Nancy Mairs On Being A Cripple Summary

In the essay “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs has multiple sclerosis and describes her life being a cripple. She talks about how the disabled is not accepted to society. She doesn’t want to be identified because she is disabled; she doesn’t want to be called “handicapped” or “disabled”. She wants to be named cripple but would never use it to call others. She feels as the cripple describes her the best, she doesn’t see herself as disabled or handicapped because she believe she is able to do things even though she have disease. She had an average life before being diagnosed. She “climbed trees, played hopscotch, jumped rope, skated, swam rode my bicycle,”…. and “walked down the aisle. I pushed baby carriages, changed tired in the rain, and marched for peace” (Mairs, 1993, p.40). Then at the age of twenty-eight she found out that she had multiple

Telling her life as a cripple she began to accept herself from the help of her family and the look of reality. Mairs is still a mother and is able to be there for her family. Her identity affects her condition because she lack the ability to do things she use to do with her family, and friends. This disease help her connect with to two other woman with the same disease. She sees them as ideal woman instead of woman “who lives on the glossy pages of dozens of magazines, seems to be between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five; her hair has body” (Mairs, 1993, p.45). Both woman continues to live their lives, giving Mairs the ability to believe anything is possible. Since she is cripple other see her as an individual that can do basic things such as ripping checks from a checkbook, and changing in a dressing room. “Grocery clerks tear my checks out of my checkbook for me, and sales clerks find chairs to put into dressing rooms when I want to try on clothes”(Mairs, 1993, p.43). She feels as though people feel bad for her. I could only relate to her when I had a