As the previous section indicated, it’s possible to argue that this case example has no place here at all: whether or not Jenny is ill-advised to enter into this relationship with Stefan, one might argue, it really has nothing to do with issues of human growth and development. In a way, we would agree with this.

However, in the chapter ‘Access to Adulthood’ (Chapter 9, HGD: 199), we argued that people with disabilities may face particular challenges and obstacles that get in the way of them following what, for able-bodied people, would be seen as the normal developmental pathway. See Chapter 8 (HGD: 177) and consider in particular Erikson’s idea that the challenges of early and middle adulthood are isolation versus isolation, and generativity versus stagnation. Most people, for instance, would see having a job and finding a partner as being normal parts of becoming an adult (and many of us have several tries at each of these, including quite possibly some very questionable choices, before we find a job and a partner that suits us). Jenny has difficulty finding work, and difficulty finding a partner, and she’s causing anxiety to her mother and Gloria (two women who do genuinely seem to care for her) by attempting to do the latter. But should people with disability stay at home with no partner and just be cared for by others?

We suggested that people with disabilities may sometimes be up against not only the particular challenges resulting from their impairments, but obstacles put in their way by a society that is reluctant to grant them equal status as adults: an aspect of the social model of disability (HGD: 201), which argues that disability is created by society (that is: it is a social construction) rather than being intrinsic to the individual. There are lots of instances of stereotyping/prejudice/discrimination here, from the fact that shop assistants talk over Jenny’s head, to the fact that Gloria and Libby feel the need and the right to have weekly discussions about how she is getting on. Although it doesn’t exactly say it, Gloria’s email, we suggest, implies some discomfort with the idea of Jenny having sex at all, which is a fairly common kind of prejudice. And both Gloria and Libby both seem very uncomfortable also with the idea of Jenny as a parent (again, for most of us, something that is an important element of adulthood).

Gloria is actually only a few years older than Jenny, but the email correspondence sounds more like two people of the same generation discussing someone younger. The age difference may be small between Gloria and Jenny, but, unlike Jenny, Gloria is a parent and is in the world of work, and in that sense, even if not in terms of age, she and Libby are alike in having being able to acquire two important characteristics of what is generally recognised as adulthood (see Chapter 8, HGD: 177). Having sexual relationships is another characteristic of adulthood, but Jenny has never had a job, is not a parent, and is only now for the first time in her first sexual relationship. The transition (HGD: 150) from childhood to adulthood has been much more difficult for her than it would have been if she did not have a disability. In Chapter 9 (HGD: 218), we quoted a person with learning disabilities who said ‘people think we’re forever children’. This can be applicable to people with physical disabilities too.

Also, Gloria and Libby both say that Jenny ‘can’t look after herself’. It would be more accurate, though, to say that there are some things she can’t do for herself (in her case things like dressing and bathing), which to varying degrees is true of everyone. We all rely on others to perform all kinds of task for us from fixing our plumbing to growing our food (see HGD: 217). The fact that Jenny can’t do some things that other people can do, really has no bearing on whether she can look after herself in the sense of making her own decisions.