there’s not going to be vomit on the floor. You know, sometimes you just do – commonsense has to prevail. It’s not about us saying is we can do this ourselves at all, you know. It’s all about the wellbeing of our children. I don’t want one of them crawling in vomit. That’s not my idea of good parenting. So yeah. There are times, of course, when we can call someone. We’ve got our own network of people who are more than willing to come and have a look and make sure we’ve – you know.

Facilitator:       So it’s those people that you’re talking about when you’re talking about giving back to them

Emma:            Yeah. Even if it’s just sitting – you know, having a chat with them and being a good listener. It doesn’t have to be big, but I just think I like to have an awareness of it, that’s all.

Facilitator:       Are your children school age yet?

Emma:            Our son is in prep. So that’s really interesting, and our daughter is  14 months.

Facilitator:       Has your son encountered any issues with having two blind parents?

Emma:            I don’t think so. He never really made a big deal out of it, but then neither have we. He definitely knows that it’s the case, because we’ve been to his daycare and talked to the class and been to the school and talked to the class. So we’ve tried to put it out there, because what we don’t want is for him to get into higher grades at school and for kids to be teasing him because it’s an unknown quantity. So we felt the best thing to do was to have it out there…

Facilitator:       So you think that the most likely scenario he comes up against is people who don’t know.

Emma:            Yeah. What they don’t know becomes a speculative point that they can pick on. Yeah. He’s really good. I mean he tells people what the cane is for and he tells people how we do stuff and comes up with some amazing insights. The cane runs into things before Mummy does. Mummy doesn’t use the cane around the house, because she doesn’t need it. I mean I never even think to tell people stuff like that.

Facilitator:       Yeah. He’s obviously quite aware.

Emma:            He’s aware, very aware. He’s very sensitive and can be quite protective.

Facilitator:       Of you?

Emma:            Yeah. Sometimes that can be interesting because people assume that we’ve asked him to help out, when in fact we haven’t asked him to help out, but he’s just – that’s just what he wants to do. I mean you can’t – if he wants to take me to the counter in the shop, I’m not going to say no to him. You can’t do that. That’s not your result. That’s not going to help him at all. So yeah. It’s that kind of stuff. But no, he often seems to have an interest in it. In fact, he seems to find it quite normal and quite interesting.

Facilitator:       But you do worry about people seeing him as a four year old, five year old carer?

Emma:            I do very much worry about that, especially when you’ve got – unfortunately there was a story not too long ago in the media about that very thing, about – I think it was a six year old boy and his mother was blind and him being portrayed as the carer and her actually wanting him to be portrayed as the carer and wanting him to receive benefits from Centrelink.

Facilitator:       Right. This doesn’t work for you.

Emma:            I just find that absolutely appalling. I was so angry. Like this is just – oh, I find it insulting, because – yeah, I mean look, in all families, you know, children have roles to play. Ours just play slightly different roles. You know, but the fact of the matter is that we are the parents and they are children and they know it. Just no problems, you know.

Facilitator:       You want him to have a childhood…

Emma:            Absolutely, yeah. Look, if he – I mean he can read letters now. His favourite thing in the world to do is to spell out the names of the food packets and things. That’s what he likes to do. So I can’t stop him. I’m not going to. But people’s assumptions are absolutely unbelievable. They assume that, almost always, that that’s why we had him.  It’s just phenomenal. [speaking with a sarcastic tone:] I mean, How on earth did we manage before we had him? I mean how did we change a nappy? [returns to normal tone] No. It just absolutely astonishes me. It’s the one thing I probably just cannot get my head around, about the whole thing. People say it to him too: now make sure that Mummy doesn’t fall down that step over there. Excuse me. You know, I know people are trying to be helpful and I appreciate that. But I just think its not fair. Then if we’re in a shopping centre and he goes away to look at something, oh, he’s just left you there. I say well that’s fine. His role is not to take me around the shopping centre. He’s just over there. I know where he is. He’s told me.

Facilitator:       So this is something that happens to you regularly.

Emma:            Happens all the time.

