Parenting

Zenny 5:14
Yeah, cuz I think that’s something I mean, I can’t speak for sighted people, but I feel like that’s something that a lot of sighted people struggle with, let alone having to deal with it whilst being blind as well, because I’ve seen, like, you know, you guys, like we’d have to kind of feel around to feel well, yeah, true and gunk is no. Difference. But yeah, what about you, Ben? What did you know, saying, you know, what, what did you What were your opinions before and then after becoming a parent.

Ben 5:43
So I feel like I had a lot of the same worries that most first time dads or parents have, you know, not feeling like I’d be able to meet all you know, his needs, or do everything that he needed me to do, and certainly didn’t think I’d be able to, you know, do something like change a nappy very well. And, yeah, so I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to do any of it. But I honestly believe that I would have had those same concerns, regardless of my sight loss or not. Because if you know, I’m the type of person who, if I want to do something kind of the sightloss doesn’t, doesn’t really matter. So I guess my concerns, in relation to site were really the kind of what would he think about? You know, my sightwhen he got older? Would he? You know, would he have any problems with his sight? And if he did, how would I deal with those because it’s all well, and good, being able to deal with it by yourself, you know, for yourself, but obviously, dealing with it for your child is, is very, very different. And the answer that we got was that it was 50 50, which wasn’t terribly helpful. But, you know, I guess genetics is a reasonably inexact science. So, you know, those were really my concerns. And I didn’t know, I didn’t know a lot. So I didn’t have a lot to be worried about. Because I growing up and, you know, no, a lot of children. So I didn’t know what it evolved. So yeah, it was all new to me anyway.

Zenny 7:38
And then, you know, when you when you had your child, because I know your child is, you know, he’s about six, isn’t he? So do you feel, you know, you touched upon meeting his needs? Do you feel that you’re doing that? I mean, I hope you do, because I’ve seen you guys parenting skills, and you guys are brilliant, all three of you.

Ben 7:59
Yeah. And I sometimes do wonder, because I think, well, if I could see, I could maybe do this, I could take him to more places. You know, when he is wanting to walk with his friends, you know, he asked to walk a bit closer to me, because then I can’t, I’m not gonna let him walk ahead on my road when I don’t know where he is. So you know, it’s the little, the little things that do worry me, but other than that, you know, like, getting to school, you know, he’s fed, his’ clothes clean, and he’s happy. And I suppose those are the main, you know, things that you want for your child is for them to be able to have that. But it is the small things like taking them to places and, you know, interacting with their friends. And even you know, when he’s on his iPad, and he wants to show you something, you know, it’s kind of quite hard because, yeah, you can listen to it above see what he’s doing is very visual. So, yeah, definitely the small things. I would say. It’s what worries me the most.

Zenny 9:13
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s completely understandable. Like I can kind of relate because my siblings there, you know, when they were a lot younger, they’d kind of like, Oh, look at my drawing, look at this and overlook showing them a little bit. But yeah, Tasha, what about you? Like, what are your opinions before becoming a parent, then? Do they change after or anything?

Natasha 9:37
So before I became a parent, and I think this is not blind or otherwise, but more because I’m blind. My child’s not going to do this or my child’s going to have this routine. My child’s going to be able to do you know, not going to be able to do this or going to be able to do this but something that so like, in my opinion, you’re No, my children were, I don’t know, not having lots and lots of say sweets and chocolate and things like that. But I think as you become a parent, I think views can and like my views change. I was like, Well, you know, sweets and chocolate. I don’t think that, you know, there’s any any issue with it really as long as they don’t have too much. And we weren’t when they were babies I was like, well, they’re gonna be healthy, they’re not gonna get chocolate, you know, they’re not gonna have too much chocolate because I didn’t like the mess. Or they’re not gonna say I have too many, you know, too much paint because of the mess. But I think when I had them, I was like, Well, you know, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of mess. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of messy play. But I think what I was worried about more was being judged by others. If Yeah, the kids weren’t clean.

Zenny 10:59
You know, I get that you like? Because I know that. I think it’s always difficult having to prove yourself sometimes due to blindness, not even just with with regards to kids, but in general, like, you know, I think it’s, it can be tricky, because everyone has this kind of view or perception.

