Sounds that way to me too. If we all band together, maybe we can manage to overpower him.
Whenever Kindness Fails – Robert Earl Keen.
Happily, in our virtual environment, Stephen Hawking is as badass as Chuck Norris.
Stephen Hawking does not sleep. He waits.
Good grief. Shouldn’t you be off killin’ them raghead sumbitches? After all, the holy land needs rescuin’ from the Islamists! I mean, a manly man’s man like you? Get to work!
What’s your first resort?
Well, not Disney World. Fight Club?
Despite the derailment of this thread, I thought I’d answer this because I do know one well enough. My little sister says that “slow” has the least amount of sylables (“I like short words”), is perfectly accurate, and very honest. “Developmentally delayed” is the PC descriptor of choice, because she has to be carefull about what she says in front of my mother-- who is hair-trigger offenderati about it, and is convinced my sister is fragile as glass.
I can’t speak for a lot of people. My sister is VERY high functioning and will be able to live on her own. But, according to her, she finds the overly PC terms (handi-capable, differently-abled, etc) or “Special” insulting. But, she finds that if she uses less PC self-desciptors, people rush to correct her like she’s fishing for compliments.
“You are NOT slow! You’re just different!”
“Yes. Different in a way that is slower than other people.”
Sometimes I think she’s just being a teenager (she is 22 but mentally I’d peg her about 15 or so), and trying to push my mothers buttons by using these terms. However, I find it interesting that she is frank and accepting of her disability, and the un-PC names for it, yet my mother is not. Parents are far more sensitive than the kids themselves, I think.
On the specific word retarded: She doesn’t use the word to describe herself (as it implies someone more disabled than her), but isn’t offended by the term. My mom would take your head off.
I do, he said he wanted to be called Steve.
CMC fnord!
I think the real question here is: what do *boats *want to be called?
word.
I’m struggling right now with early intervention and the hope that my developmentally delayed daughter doesn’t become special…
Makes one wonder about the nature of karma, or god’s plan, or life’s a bitch. Is this payback for some school yard taunting, was I worse than the other kids but all of us did it, did I piss god off somehow so it became part of his plan my daughter has challenges, was my life finally going great and needed a counter balance, that which does not kill us makes us stronger or does shit just happen?
My thoughts are with you. I've woke up in the middle of night, and stared at my daughter and cried. So worried about what happens after me and her mother pass away. So worried about if something is bothering her and she cannot tell us.
A million thoughts, a billion worries.
And wonder what I did wrong, what I could’ve done differently, though I don’t regret having her, I wouldn’t change it for the world, she is mine.
I know this thread isn’t going to stop everyone from making cute little “retarded” quips. But maybe a couple people see that it does hurt some people they won’t do so.
Well , It’s the same as you Frank , I only speak when I have somthing important to say . I might throw some yapping jackass a scowl, But even words are rarely necessary when dealing with gutless wonders . Like I say , with a pal like Jesus , you have to learn to excercise some modicum of self control.Even when slipper wearing yard queens are thinking your drunk or ready to kill every *raghead * ? in the world . This threads been hijacked enough . Something else to say boys ? Pit away.
When I read the post in question, I really didn’t see him using an analogy involving a retarded child just to be “cute” or throw it in just for fun to make fun of retarded children.
I thought his making a distiction between a “normal” child and a retarded child was done for a specific reason.
He was answering this question:
“What sort of costs are really involved with owning a (small, say) sailboat? A paint job every once in a while, a berth, insurance… it doesn’t sound that bad. And is a sailboat more or less a ‘money pit’ than a motorboat?”
He answers
“The berth and insurance alone can suck up tens of thousands a year. Then there’s maintenance; think of all the work you have to do on a house, and then imagine that it’s rocking back and forth on its foundations all the time. Of course, in a marine environment, everything that can corrodes…
I’d say that sailboats cost more to own and maintain than powerboats of comperable size. A powerboat is basically a hull, a motor or two and a rudder; maybe a bow thruster on a larger boat, plus some fairly pricy electronics for an off-short boat, and charts you need to update every few years. A sailboat has all kinds of tackle, rigging, lines, sails, jib extensions, et cetera…
The biggest cost of owning a large boat (larger than you can trailer behind a standard 3/4 pickup) isn’t monetary, but the time required. It’s like having a small, retarded child that needs constant supervision and care, lest it get tangled up or make a mess of itself.”