Facilitator:       J wanders off and people assume that he’s left me and what a terrible child he is for leaving me. That comes from support workers. So – I might say here. I just think, for god’s sake, you know.

Facilitator:       They turn the child into the carer.

Emma:            Yeah. Then I used to say to him, hey J, don’t worry about that. That’s just people being silly. But I realised there are people that he doesn’t even notice.  He probably will start to notice, as he gets a bit older. But at the moment, it’s probably better just to not make a big deal out of it. But I do absolutely not understand it. I’m trying, trying, but I just can’t get it.

Facilitator:       This child as your carer…

Emma:            Yeah, I find it insulting. Because next they say so how do you do such and such? I think well hang on. You’ve confused me. You’re doing a great job but I couldn’t possibly do it without J.

Facilitator:       You can’t possibly parent without the child.

Emma:            No.

Facilitator:       It works…

Emma:            Well yeah. But I think – my theory is that it is actually people’s way of explaining, in their own mind, how I do it.

Facilitator:       Right.

Emma:            Because it’s too difficult for them to imagine how a blind person – well I do understand that it’s difficult to imagine. I found it difficult to imagine before I had him too. So I do understand that. I think that’s why they do it. It’s like well I can’t rationalise it. I don’t understand it. So the best way for me to understand it is to put a sighted person into the equation and the only sighted person who happens to be around is the five year old. So – which I – you know. That’s what I’ve decided it must be. But I still can’t – I still find it very, very distressing.

Facilitator:       That’s another question actually. Did you consider, before you fell pregnant, that a child with two parents who were blind would also be blind?

Emma:            Yeah. Except that neither of our conditions are actually genetic. So it wasn’t an issue for us. But I can tell you without hesitation that, if there had been, it wouldn’t have made a difference. I figure that who better to bring a blind child into the world than two people who are blind and they understand the reality of blindness.

Facilitator:       Yeah, fair enough.

Emma:            You know, but that’s just me. I really do not fault anybody else for seeing it differently, because everybody’s experience is different obviously. But I just think, gosh, if we’ve got something to offer, why not?

Facilitator:       And neither of your children’s sight is poor?

Emma:            No. Oh don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’d be going in there to hope that my child is blind, it’s not like that at all. And look, it hasn’t always been fun and games either. But having said that, its like saying, my life hasn’t really been that great so I’d never want anyone else to have to endure it. I mean that’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. People find it very confronting that I say things like this. But it is just the way it is. Look, if I was not truly, honestly, able to sit here and say I’m okay with me and I’m satisfied with my life as it is, then how could I possibly be a reasonable parent to my children if I couldn’t honestly say I’m okay and I don’t have hang-ups about my disability, then I’d bring those hang-ups to my children and they’d grow up with the same – you know, it wouldn’t be good. I mean, if you asked me at any time in my life, I probably would have said, yep, I’ve never had any hang-ups. But looking back on it now, I probably would say that, as a teenager, I probably did. I probably made the mistake of putting everything down to my blindness. If anything went wrong, it had to be because

Facilitator:       So at some point in your life it was an excuse.

Emma:            It was, definitely.

Facilitator:       Excuse to do something, excuse not to do something.

Emma:            I can say that now. I wouldn’t have said that then. But I don’t think I really came to realise that probably until I was with Vaughan, who has a very, very different perception of blindness and a very different upbringing to what I’ve had. So he would say to me, well, why do you assume that that happened because you’re blind? It could have just happened because that person was having a shit day. Or whatever. That’s a very, very valid point.

Facilitator:       It is, yeah.

Emma:            But I think it’s a dangerous path to assume that everything happens to you because of this one little corner of your identity and it happens to be a disability.

Facilitator:       That’s another massive thing to be able to say. This is only a tiny little part of my identity.

Emma:            It’s taken me a little while to sought that out in my head. It’s very much easier to say when you’ve got a good job and you’ve got children who are doing well and you’ve got a husband. You know, those things are all really important sort of life savers. I’m lucky to be able to say, yeah, I’ve gone through those and I’m – you know – still here and doing well. But it’s much easier to say that when you’re in that place, than it would have been when I was unemployed and single and didn’t think anyone was ever going to – you know – want to marry me.

