Resident service attendant Colin BatesColin Bates, a resident service assistant for people with mental disabilities and a student at Pennsylvania State University, reported his first-person account of his job on NPR's Weekend Edition." The clients he works with can be a handful, he says, but from them he has learned that it's OK to need help.
"It isn't enough to be what our society has dubbed as successful. What we really need are others around us engaging, nurturing, listening and willing to sacrifice their time and agendas. I don't care if you're the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company or a single mother with five kids. Nobody is completely self-sufficient and so, in that way, we are all helpless. We're helpless unto each other.
"The cool thing about the guys I work for is that they make their needs explicit. Things that take seconds for most of us, like changing socks, can take hours for them, but their vulnerability isn't a handicap so much as an example. Being with them, encouraging them — 'Yes, the socks are on! The socks are off!' — puts things into perspective."
He concludes, "I believe sometimes our vulnerability is our strength."
