Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body

Content Warning: Sitting Pretty uses identity-first language, rather than person-first language, when discussing disability and ableism. It also uses the terms “fat” and “cripple,” which are preserved only in direct quotations.

Rebekah Taussig expresses amazement at people discussing disability in the present, compared to her childhood, when it was an ignored topic. She first addressed disability on her Instagram account (@sitting_pretty) through “mini-memoirs.” The account name, and the book’s title (Sitting Pretty), illustrate “that [she is] moving around down here and doing just fine” (x). Taussig describes the book’s purpose: to share her experiences with new generations of people dealing with disabilities. She notes the power of stories and acknowledges she does not represent all people with disabilities.

Taussig describes her family background and how she was diagnosed and treated for cancer when she was 14 months old; she became paralyzed from the waist down when she was three. Her family didn’t modify their house for accessibility because “growing up in the Taussig family meant no wallowing, no time for grieving, and definitely no whining” (2). She did not use a wheelchair for several years and even slept in the top bunk of a bunk bed, on the top floor of the house.