[Facilitator:      When you were pregnant and labour and hospital, do you think it would have been different had you not been blind? Did people treat you differently?

Emma:            Yeah, a little bit. Well the first thing was I was prepared – very, very prepared – and this comes back, again, to that thing of it must be because I’m blind. I was very prepared to be treated differently. So I actually said to Vaughan, look, I’m worried that this is going to happen. I have heard of scenarios where, in the US, children have been taken away from their parents when they were born. I was absolutely terrified – probably still am terrified of that scenario, to some extent, even though there’s absolutely no good reason, no rational reason to be even thinking about it. But that’s just – that is always going to be there for me. So we went to see a social worker – we went to see the social worker at the hospital beforehand, because I wanted to pre-empt any kind of visit that they might make to me. Because I knew that, after the birth, I might find it terribly traumatic if a social worker just turned up in my hospital room. I would feel like I was being scrutinised and I couldn’t stand it. So we went and saw her. She was fantastic. She gave some really good links to possible organisations if we had problems. Although she made it very clear she didn’t think we would, which was really good too, because I was quite, terrified. You know, this is a real issue for me. She also organised for me to have my own room, because I also was, at that time, quite terrified…get terrified a lot – but I was – terrified of other – quote – excited – unquote – mothers looking at me and seeing what I was doing. Because I just thought that I would do everything so differently and it might look wrong.

Facilitator:       Were you worried about picking up the wrong baby?

Emma:            That never occurred to me. It’s a really interesting point. I just hadn’t thought of it. How amazing. I hope I’ve got the right one. No I mean they put these identity bracelets on. I was quite relieved about it. They check the numbers. So yeah. I was quite – I was really in terror about these things. You know, that people would look at me and go oh she’s not competent. That was my biggest fear. It still is my biggest fear, I think. I am much better at it than I used to be and I’m much better at least at pretending that it’s not an issue. Because I’ve had enough people say to me, look, there’s nothing wrong with this. You’re doing a good job.  I’ve also seen the proof of it. Like I’m looking at J going, yeah, you’re fine. It’s all good. But it’s taken a long time and it probably will – I’ll probably – I mean my parents have terrible complexes about the parenting. I think it heightened the fact that I don’t have the benefit of possibly seeing what everybody else is doing immediately. So assume that maybe I’m not doing enough or I am doing it wrongly or something. But yeah. Getting back to the hospital…getting back to that. It was – so then, when I actually had him, the labour thing was fine. The nurses were great. There was no issue. Once we were sort of on the ward, yeah, everything was fine. I was shocked. I think that was my first case of, okay, no, it’s not going to be as bad as I thought. It’s not going to be the US kind of experience, people stealing my baby. In fact, I remember very distinctly, on the last day, this nurse coming to me and saying – and she’d been a primary sort of midwife who’d been looking after us. She came to me and said you guys are going to make fantastic parents and you shouldn’t worry you know. I hadn’t said anything to her about my concerns, but she said you shouldn’t worry about your parenting. You’re going to be fine, you know. The sort of things that obviously she had picked up, that I apparently needed to hear. So that was really good. Also, the other thing that was on my side was that, when J was born, I was besotted with him. I thought he was the best thing in the world ever, because I’d had so much trouble conceiving. So it was just – I was like – my mother-in-law was at the birth. She said, when he was born, it was just like this light went on. It was just – you could see it.

Facilitator:       So she was there as well.

Emma:            Vaughan was there and my mum was there as well.

