I’ve already recommended the entire Invisibilia-podcast series in one of these podcast recommendations, and I do suggest you listen to each and every show. But here’s a specific episode which is just mind-blowing. At the end, the hosts had me dancing in the street (was outside taking a walk while listening) as I answered YES to the question:

Do you think if we changed our expectations blind people could come to see?

The episode is called: How to become batman and centers around Daniel Kish, a blind man (since he was 13 months old) who since early age uses echolocation to get around.

When I listen to how his mom raised him, I got really quiet, and looked deep within at how I raise and have raised my children.

Paulette Kish faced the question if she was going to raise him like a seeing child, allow him to explore his world with very few restrictions on him for blindness?

Now. My children are not physically blind. So that specific question has never been a question for me to ponder. But still, as I listen to this show, and hear the story of Daniel, and of his mother, I cannot help but wonder what I am blinding my children to, by the expectations I place upon them? And correspondingly, what am I opening them up to, by other expectations? Are these expectations intentional or unintentional from my part? How aware am I of my expectations, and the result that can spring from them?