Natasha 11:20
Yes. And because before I had them, I was absolutely terrified of like, what if I do well, if I change the nappy wrong… Or what if I don’t say pull the nappy on the right way, or things like that? My biggest fear has always been, you know, being judged as a parent.

Zenny 11:41
No, I get that. just out of curiosity like, how do you guys know? Because obviously, I think last time I changed a nappy was very long time ago, and I couldn’t out but how do you guys like, how do you guys tell like to, like, which one’s the right way? And

Aliya 11:57
so the tag that yeah, the tag always tags always go in the back. Yeah. So the tags go to the back, and then you pull over the front to the front has to be a little bit taller than the back. And then you pull over the front. And then you bring the corner of the, the front? In? So basically to meet the tags, if that makes sense. And then you sort of untie it. And what do you call it? unstick? Them over. Yeah, and then stick them over the front.

Ben 12:36
Like, if you do it wrong, you’ll soon find out and you won’t do it again!

Natasha 12:43
I think it’s one of those things as well that you do automatically. So it is quite hard to try and explain to someone it is done.

Aliya 12:52
Yeah. And then the key to wiping is just used…

Natasha 12:56
I mean, there’s your hands, parents that.

Aliya 12:59
I mean, I recently saw a parent who is partial, and he goes and cuts like he cuts the wipes in half. And I have never got time for that. Honestly, for one who’s got time for that, too. When you have a baby wriggling to leave, you’re like, you know, the changing area. I mean, she wasn’t that small. So she wasn’t doing that at this point. But like when she was wiggling, trying to leave you with her bumb unwiped. I’m sorry. There’s no way. I’m so sorry. I know. It’s the cost of living and everyone needs to worry about that. But how, how are you even considering that? So I was just like, so why are your best friends just use them as much as you have to? And nappy bags are also like, because you can literally just contain everything in one bag. That’s great.

Natasha 14:05
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, sorry. And I always changed on the floor. I mean, I know like, I watched my mom and my sisters, and they would always change like, and still do on their lap. But I just didn’t feel like I had like because I needed to use my two hands for change. And I was like, Well, what if baby slides off my knee? So the one thing I always personally did was change the baby on a changing mat on the floor.

Aliya 14:33
See, we had a table until *laugh* he was older then we did the whole floor thing. We had a changing table. Yeah.

Ben 14:42
I mean, I always struggled with the floor because my flexibility isn’t that good. I just yeah can never get…

Aliya 14:50
oh yeah, change the baby on a train once and it wasn’t even my kid. Oh,

Ben 14:53
yeah, I just I just remember the first time if changing him The midwife was like, Oh, his you know is sticking up so he’s gonna wee and no, it’s fine. It’s fine. I mean, this has nothing to do with being blind to fitness is just being being a man. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. And then the we just came out like a fountain…
Aliya: a hoes!
Ben Oh, yeah, it was pretty. Yeah, everyone. Basically laughed at me, I was warned.

Aliya 15:28
Yeah you just didn’t want to hear it. And luckily I was bed rest you know it was bed rest for me so I couldn’t help him not that

Ben 15:37
And you also got away with the first feed.

Aliya 15:40
I did. Yes. The first one was gross, absolutely gross.

Zenny 15:46
Um, I have another question. about pees and pooing, this is the last…

Ben 15:52
We been saying the word poo a lot.

Zenny 15:55
What about like potty training and stuff. How did you guys find that? Because obviously like, how do you? How do you kind of? Yeah, I guess like how was how? How did that work? Like some case, I think parents try and demonstrate by making weird noises and trying to show their kids some I don’t know, I don’t know how they do it. But…

Ben 16:20
I think we just, you know, kind of showed him the toy that and try to, you know, put him on there, as much as possible, obviously, knowing his routine, because you get to know when they have, you know, go for a wee or a poo in the nappy, you get that idea? Because it tends to follow a pattern, you know, might be like, half an hour after they’ve had a meal or whatever. So you can try and preempt it. And once they’ve done it on the toilet a few times, then they start to get oh, this is, you know, quite fun or whatever. I mean, don’t think it’s quite the same thing when you get them up at that three o’clock in the morning. You carry them to the toilet. but you know, Um I’m not sure if you wanted to add anything on there Aliya,

Aliya 17:06
Yeah, I was determined that we weren’t going to use a potty. I’m so sorry. No way. I am the worst person to empty. I mean, I can do nappies. But when you’re big enough to walk, and to talk to me, I’m not emptying your poop. No, I’m so sorry. No, that’s not for me. So we use the training seat, which is just a smaller seat that goes on your toilet seat.