Emma:            That’s another strain. But that’s how it turned out. But then, when my daughter was born, it was extremely different, because unfortunately I haemorrhaged and so ended up having an emergency caesarean. But I guess, on the positive side – well no, actually, it wasn’t a positive, because she ended up going to special care for about 10 days. I didn’t get to see her for ages. So that was really difficult. Then, when I did see her, I don’t particularly remember it because I was so drugged with morphine. So the difficulty we had then was (a) we had to kind of learn our way around the special care unit in a very big hurry, when I was completely devastated anyway, because I thought that – you know, there was all that caesarean versus natural birth stuff going on. I was wishing I’d had a natural birth, because I’d had one with my son. I was in agony and all that stuff. On top of that, I was going – I was sort of like, well, I’ve got to remember where our room is, because otherwise I won’t be able to see her. You know, it was all very desperate. Luckily Vaughan’s very, very good at mobility. So he was able to assist with that. We both were able to go in and sort of see her for the first few days. Then, once I got confident, we started taking her in shifts. But it was very difficult because it wasn’t like – with most parents, they come in, they do a feed and then they’d go out and do some shopping or go for a walk or go and visit the park or whatever. We were really stuck. We couldn’t really do that because we didn’t know our way around the hospital. We had a few friends come and have lunch with us and things like that.  But it was really – it really was – I don’t know whether it was just the morphine, but it really did drive home to me the limitations. I just thought usually I’m fairly strong – a fairly strong advocate for myself and what I needed. But every time I would have to ask for something in that environment, it was just – I found it very, very difficult.

Facilitator:       Did Vaughan have Oscar at the time?

Emma:            Yeah, but he wasn’t there.

Facilitator:       Was he allowed in the hospital?

Emma:            I think he would have been. But he didn’t come. It was very difficult because, for some reason, yeah, I just didn’t have the capacity that I normally have to go, hey, would it be possible could we have this? Or would it be okay if we did that? I don’t know why. I guess probably the trauma of the caesarean and drugs and whatever. Well she actually wasn’t that sick. It was just that she was small. We just had to get her up to a birth weight. But yeah. I just – I found that very difficult. I found it very strange. When I thought about it afterwards, I thought why – as someone who makes a living out of actually making sure that people get what they need and for some reason I was finding it incredibly difficult, because obviously it was a very stressful situation.  But anyway, I mean the staff were great. Absolutely fantastic. Then we had a couple who were a bit officious. But most of them were brilliant. And very quickly realised that that was the advantage. Because she was the second child, I felt much more confident.

Facilitator:       Yeah. But you still lost your confidence.

Emma:            I did. I lost my confidence in that kind of getting what I needed thing. But in terms of actually being the parent, doing what needed to be done for her, I was okay with that, because I knew that, knew I could do that. So that was fine. But it was a really interesting time because I just remember analysing it and thinking what the hell, you know. This is so weird. I’ve never experienced this kind of the loss of confidence and feeling like, yeah, this whole thing about my disability was really making it difficult. I’ve never really experienced that before.

Facilitator:       No. Not even when the boys were taking your hat in the playground at school?

Emma:            No, no…got through that reasonably well. But I think really it was related to the trauma stuff. It was just coming through in that way. But yeah, so that was a really interesting time. But what it did prove to me probably, once and for all, is that people – you know, the nursing staff, the medical staff were absolutely certain of our abilities and there was no issue with that.  They let us take her home earlier because I just said to them, look, you know, this is so difficult for us. You have no idea how difficult this is. Just to actually say that was just incredibly difficult. But you know, I said, look, you don’t understand. It’s not like we can just come in here and then go. We’ve got to sit here for three hours and wait for another feed or – you know. It’s not easy. I said but, if necessary, we’ll stay there all night to prove to you that she can breastfeed for the whole 24 hour period, so you’ll let her leave. They said no, no, that won’t be necessary. We got there in the end. But it wasn’t very fun. Luckily, my mother-in-law was over here. So she was helping out with our son and the other stuff.

Facilitator:       It’s another one of those things anybody, at that point, would have needed help with at the time.

Emma:            Absolutely. I mean there’s meals and washing and yeah.

Facilitator:       So you do all your own cooking…

Emma:            Yeah.

Facilitator:       So really the support workers are about shopping and the odd bit of cleaning.

Emma:            Yeah. The other thing we get them to do is take us to the park or the beach or areas where there’s a lot of open space and I don’t think it’s very appropriate for us to be there without support.

Facilitator:       You don’t feel safe.

