- Samantha Lackey's 3-year-old daughter, Stella, uses a wheelchair.
- Lackey said even product lines marketed as "accessible" often don't work for Stella.
- This is Lackey's story, as told to Kelly Burch.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Samantha Lackey. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Last year, my daughter, Stella, who was 2 at the time, was thrilled about trick-or-treating. Like most kids today, she wanted to look online for her costume. I was happy to see that retailers — including Target and Disney — offered costumes designed for Stella and kids like her who use wheelchairs to get around.
Stella has spinal-muscular atrophy type 1, a rare genetic disease. When she was diagnosed as an infant, we didn't know if she would ever sit on her own, let alone go trick-or-treating. But thanks to gene therapy, Stella is an energetic, mobile toddler, and is just as excited as any other kid to get her candy.
Unfortunately, when the costume arrived, it didn't fit Stella's wheelchair. It blocked her brakes, and she couldn't reach over it to turn her wheels. I shopped for a broom and used some portion of the costume to fashion Stella into a witch. This year, we had the same problem with an entirely different costume.
Many moms have gone viral making amazing homemade costumes for their kids in wheelchairs. It's something moms have done for years because they never had another option. But really, the burden of creating accessible products shouldn't fall on mothers.
I spoke up about the need for better options
Last year, when Stella's costume didn't fit her wheelchair, I reached out to Target, where we had purchased the costume. They were responsive and amazing, but they didn't have a solution to the problem.
This year, when yet another costume failed us, I called Target again. I connected with their accessibility team and showed them how the costume inhibited mobility or visibility on four different wheelchairs.
I understand creating accessible products is a challenging area for businesses. These products are very niche and disability is a wide spectrum. But at the same time, people with mobility aids shouldn't be grateful to pay a premium for a product that's going to make it difficult to move.
Costumes are part of a larger issue
A Halloween costume seems like a small concern — at least until you ask a child. But this is representative of a much larger issue for people with disabilities and their families. I am tired of buying overpriced, bad products that claim to be accessible.
I once bought Stella an expensive, accessible kitchen play set only to have to tear it apart myself for it to be truly functional for her. If I post about this online, people tell me I should be grateful that companies like Disney and Pottery Barn are paying attention to accessibility.
That's incredibly frustrating to me, especially coming from people who have all the options in the world at their fingertips. Wouldn't you be upset if the only option you had was the bare minimum?
We're eager to go trick-or-treating, no matter the costume
When I spoke with Target representatives, I noticed that no one on the team seemed to use mobility aids themselves. But if companies are going to serve people with disabilities, they need to invest in the individuals that use these products. And they need to realize that people of all ages use mobility aids, not just adults.
Like most 3-year-olds, Stella is counting down to the time for trick-or-treating. She'll be going dressed as whatever she's inspired to wear that day. I made her a butterfly costume that fits her chair, but now she's decided she wants to be Owlette from "PJ Masks," or maybe Catboy.
An adult with a disability gave me an important reminder: Stella deserves the flexibility to pick her costume on a whim just like kids without mobility aids. So we'll be following Stella's lead for Halloween.
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