Miles Ambridge is visibly segregated from his classmates in his Grade 2 photo. (Photo via The Province)
Class
photos usually end up on the family fridge, but the snapshot Anne
Belanger received of her son’s Grade 2 class in New Westminster, B.C.
went straight back into the envelope in which it arrived.
The mother of Miles Ambridge was heartbroken to see
that her seven-year-old boy, who has spinal muscular atrophy and, as a
result, must use a wheelchair, had been placed, chair and all, far off
to the side from the rest of his classmates.
This physical distance emphasizes the fact that he’s not included in the group, Belanger tells the Province, and the photo serves as the most egregious example so far.
“Look at the angle that he was in,” she says, referring to the way Miles is clearly craning his body toward the other children to get closer to them in the shot. “He’s ostracized. He wants to be part of the gang so much.”
Even worse, she says, the placement decision was made by the adults who organized the photo.
“Kids can be cruel but this comes from adults, which is even worse,” Belanger adds. “Adults should know better.”
The adults who raise Miles certainly do. Since he was diagnosed with his degenerative condition at 13 months, Miles has been wheelchair-bound. Spinal muscular atrophy, notes the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, is a disease that compromises the nerve cells in the spinal cord, eventually causing a breakdown in the body’s muscular system.
Because Miles has been dealing with all the challenges in his life so well, even smiling ear-to-ear in the class shot, his father is even more incensed by the way the photographer and school treated him.
“For some reason it makes me feel even worse that he’s so happy in the picture,” Don Ambridge tells the Province. “I think it’s because he’s still innocent ... He’s still naive to how other people can treat him.”
"It broke my heart," he adds in an interview on CBC Radio One's On the Coast.
In order to preserve a bit of that innocence, even temporarily, Ambridge and Belanger have decided not to show the photo to their son.
But that doesn’t mean they’re keeping the image under wraps. Since receiving the photo, the parents have lashed out at the school and the photo company, Lifetouch, demanding that both coordinate a re-shoot.
While Herbert Spencer Elementary has responded to the criticism (by putting all the blame on the photo company), it’s taken a little longer for Lifetouch to acknowledge any responsibility.
This physical distance emphasizes the fact that he’s not included in the group, Belanger tells the Province, and the photo serves as the most egregious example so far.
“Look at the angle that he was in,” she says, referring to the way Miles is clearly craning his body toward the other children to get closer to them in the shot. “He’s ostracized. He wants to be part of the gang so much.”
Even worse, she says, the placement decision was made by the adults who organized the photo.
“Kids can be cruel but this comes from adults, which is even worse,” Belanger adds. “Adults should know better.”
The adults who raise Miles certainly do. Since he was diagnosed with his degenerative condition at 13 months, Miles has been wheelchair-bound. Spinal muscular atrophy, notes the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, is a disease that compromises the nerve cells in the spinal cord, eventually causing a breakdown in the body’s muscular system.
Because Miles has been dealing with all the challenges in his life so well, even smiling ear-to-ear in the class shot, his father is even more incensed by the way the photographer and school treated him.
“For some reason it makes me feel even worse that he’s so happy in the picture,” Don Ambridge tells the Province. “I think it’s because he’s still innocent ... He’s still naive to how other people can treat him.”
"It broke my heart," he adds in an interview on CBC Radio One's On the Coast.
In order to preserve a bit of that innocence, even temporarily, Ambridge and Belanger have decided not to show the photo to their son.
But that doesn’t mean they’re keeping the image under wraps. Since receiving the photo, the parents have lashed out at the school and the photo company, Lifetouch, demanding that both coordinate a re-shoot.
While Herbert Spencer Elementary has responded to the criticism (by putting all the blame on the photo company), it’s taken a little longer for Lifetouch to acknowledge any responsibility.
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