This is the one I come back to more than almost anything else.

Equality is everyone getting the same thing. Equity is everyone getting what they need to reach the same outcome.

It sounds simple. It isn’t simple to implement. And in practice, the gap between understanding this in theory and building systems that actually reflect it is where most of the difficulty lives — and where most of the frustration comes from, for families like ours.

What it looks like in practice

Giving every child the same worksheet is equality.

Giving one child a different version of the worksheet because they process information differently, or need it in a different format, or can’t access the standard one because of how their brain works — that’s equity. That’s also, occasionally, a fight.

I’ve had the conversation. More than once. The one where someone explains, with genuine goodwill and no apparent irony, that they can’t make an exception for one child because it wouldn’t be fair to the others.

This is the equality argument. Everyone gets the same thing, so it’s fair.

What it misses is that fair doesn’t mean the same. Fair means everyone has a reasonable chance at the same outcome. And when the starting point isn’t the same — when one child has barriers that another doesn’t — giving them identical provision isn’t fair. It just looks fair from the outside.

The access audit I now do automatically

I didn’t used to notice things. Before our son, I walked into places and used them. I didn’t think about:

  • Whether there’s a quiet space if it gets too loud
  • Whether the entrance is actually accessible or just legally technically accessible
  • Whether the event schedule has any flex in it for people who can’t predict how a day is going to go
  • Whether “family-friendly” means “children who behave in a way that resembles most children” or actually all children

Now I notice everything. Every venue that has a lift but puts it somewhere inexplicable. Every event that advertises itself as inclusive and has no idea what that would actually require. Every form that has no box for “our situation doesn’t fit your categories.”

I’m not angry about it, mostly. It’s just a different way of moving through the world now.

The thing about intent

Most of the things I’m describing are not done with bad intent. The form that doesn’t fit us wasn’t designed to exclude us — it just wasn’t designed with us in mind, which is a different problem but not necessarily a malicious one.

Intent matters. It also doesn’t fix the outcome.

The ramp that was added to satisfy a legal requirement but is too steep for practical use was probably added with good intentions. The good intentions don’t help someone who can’t use it.

What helps is being asked. Being included in the design process rather than accommodated afterwards. Being treated as someone whose perspective on accessibility is relevant — which it is, because we use it, and we know things that people who don’t use it can’t fully know.

What I want more of

I want less “is there anything we can do to help” asked afterwards, and more “how do we design this so it works” asked at the start.

I want less “we’ll try our best” and more “here’s the process we have.”

I want organisations to genuinely understand that meeting the minimum legal requirement and actually being accessible are not the same thing.

And I want more people who don’t live this every day to know that equality, in the sense of identical provision, isn’t always equitable — and that arguing for different provision isn’t asking for special treatment.

It’s asking for a fair chance. Which is exactly what everyone else already has.