So I thought he was trying to explain why a sailboat really does require more upkeep and cost than a regular powerboat.
And he didn’t come right out and say it, but I took his use of adding “retarded” to his analogy to contrast maintenence of the the two types of boats to that of having a “normal” child, and that of having a retarded child.
When parents are caring for a small child, they know in time the level of supervision and assistance that child will need will decrease in time. They are very high maintenence in the beginning, but as they grow, they learn to dress themselves, bathe themselves, can find things on their own to amuse themselves, make friends and go to school, etc.
But when caring for a retarded child, they realize that the level of supervision and assistance that child will need may not decrease much in time. They may always need help dressing, eating, bathing, etc. Non retarded children are expected to one day be fully independent of their parents. Retarded children may never get to that point.
So I felt his analogy was to show the difference, one boat requiring an expected level of maintenence, the other requiring a much higher, much longer term maintence.
It might have been phrased a bit more politely, but would you agree that an analogy comparing the role of parents lives of a retarded child to the role of parents of a non-retarded child is useful?
I can understand why you may have cringed when reading the particular quote, but when you look at the point the poster was trying to make, I really don’t think he was trying to insult a class of people. I think he was acknowledging that people who care for retarded children have a much more difficult task than those who care for a non retarded child.
(I hope my use of “normal” or “non-retarded” was not offensive. I really didn’t know how else to phrase it.)
Is that so?
That was great!
I’m not sure about that. This exact conversation was happening twenty years ago (I remember because my mom is a school psychologist - er, excuse me, “psychoeducational consultant” (yes, she says that with a :rolleyes: herself) and she is kept closely in the loop of PC language by the school board.) Twenty years ago, it was determined that “retarded” was out and “cognitively disadvantaged” was in. And then “cognitively disadvantaged” was out and “cognitively challenged” was in. And then that was replaced by “differently abled;” I think they’ve landed on “special needs” - resulting in the situation that it is impossible to distinguish between the kids at the bottom of the IQ spectrum and the kids at the top.
I think there’s something about “retarded” that makes it persist significantly more than other words that have been replaced by more PC versions. The fact that it upsets parents of [PC term]kids would usually be enough for me to drop it; however, there really is no replacement, since it refers to such a broad diversity of things that the casual speaker can’t know. It’s exactly analogous to using “Asian” to refer to someone of undetermined Asian heritage.
I have a very hard time with this because I always go far out of my way to avoid “offending” anyone. (Perhaps this makes me one of the much-decried PC police, and therefore my comments are unworthy of consideration. But as I don’t criticize anyone else’s use of language except to clarify my communication with them, I might get a bit of credibility that way.) I wish people wouldn’t use the word “oriental” to describe people; I choose carefully between “black” and “Black” and “African-American” depending on the context; I happily use whatever hyphenated-American terms people choose, and in Canada I use the “Canadian-born XXX” construction which is generally preferred here. I accommodate to the Nth degree … and I still don’t know what to do about “retarded,” because it is serves a very useful and necessary purpose (as outlined above).
To the OP: did you have a problem with the metaphor that he used, or just with the choice of words? (i.e. would it have been okay if he had said “It’s like caring for a child who is developmentally delayed” or “a child with Downs syndrome”?) This is an important distinction.
If your problem is with the word, and my alternatives would have been acceptable, I ask you what word should have been used in its place?
If your problem is with using that particular metaphor, I can’t support you, I’m afraid. It is not racist to acknowledge the reality of racism; it is not sexist to acknowledge the reality of sexism. The comment in question was merely acknowledging the reality of raising a [PC term]kid, and if there’s no acceptable PC term, then by definition, any term you use is going to be unacceptable to someone.