The biggest thing just about any parent wants for their child is for them to be able to live independently.
To know that your child is prepped and ready for their adulthood and their foreseeable future is always a huge relief for a parent – it is like taking a massive burden off their shoulders.
For parents of disabled children, this worry is only doubled.
This is because there is only so much we can do to take care of our disabled children, and to train them for a future without us, or to even be independent.
We would have to hope and rely on infrastructure and social systems to take into account the disabilities of our children, so they may access resources they need and travel with as much independence and dignity as possible.
So what happens when the promised support you expect doesn’t exist?
For Nicole, the mother of this 6-year-old child, she is not taking this situation lying down.
Her son, Kayden Kincle, was born with omphalocele – a condition where the baby’s internal organs develop outside the body.
This meant Kayden had to undergo dozens of surgeries to correct this condition from the moment he was born.
And if this in and of itself wasn’t bad enough, while the boy was in his mother’s womb his umbilical cord wrapped itself tightly around his legs and feet, requiring that he underwent double amputation.
In spite of all this, the boy still possesses a fighting spirit and has not only survived but thrived.
A video of him learning how to walk with prosthetics when he was two years old went viral, and he became an inspiring internet sensation with his bright personality.
Now in first grade, he is making headlines once more, but for a less positive reason.
As a disabled child, he is entitled to have the school district provide him with a school bus that will pick him up with a wheelchair lift.
This is because although he hardly uses the wheelchair, the steps on a normal bus are still too high for him, so he relies on the wheelchair to get on and off a bus.
However, on the first day of school, the bus never showed up.
Furious, Nicole drove her son to school herself and then began calling the school incessantly, only to find out later the school hadn’t provided a bus for her son’s return trip home either.
According to the bus company she dialed, they didn’t have a bus that had a wheelchair lift, and so they were not picking her son up.
The school itself was of no help either, initially promising a temporary solution, only to fall silent and refuse to respond to her inquiries.
She has not received any information since then.
Throughout all this, Kayden has proven to not let this whole situation bog him down, and remains one of the most social and interactive students in his year.
This has inspired his mother, who plans to relentlessly pursue the authorities until her son is provided for.