Ben 17:31
Yeah, and from a blind point of view, as well, A it’s more practical to do that. Because if you pour in you miss, but also, when you’re out and about you can’t be carrying around like a potty. Like, you know, a lot of parents might carry it in a car or something like that. And

Aliya 17:51
similarly, I guess you can’t really carry around a seat either. No,

Ben 17:54
but obviously, once they get used to sitting on a seat, obviously you can if you haven’t got a seat available, you can kind of hold them up on the Yeah, on the seat so that, you know they don’t fall down the toilet.

Aliya 18:10
There was a lot of ‘I’m gonna fall mummy!.’ ‘No , man. That’s fine, sit down..

Natasha 18:14
I gotta be honest, I think I prolonged potty training a bit. Because what I would do first well I would do for a while is potty training the house and then use nappies when we or pull ups or something when we went out. Yeah, I did use a potty. But I know sounds really bad. But my husband is partially sighted. And my husband’s job was very much to empty the party. I didn’t mind wiping the bums. I didn’t mind whiping, you know, the girls and things like that. But his job was very much to empty the potty for the simple fact that yeah, if you pour if I poured it, I could miss it. But honestly, it’s one of those things with hindsight looking back I wish I done what Ben and Aliya did I wish I did use like a traning seat because I think it might have just been a bit easier. But I will tell you that was upstairs. We don’t have a downstairs when and I was like if they’re desperate. Am I going to get them there in time?

Aliya 19:19
Yeah, so we had that same issue to begin with. But we basically came up with tactics to sort of like, distract him when he needed it. So it was like we’re at my mom’s house does two toilets one all the way downstairs and one all the way upstairs and the middle floor is where the living room and kitchen is. So either way, there’s no toilet in any of those places. So either way, you’d have to go either upstairs or down. So it was just like we distract him with like talking about different things or like whatever. And then by the time we got there he was he was still like as desperate but it wasn’t like usually he wouldn’t have he was ready to go.

Ben 19:58
And he was very ready to go. But I think it’s important to add that it wasn’t. You know, we’ve kind of talked about the positives, but there were times when it when it when it went wrong, you know, when he obviously, you know, wet himself or peed himself and unfortunately for us, yeah, he got quite emotional about those times. Um, but we never told him off, right, you know, because he was learning so there was one time when he did it on the floor, and I didn’t know because he came to me and said, I needed the toilet, so I was walking with him to the bathroom and and I just stepped in this and yeah, I wasn’t very happy that day.

Aliya 20:48
And he call me, and he was like, your son. I’m gonna kill you both. *laugh*

Zenny 20:55
hilarious. Hello. What, if any works and things you thought you struggle with and stuff, but we kind of you guys kind of answered that. Unless you guys have anything to add to that. I think you guys already well,

Natasha 21:06
I didn’t think I did think I struggle with nappy changing. I gotta be honest, I really, really did. But by the time I’d done like number three or four, I was like, this is quite easy. Because I struggled more though, at the toddler stage. I did find, obviously, you know, the baby stages. isn’t easy, not when you’re up four or five times a night I’m not saying but I struggled more I think with the toddler stage where they just wanted to wander off. And like, I don’t know if Ben and Aliya you always felt, you had to be behind them more as a toddler, you know, watching making sure you know, nothing happened. But yeah, I struggled more with the toddler stage.