Emma:            No. Well I think at our son’s age now, we could probably do it with him. He is very good. He will always answer when he’s called, because that’s been one of the rules that we’ve always enforced. He is very good. He understands the reasoning behind it now. He has a healthy understanding of what safety is and why it’s important. But yeah, with L I’m still – I still want someone to be there. They’re just too fast.

Facilitator:       Yeah.

Emma:            Yeah. I just think that you just need that extra pair of eyes. So yeah. So that’s the other thing we do. We do a lot of that kind of stuff with Mum and Dad too, because we enjoy it.

Facilitator:       What about the rest of your family?

Emma:            Well my sister is in the UK. So – but yeah, we still are very much in touch. My eldest brother, don’t see a lot of. It’s kind of a relationship where you know if there was a crisis, he’d be first on hand. But we don’t see a lot of each other, and my other brother, we are in touch regularly and catch up occasionally. So yeah, we have good families.

Facilitator:       What about friendships and those sorts of things? At uni, you said that the dog helped to make friends.

Emma:            Yeah.

Facilitator:       Now have you got close friendships?

Emma:            I was going to say I haven’t got a lot of time. But no, that’s not true. I mean most of my friends are, these days, related to my work, I suppose. There’s a lot of really close relationships at work. I guess because the nature of our work is that we’re very passionate about the same things and so naturally you form friendships. But I also do have some long-term close friends, some blind, some sighted. that have been throughout the years.

Facilitator:       I guess the other question I’ve got for you is how did you come to music?

Emma:            Well, my sister played piano when she was younger. She was ten years older than me. So she played the piano and I used to think that was really cool when I was about two. Sit down there and play by ear. Mum and Dad kind of figured out that I was actually playing what she was playing and they thought that was pretty bizarre. So they ended up getting me piano lessons when I was about five. That was really good. I did School of Music and did some singing and did some of that kind of stuff. But I think probably the thing that really got me into wanting to be a musician, per se, was I went to a national [music camp for blind children.  I Started doing that when I was 11.  Not only did that cement my interest in music but choirs particularly, because we did a lot of choral singing, it also was the only place, at that time, where I felt completely at ease because it was with a whole group of other blind people and I was spending 99 per cent of my time with a whole group of sighted people and I was kind of the odd one out. I was still sort of dealing with that kind of teasing and subtle sort of bullying kind of stuff that was happening.  So it was a haven. I saw it as very much a chance to have a break from that and actually be someone who people actually enjoyed being with and looked up to, to some extent. At that time, I saw that as being important, because it just wasn’t happening elsewhere. So that was the start of it. One of the hallmarks of it was that there were blind teachers. Most of the teachers were blind. So I had this fantastic opportunity – and it’s really informed a lot of what I do with Access Arts too – to see these blind teachers doing the stuff that I thought would be really cool to be able to do and just being fantastic role models. I also had a blind teacher when I was in primary school, when I was at the special school. I thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. We’re still good friends. I just thought wow, he can do that. Wow, maybe I can do that. So that was probably where it really started, was with him. I remember him saying don’t put your hand up, because it won’t work, because I can’t see you. I thought oh, so he’s blind too. Because I didn’t know. So that was one of those funny things.  So then – so yeah, from that, I started to teach at the camp, as I got older. So I started to move into that role. It was just great. I mean, there were some difficulties with it. The fact that I got a lot of recognition within the camp and some people found that difficult to deal with. I found it difficult to deal with, that there were so many people who deserved an opportunity and, for some reason, I was kind of being singled out. So that’s kind of – again, that’s informed some of what I do.

Facilitator:       You try not to single people out.

Emma:            Well, I try not to. I try and give everybody a go. But also recognise that there are people that have amazing potential and they need to be fostered too.

Facilitator:       That’s a hard balance.

Emma:            It is a hard balance. But you know, I’ve been on both ends of it, so I try and do whatever. So you know, but that – all of that aside, it was an amazing experience and probably had – of anything that I’ve done, it’s probably had the hugest impact on me, because it had all those elements and then it was a social outlet for me. It’s where I met Vaughan. It also enabled me to go, okay, so this is where I can put all those musical skills that I’ve been learning into action and really just go for broke. It was fun, heaps of fun. I’ve still got lots of friends from that.

