| Late Night Dialogue Room | I want to live by asking my own questions, rather than just going with the flow

I have a daughter named Locke, a second-year junior high school student with physical and intellectual disabilities who attends a special needs class.

Every time I attend a meeting, I recall a certain memory.

When I took university classes abroad, a professor taught me that 'not putting things into words is synonymous with not existing as a person, just sitting there in silence.' It is not just about producing a 'correct answer' as a finished product that is evaluated. How much you think and how much you expand the dialogue in response to the questions posed—I learned that this process is what changes the future.

Based on that understanding, are things like childcare and nursing care a continuous series of dialogues? Is it equal to taking years of lectures?

In Japanese society, the final result is considered most important, and I feel I have few memories of placing weight on the word 'process.' The atmosphere of 'go with the flow' is deeply rooted, and it causes me pain. Sometimes I close my eyes to it. But I believe that if you just have a passive attitude of accepting the status quo, your thinking stops.

Since giving birth to Locke, I feel like it has been a continuous series of choices where I had to think for myself and make decisions. If I had just gone with the flow back then, it would have been difficult to witness Locke's growth as I have now.

Recently, I was deeply moved by words from a person with a disability I follow on social media. Regarding whether to write the word 'disability' (shogai) in kanji or hiragana, they said, 'That is not the problem; unless society removes the framework of disabled person itself, there is no essence in changing the notation.'

I was shocked by that idea, which had never occurred to me. In that regard, those words fundamentally overturned my own way of thinking, which had only been focused on how to adapt within the 'existing framework.'

The reason I can continue to make choices of my own will like this now is precisely because there were people (parents of children with disabilities) who continued to take on unprecedented challenges and fight in the Japanese educational field! I have nothing but true gratitude and respect for those people.

What changes the future is not a pre-prepared correct answer. It is for each individual to raise questions with their own mind, put their sense of discomfort into words, and continue the dialogue, even if it is clumsy.

I thought that from now on, while creating space in my life through efficiency, I want to cherish the dialogue with my family and my own 'questions' about society. I want to continue to forge ahead on a path I have chosen with my own will, not on a track decided by someone else.

If I do that, I wonder if Locke's younger siblings will also be able to have a bright future (though as a parent, I have various worries)... While academic backgrounds and professions that people call 'amazing!' are certainly attractive, more than that, as a mother, I want my children to grow up to be able to organize questions themselves, engage in dialogue, and come up with their own answers.

Well, that's too greedy, isn't it...

Yes, I'll go to sleep now.