Ben 21:56
Oh, yeah, definitely. You know, it, you know, it was? Well, I think it was more, you know, when they’re making noise, it you kind of hate it and love it at the same time, is when they’re making noise, you know, where they are, you know what they’re doing. But when they go quiet, you can have you know, every parent’s like, you know, will you be quiet? I think for us, it was okay, great. You’re quiet, but what you’re doing, you know, usually quiet means mischif of some kind. So, yeah, I definitely get that. I think we, you know, put, did a lot of baby proofing, if you want to call it that, which is easiest to do. And it’s not foolproof by any means. Because there are things that you might leave, or that you haven’t seen, you know, I mean, like, you know, we had did the whole night, cupboard, locks drawer locks in the kitchen. Especially like our kitchen at the time was all open plan. So you couldn’t even that use a baby gate or anything, anything like that. So it was very much, you know, restricting access to certain parts, you know, remembering to close doors and, you know, obviously, moving things to certain heights and it’s hard. Yeah, I definitely get I think I do want it to.

Aliya 23:26
So with with Adam, we taught him to answer. So like, if, even before he could say, like mama or whatever we taught him to answer when he heard his name. I don’t really know how that happened. It just sort of have I think when Ben would call me I’d like yet. Or when he would, I’d call him he respond in the same way. And then therefore, like when we took Adam out as a toddler. You know, if we called him, Adam, wherever he was, he would always say yes. So that like we then knew where he was. And then as soon as we heard him respond, then he could carry on with his business.

Natasha 24:09
Because my two don’t even do that now. five and seven. So well.

Ben 24:13
Yeah, I think he’s got older. I mean, he does still do it. But I think now he’s got more of a mind as to when he wants to reply and when he doesn’t. So big problem nowadays, because, I mean, he might be distracted by something, use his iPad. So if he’s watching his iPad, there’s no response there.

Aliya 24:37
You don’t you just don’t stop calling his name. Just don’t stop but like he responds to you because I’m speaking to you and therefore I want to know that you’re giving me your full attention and not something else.

Ben 24:48
And, you know, I remember when he started school that the teacher said it and it wasn’t a negative but the teacher said that he was the The most vocal in the class. And I think that’s probably down to the fact that, you know, he kind of had to be when he was growing up, you know, if he wanted something, he had to verbalize it, you know, pointing, didn’t do the job, you know, he learned very quickly. And I think this is rather than as teaching him, this, it’s more of a survival instinct is that he knew that if he wanted something, the quickest way to get it was to say, you know, hungry or drink, or, you know, even when it’s like that, because you couldn’t just point to water or milk or whatever, you know, like a lot of sighted people, you know, I’ve got a friend who’s sighted and her son’s, what, three, four now? And, you know, he does a lot of sort of nonverbal communication and it and it’s quite difficult, you just, you do see the difference in that in that respect.

Natasha 25:59
So just touching on that, sorry, Aliya, just touching on that. So, I have two, and there’s a 21 month age gap between my two. And my youngest, didn’t really start talking until my eldest went to school, because my eldest would answer for her. So my youngest one is something then the elder of the two would tell me or her dad, what she wanted. And I gotta be honest, we were all quite worried about it. But as soon as the eldest started, like, nursery setting, she started talking!

Aliya 26:38
yeah. And then she had to fend for herself, talking, I’m not gonna get fed here.

Natasha 26:43
She genuinely she started talking. And it did literally happen. Like, I know, I got well, yeah, overnight. Because one day, she didn’t talk. And then when eldest child went to school, she hasn’t stopped talking since.

Aliya 26:58
So you must have thought like, because I would have thought surely you must speak to each other or something? Because the How then would the older one know what you… Do you know what I mean?

Natasha 27:09
because younger child points. Yeah. Okay. And then because then she could see what she was pointing at. So she’d saying she wants a drink. She was, I don’t know if she wants a toy. So then my other child didn’t have to communicate because our sister had done it for her. But that was one of my worries having to so young, a toddler and a baby. Like, I was always anxious that like, if I was out of the room, say, one of my worries is what if she goes over to the crib and pulls it? Or? Or if you know, you know if she pulls the crib over or things like that. But I got, you know, I got past that by maybe just taking the elder one with me or? Yeah, explaining you know, you need to be careful, Mommy’s going out of the room, you need to look after your little sister and know she was and she was right, you know, and still is. They look after each other. They definitely do look after each other more than some siblings that I’ve seen do. And I think

Aliya 28:20
I think that’s what I would have done, I would have definitely taken the older one with me to begin with, at least until she learned better and and I’ve

Natasha 28:28
got to be honest, the playpen, we did have a playpen as well. So I could put her in if I was feeding the baby. I didn’t leave her in there for long, like an hour or so at a time. But it was very much useful because then she was enclosed, especially if my husband was out as well. I might have say both of them. Baby needed feeding. It was just our peace of mind that she was safe in a playpen.