Facilitator:       From those school days?

Emma:            Yeah. From all over Australia. It’s really cool now, because people who I don’t even know will say to me, oh, you’re Emma – you know, you were at music camp. I go oh yeah, I know your name. You’re such and such. You know, never met this person. But we’ve just all been to camp and we’ve all got that shared experience to some extent. So it’s a bizarre thing and it’s really handy as a way of kindling relationships with people and talking to people. Yeah.

Facilitator:       Good. So music sort of becomes the network, almost a culture, almost a religion.

Facilitator:       A religion?

Emma:            I would say. Like not so much music itself, but the camp and the songs. Like the songs have been passed down. You know, it’s that kind of weird – I can’t even really explain it. Yeah. People will say, oh you know, remember that song and you’ll say, yeah, we sang that in ’92, you know.. I guess, as I’ve gotten older, it’s become less kind of a following for me. Like it’s more introspective now, you know. Even up to my early 20s, it was really very important. That whole music happening was just part of my identity. It’s really made a huge impact on me, even though I don’t go anymore, because I’ve got kids.

Facilitator:       Could you still go?

Emma:            I could go. I have been invited back to teach again. But I just can’t do it at the moment. I haven’t been for a long time and there’s a lot of memories kind of tied up in it. I don’t know – you know, a lot of the people have changed and don’t go anymore. There’s a whole lot of new people. I’ve got everybody I need. I would like too one day go back, just to give something back.

Facilitator:       You’re always on about this giving back thing.

Emma:            Yeah. I like giving back. You get way more out of giving than you do out of receiving. I really do believe that. I know that sounds really cliché. But I do believe it.

Facilitator:       It’s interesting, especially because you could justify taking and taking if you wanted to. You could do that.

Emma:            But what would I get out of that, other than being a selfish individual.

Facilitator:       I don’t know. I would have thought that taking, that you got quite a lot.

Emma:            Well maybe on the surface, but what would I really end up with? A whole heap of people who are pissed off with me for continually asking them to do things and now never wanting to do anything. You know, it’s pretty sad. I’ve seen people go down that path.

Facilitator:       This is a question I’d like to ask you. You use the word ‘see’ a lot and ‘look’. So how do you see and look?

Emma:            Well they’re just words. I don’t really use them in the sense of visually seeing. But in terms of the way I see things, I guess it’s through touch, smell, using taste, whatever. But yes, like if I’m talking about the TV, you know I’m talking about watching TV or watching a movie. It’s a question I often get asked, because people wonder whether they’re going to offend me if they say the word ‘watch’ or ‘look’ which is understandable. I don’t know whether it’s different for someone who might have lost their sight later in life, whether they feel offended. I don’t think so. I have spoken to a few people about it and they’ve always said, no, no big deal. It doesn’t have an impact on me if people say see

Facilitator:       But there’d be a lot of people sort of saying I wonder how you cope with not actually knowing the children’s faces.

Emma:            Yeah. Well I’d have to say I have – when my son was first born especially – I was less stressed about with my daughter, because I guess I’d been through it before – but there was a period where I was kind of thinking, oh my god, if only I could see him. Because you know when they have that initial period of being fairly non-verbal. You don’t really get a lot of response, other than a smile or a grin or you know. I do remember thinking, oh my god.  I remember saying to my mum at one stage, oh it’s really nice that you’re here, you can tell me what he’s doing for a while. Because she does. She just – that’s the way she communicates with me, because I think she’s always having – you know, we both – I remember when I left home, she used to describe what was on the TV to my dad.

Emma:            But you know, she’d say to me he’s crying. Oh, he’s looking at you. You’re really…

Facilitator:       She probably annoys a lot of people.

