I also rushed my child off lickety split, but as soon as I left the store, I reconsidered. Would the man have wanted me to do that? Wouldn’t it have been more polite for me to say, “Why don’t you say hello to the man?” instead of allowing my feeble attempt to spare the man’s feelings to insinuate to my son that there was something shameful about the man’s size. I just didn’t want the man to be embarrassed, but I think he would have been less so if I had said, “Yes, that man IS big! Why don’t you say hi?” It isn’t as if the man would just be finding out that others saw him as a big guy.

I mulled this over for hours that night because I felt terrible about it, and decided that I reacted incorrectly. People with disabilities have told me that they don’t mind at all if a child notices their missing hand (or whatever) and asks about it, but they don’t like to be whispered about or treated as if something is wrong with them.