Aliya 28:55
my thing that I struggled with to be honest until he was about nine months 10 Maybe was medication given him medication was such a pain. Oh my gosh. Like why is it so fiddly? Like why are the like, I mean, I get why the bottles are a nightmare to get into because you don’t want no you don’t want the child to get into it and be like oh syrup, glug glug, glug. How is it so difficult for us? Like I for me anyway, I struggled and Ben was like you have to do this and I’m like

Zenny 29:28
yeah, how did you like overcome that?

Aliya 29:32
Um, yeah, I mean lots of practice but also I got them to give me a one mil syringe because as a baby obviously you can only give them what 2.5 or whatever. So why are you giving me a big old five you know five mil syringe for what what am I doing with it? I wanted so I can I have the one you know the one mill one and then then I can give him two of those. And maybe a half a one if I really feel like he needs it. It normally He didn’t normally he was okay with just two. So get there give me the smaller one, which then fit better in the bottle itself. So, yeah, that was my tactic.

Zenny 30:12
And that makes sense. I think, you know, I think, you know, because sometimes you have to ask for the adjustments, obviously, because it’s different when you’re blind. And, you know, sometimes asking for that help, I think, is, is crucial. And in a sense, among some that, like what, you know, for you guys, I know, you guys mentioned stuff you struggled, what were some things that you thought you’d kind of struggle with the, you know, when, when it came to it. you know, that’s not that bad. Like, oh, that was easier, or like, you know,

Aliya 30:43
the feeding for me definitely feeding. I don’t like getting mucky, or yucky or messy or none of that. So I was like, This is gonna be so difficult. I didn’t do it for the first two months of an eating solid. So Ben would do. You know, I’d give him everything in a bottle, even Poros. I’d make it really, really thick, thin, and put it in a bottle for him, and then just feed him through the bottle. And then Ben would do the live feed with like, the bowl, and the spoon and whatever. And I’ll just pay then one time. I think Ben had gone away for the weekend. And I was like, Well, you can’t starve. So I decided, You know what, I’m just gonna get on with it and feed him. And I did. And it wasn’t that hard. I was like, ah, what all that fuss was about?

Ben 31:29
I would probably say that, I really thought that I would struggle with something like bath time, which seems really trivial. Um, but yeah, it kind of scared me quite a lot, either dealing with a small child and water. And, you know, I guess I didn’t know about all the things unique and get seats and things to hold them and small, the baths and so, but it’s actually turned out to be one of the things I’ve enjoyed in the most. So very strange, but also on top of that, the nappy changing, you know, thinking about the the sight loss aspect. I honestly thought that that would be a no, go for me. But apparently, it’s not an excuse not to change nappies. So you guys plan that out? Quite quickly. So yeah, but even it kind of surprised me. I know that this isn’t what you asked, but people’s attitudes did surprise me. Because I was in anticipating a lot of you know, negative. Oh, you won’t be able to this or do that. but we didn’t really get any of that. Um, you know, so that Yeah. Carry on, you know, right. Do this. She’ll be fine. Okay,
Natasha: I got that…

Aliya 32:57
I think I go the…

Natasha 32:59
I got the negative. Yeah, I got a negative attitude from people. You won’t be able to do it because you’re blind. But then I was more determined to prove them all wrong.

Zenny 33:12
Was that from friends and family? Or like, was that from authority? Authority?

Natasha 33:17
Yeah. Friends and family.