Emma:            She would. I said to her I’m really glad you’re here, because you’re opening this whole window. I thought, god, I’ve never said stuff like that before. How bloody cliché is that? But it was true. I did really find it very strange for a while. It wasn’t until he started getting verbal and starting ah-ing and pooh-ing and carrying out that that stuff didn’t bother me anymore. It really doesn’t matter that I can’t see his face, because I’m hearing all this stuff.   But yeah. No, I did – I’m being totally honest. I did – there was a time when I though oh gee, I wish I could see so I could just interpret more of what it’s doing because it’s annoying me. It wasn’t actually…but it was just that classical – if I could see, I could respond better. I don’t think he suffered any dire consequences from it. But you know…So yeah. It’s not a silly question, not at all…

Facilitator:       So pictures for you are sound and textures…

Emma:            Yeah.

Facilitator:       And smells and…

Emma:            Yeah, yep.

Facilitator:       So music for you then is an art form in that sense.

Emma:            Yeah. Although I’ve had to become a lot more, I guess – I’ve had to develop more of an understanding of painting and texture and colour since I’ve been at Access Arts, because visual arts is one of the art forms that we’re dealing in. I have tried to become a lot more understanding of it.

Facilitator:       How do you do that?

Emma:            …in the best way that I can. Well at least to understand the terminology, to some extent. We’ve had some audio tours of exhibitions that we’ve done. So that’s made me really aware. The descriptions that people give of paintings can often be extremely subjective. So it’s very, very hard to get an objective descriptive and it’s very hard to describe a painting accurately, because often they’re so detailed or not at all detailed. So it’s hard to get that right. So I have had to kind of develop my understanding to the best of my ability. Also, of course, I use a visual artist, so that helps a lot because he explains all the stuff to me, which just goes over my head. So he’s good like that. Usually I explain it to him…work it out. He goes yeah. That sounds really good. I’m very, very aware of my limitations.

Facilitator:       And your strengths as well.

Emma:            Yeah.

Facilitator:       So you’re playing to the strengths as well, that’s for sure.

Emma:            Even when you came in and I was telling my son to go to bed and turn the light off, you were probably thinking how is she going to know?

Facilitator:       At some point this kid is going to go well Mum’s not going to know. Don’t turn it off. Why should I turn the light off and go to bed?

Emma:            I can always walk in the door and check the switch.

Facilitator:       That is true. It wasn’t something I thought of.

Emma:            No, well you don’t. Why would you? You don’t. Also, yeah, he doesn’t get too much past us. He’s actually – I mean he’ll try it on occasionally. He’ll say to me how did you know that I had the extra biscuit? Or did you know that I did this or whatever? I remind him I can hear. I’m sure there’s a lot that he does get us past us though.

Facilitator:       Do you reckon?

Emma:            I’m sure.

Facilitator:       But what kid doesn’t?

Emma:            Well, exactly. You know, it’s not doing him any harm. You know, we haven’t had any big problems.  We haven’t had any reports of terrible behaviour at school or anything. I suppose the only other interesting thing about my life, from an especially disabilities perspective, is that Vaughan and I are both blind and we’ve had this relationship. It wasn’t always met favourably – looked upon favourably by my family unfortunately. They felt that it would be preferable if I was married to someone who could see, because then, if I had someone who could look after me, it would make it so much easier for me. I think what’s really interesting about it is that it really did create some tension. I really did consider kind of going oh look, I’m just going to have to go it alone. I can’t deal with this. You know, I am in love with this guy. I can’t turn it off. It’s not going away. That was an option. I thought well maybe I can just ignore it, maybe it’ll go away, but it didn’t.  It was a very deep relationship. There was no getting away from that. It was also a long distance relationship. He came to Australia from New Zealand in 1986 and he was living in Melbourne and then he moved to Lismore to go to uni and that’s when our relationship started. We had actually known each other since we were 14, but hated each other’s guts when we were at music camp.

Facilitator:       Well of course. When you’re 14, you hate everybody.