Aliya 33:21
Okay. Yeah. See, we didn’t get that from friends, from family. Definitely not. Because as I said, my parents were like, Yeah, you can do it definitely we’ll be there to help. Even when they weren’t here to help. They kind of dealt with it. And then Ben’s mum is also VI. So if she judged us… like, what if she judged us then what? Like, you know, what would that be saying about her parenting and things like that? So she would never I don’t think ever judged us anyway. But similarly, with authority, we didn’t get that because we were honest with them the whole time. You know, my mum was, was was with us for a few weeks. And then she left. And I didn’t lie to them. I didn’t say, my mom’s gonna be here all the time. And I was like, No, you know what, yeah, she’s gonna be here for a couple of weeks. And then she’ll be going back and we’ll have to suck it up and deal with it ourselves. Like,

Zenny 34:11
what was that? Because I know, I know, sometimes I feel like I know, other people have had experiences where they felt a bit patronized or they felt they were a bit kind of, you know, that. They felt that kind of authorities were kind of looking over them kind of, you know, so what was their attitude? When you?

Aliya 34:28
They were fine. Honestly, they gave us contact? Yeah, they gave us the contact to blind mom’s connect, which I left two years later. It just was not for me. And they were like, you know, you can contact people there and I did meet a really nice lady from there. And she came and visited me and Adam vomited on her. So that was great. I told her it was it was an it was an initiation process. So yeah, It was it was not fun for her. She literally was going for lunch later. So she was like, great. Baby sick. It’s a new perfume. I’m like, Yeah, great.

Natasha 35:10
I was winding my eldest once and a friend’s mother was over. And she was like, Do you know she’s been sick on you? I was like, No, I didn’t actually feel it this time. So she just got tissue and wiped it off. I was like, thank you so much.

Ben 35:23
It sounds really weird to say, but I always kind of preferred when he was sick on me because at least then I knew where the sick was.

Natasha 35:33
On the floor. Yeah, get you

Ben 35:36
quite easily wash clothes, quite easily washed yourself. So whilst at first I was a bit squeamish like in you have to get over the squeamish thing. 100%. And whilst, you know, like, yeah, it was easier. But the one thing that I wanted to mention, particularly when we’re talking about attitudes, I think when, and I do feel that we’ve been relatively lucky with the attitudes that we’ve come across. But the one place, you know, when he started school, I did worry, you know, what are they going to say? How are they going to deal with us? And they’re going to, you know, because I had negative and positive experiences at school. So I guess I kind of covered that a little bit. And I just remember, you know, I thought, okay, and I guess, to some degree, you know, I deal in the world of sight loss professionally. So, I kind of knew some things to ask, but not really on the children’s side. But I just remember called once we knew at school, he was going to call them them and saying, Okay, this is a situation, you know, neither of us can say, he’s absolutely fine. So can we maybe sit down and have a chat about how you can help us to help him and how we can help you to help him and all that type of stuff. And, you know, since then, you know, it hasn’t been a completely smooth journey. Don’t get me wrong, there have been times and we’ve needed to remind them of things and sort of say, this isn’t working and stuff like that, but genuinely, that it was quite positive after that. But ya know, it was one concern that we did have was, was school.

Natasha 37:24
Yeah. It’s a positive experience with school. I mean, my children’s teachers email me their homework. I mean, some weeks I’m not saying they don’t forget, they do. But ya know, we’ve had quite a positive attitude with school teachers have emailed me the children’s spelling, the reading comments. Yeah, no, school hasn’t been too bad at all. And I gotta be honest, like, then I did have my concerns about, what am I going to be able to do? What am I not going to be able to do with them? But no, it’s been quite quite a nice, positive experience. So far, because things could change.

Zenny 38:08
That’s brilliant. I think, you know, I think that is one thing that a lot of parents and even just blind parents, parents in general would show with is the idea of school and stuff like that. But I’m glad that you guys, you know, the teachers seemed accommodating enough. And that’s always good.

Aliya 38:27
When Yeah, we have an app, log into the app. And then

Ben 38:35
once they realize that, you’re not silly, and you know what you’re talking about, and you know, what you want for your child, and you’re willing to kind of meet them halfway, then a lot of the time. You know, they’re quite willing to do adapt. I mean, you know, it’s taken us a year and a half to get to this point. But they’ve just, you know, his school has just started giving him Braille versions of his reading books, like,

Natasha 39:05
Yes, mine, too. Yeah. So but me in the last few months, so

Ben 39:10
that’s why I’m saying like, yeah, we’ve been asking for that since he started. And they said, yay. And then it kind of went quiet. And, you know, we always did fine, because his reading was good. And they didn’t have any concerns, but it’s reading. Not really the point. If we’re reading with him at home, we want to be able to verify what he’s reading. If he gets stuck on a word, you know, and he doesn’t know how to say it. You know, if I can read it, then I can, I can help him or if he skips over a word, because it’s too difficult or skips a whole page, which he has done, then you can No, so yeah, it’s that’s been massively helpful. Then I know, you’ve got all these electronic aids and, you know, book libraries, but it doesn’t match the books that they get

Aliya 40:00
Nothing beats a full, like, you know, like just handling a book and pages and things like that. You can say, You know what, yeah, I’ll just give my child a Kindle. And that’s great. But then that’s just making them more electronic who minded. Like he’s already bad enough, this iPad, so I don’t need to get him another item but then just means he’s glued to the screen again by fun. So it’s good for him to handle actual, you know physical? Oh yeah,

Natasha 40:31
I agree. And it was great the first time I had a book with my eldest I was like, you just skipped a page. And she was like, but how do you know? And then how many pages? Have you skipped in the whole time? I have been reading with you.

Ben 40:52
This is kind of why I realized is they did skip pages. Yeah.

Zenny 41:00
Little ones. Um, so I think my last question for you guys. And I think a lot of listeners would be curious, what advice would you give to other blind people, you know, who are possibly potentially thinking of perhaps having children or, you know, anything like that? You know, is there any resources that you can point them to? And I know you guys mentioned blind moms Connect? Yeah.

Ben 41:27
So I have got two things to say on this. And the first, the sorry, the first one is, no one’s written a handbook on it. So ultimately, do what works for you. You know, as long as your child is safe, happy, fed, watered. That’s the important thing, how you get there is up to you. In terms of resources, and I did, and this is a bit of, you know, shameless self promotion in a way. But I did contribute to a, a new parent’s guide that we worked on with RNIB. And you can, if you, you can look that up on the RNIB website, there’s a section resources for blind parents, and it’s on there. So that’s my resource that I put in towards and not just because it has my name on the front page. But yeah,

Aliya 42:33
yeah.

Natasha 42:38
My advice would be, you know, whether you’re blind or sighted parenting isn’t easy, but enjoy it, you know, go for it. But don’t be afraid to ask for help, though. Sometimes I need to practice what I preach because I am. But don’t be afraid to ask for help, you know, from other blind parents or friends or family or anyone, because asking for help is okay.

Aliya 43:08
Yep, that’s great advice. I like that one. And, and once you know, your, your child is old enough to communicate and whatever. communicate with them, as well, because it’s all well and good, you know, telling them off and being a stern, strict parent and all that kind of serious stuff. But speaking to them is very, very important. Like, okay, really quickly, Adam, yesterday, or Saturday, I remember, we’re seeing pulling out another child’s hearing aid. And that is unacceptable. Like he did it a lot. And he was told no, he wouldn’t listen. So this was then brought to my attention. I was just like, Okay, well, we didn’t speak to him. So we basically sat down with him. And I was like, okay, so this is not okay. It’s what he uses to hear. And I said to him, like, how, you know, how would you? How would you feel? If like, if people, you know, took away if someone took away my cane, and I’m about to cross the road, and he’s like, Well, I wouldn’t feel good about it, because you’d get run over by a car. And I’m like, Well, exactly. It’s exactly the same with him, then, like, you need to not do that. Don’t do it. And if you understood it, that kind of little thing, speaking to your children is, I think it works.

Ben 44:32
So with them about your sight loss as well. So

Natasha 44:35
yeah, what I say to my children, and East alone, I’ve always used I might be blind, but I can still be your mommy because a lot of times, like if they’ve gone out and they were like, Oh, I wish you could see you know what I’m wearing or what I look like and I like I know. I know. You’re beautiful. Anyway, I know. They’re just and I’ve always said Don’t forget, I might be blind, but I can always still be your mommy.

Zenny 45:05
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Rsbc unseen podcast. We hope you enjoyed it and we will see you in the next one.