Emma:            Yeah. That’s right. Then when we were about 19, at music camp, we got together. Then I said, look, I’m not sure about this long distance thing. Well just give me a bit of time to think about it. Then of course, within a week, I’m like yeah, well, let’s give it a go.     So that was that. Then – yeah, Mum and Dad really did find it difficult, to the point where they were saying well we’re not coming over to your place for dinner. Oh – and also we’d moved in together. We moved in together the next year. They just did find it difficult. I did think about, yeah, just saying sorry, can’t deal with this. But I thought, okay, no, I’m going to just kind of keep the lines of communication open. I think this is really important, because other people must go through this. I mustn’t be the only person in the world. I didn’t know anyone who’d gone through it. So I think, if it can be told, maybe it helps somebody else.

Facilitator:       Absolutely.

Emma:            I think – I tried to keep the lines of communication open. It was difficult. So no, I just kept calling my Mum every day, even though she didn’t really want to talk to me. I kept saying, look, you know, Vaughan and I are doing this and we’re doing that.

Facilitator:       You called her every day?

Emma:            Well, we called each other every day before that. It wasn’t easy. You know, because as any relationship does, we were having our ups and downs at the same time, you know, moving in together. By the time it got to our wedding day, my dad stood up, in the speech, and said – and I was really impressed with him doing this, because he said, you know, that they haven’t always supported us and they had made life difficult. But that they realised now that they had been wrong and that they fully supported our being together and hoped that we had a wonderful life. And he really meant it

Facilitator:       Did they have issues with you both having children?

Emma:            Oh yes. Oh they did. They did. But once we had them, again – it’s that fear of the unknown. I really can understand it. I just felt, well, look, if I was in their position, knowing their understanding and their generational sort of perspective on disability and blindness, I thought, yeah, I can kind of understand why this is not sitting well.

Facilitator:       What do you mean their generational perspective?

Emma:            Well, I think they weren’t that far away from the generation where blind people were locked away and institutionalised. So I can understand why this is such a huge quantum leap and why…

Facilitator:       But these are the people who – people that were pushing you towards mainstreaming.

Emma:            I know. But I think mainstreaming also meant finding a sighted partner and someone who could take care of me. I mean Mum never stopped me, in any way, preventing me from having relations with other blind people. They thought that was extremely important. Which I’m forever grateful to them for that too. So it’s not – it’s very complicated. It’s a complicated thing. But I think the point is that they, by keeping communications open – and there’s been a number of issues like that, like the having children issue and the – you know, getting married issue, where I’ve just kind of gone well you’ve got that opinion. But I’ll just keep talking to you about it anyway.

Facilitator:       So you’ll do it anyway.

Emma:            Yeah. we’ll do it anyway. But you’re entitled to your opinion.

Facilitator:       So they did have reservations, did they, with you both having kids?

Emma:            Yeah. Mum said to me before I got pregnant with J, I was – you know, if you get pregnant, I’m moving to Canada. I mean that was a bit tongue in cheek, but really, she meant it. Then she said to me one day that they’d just be afraid. I think she’s always regretted that. Because she now gets as angry as I do with the people who say that to her that the children are the carers. It’s actually quite a turnaround. It just takes time. We have a very close relationship…but it hasn’t been always easy. I think my biggest challenge has always been mobility. I’m not very good at it.

Facilitator:       What do you mean you’re not very good at it?

Emma:            I’m just not very good at imagining mental maps in my head, I find it very challenging having to go to destinations by myself for the first time. Some people can do that, but I’m not one of them. That’s one of the biggest challenges, I’d say, is not letting that get in the way of what I want to do. I am better at it than I used to be. I’ve found a lot of skills. Also achieving things. Realising that, yeah, you know, it’s not that hard. But it just doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ve got an appalling sense of direction, which I would have whether I could see or not. It does impact on my parenting though, because it’s probably made my mobility skills much better, because I haven’t had a choice, you know. I won’t allow it to hold my children back. So you know, haven’t had a lot of choice. But I’m very lucky to have a husband who’s very active he’s a father that doesn’t just sit back. I’m very lucky couldn’t work if I didn’t have someone who is so involved.

Facilitator:       Do you feel like you’ve lived a bit of a charmed life…?

Emma:            I have, in some ways. Yeah.