My husband was raised by wolves.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My mother taught me that you don’t call people stupid. You can call an idea stupid. You can call an action stupid. But you do not call a person stupid. To do so is childish and inappropriate.

In my niave little mind, this was filed in the “What All Reasonable Adults Believe” folder, and is cc’d in the “What All Parents Teach Their Children” file.

I just got off the phone with my mother-in-law, and man, it everything was about, “This stupid woman at work,” and “those stupid students at the university.” Her daughter’s boyfriend is “Dumbass Bobby.”

Argh!

I want to tell her that this is not how grown-ups talk, that name-calling demeans the speaker more than the victim. Instead, I just murmur in faux sympathy, and hope she’ll be off the phone before the news starts.

I wouldn’t choose to socialize with someone who called people “stupid,” but this is family so I have to grit my teeth and put up with it, and it galls me. Thankfully, my husband realized on his own, somehow, that namecalling is not acceptible–or maybe she taught him to “do as I say, not as I do,” or curbed her language around him when he as young. I wish she would use similar restraint when speaking to me. :frowning:

sigh Well, she’s not a bigot or anything, so I guess I should just count my blessings.

2

Oh yeah, well you’re just a big poo-poo head.

3

Somehow my sister seems to have been reared by a completely different set of parents than I was. I don’t know how it happened, she’s 7 years older and probably actually received better parenting than I did.

I keep being surprised by what comes out of her mouth.

4

The age gap, she was reared by different parents. I’m 7.5 years older than the next youngest in my family. For all intents and purposes I was reared as the only child of two hippies, while she and my littlest sister were reared as close knit siblings with yuppie parents and a semi mom (me).

I don’t know which is better, the kids got more kid socialization but less parental focus. I got to do a lot of non normal stuff simply because my parents weren’t experianced/busy enough to say no or push me to the side. But the kids had a family with more money.

Unfortunately, there is no real “This is what parents should teach their kids” file. If there was schools wouldn’t have to teach all sorts of “This is how we live in society” stuff. Fortunately, a lot of kids manage to become wonderful people even with horrible parents.

5

I’m afraid I have to disagree with the OP. There are stupid people. There are far more people with stupid beliefs (bigots, sexists, etc.) or who habitually say stupid things (George W. Bush), but stupid people most definitely do exist, and in the interest of honesty and accuracy, they should be called stupid.

Incidentally, I found the OP rather interesting because I’m not aware of having met anyone who was raised with such a rule. I can’t even begin to fathom refusing to socialize with someone because they referred to people as “stupid.” I guess I’ll file this under “you learn something new every day.”

6

I was brought up being told, “That’s stupid!” when I did something unwise or careless. My parents certainly didn’t mean to call me personally stupid, but that’s the message I got every time I heard it. When I had children, I swore not to do the same, and I even asked my own mother not to do it (she’s been wonderful about it - she never realized).

While I’m sure this has been good for my children’s self-esteem and even better for their manners, they now think “stupid” is a mild obscenity. This really limits my choice of exclamations while driving (since I’ve tried very hard to eliminate the actual obscenities), and I’m reduced to muttering nonsense syllables under my breath.

7

pestie, I said that when a polite person speaks, he does not refer to people as “stupid.” I never said people weren’t stupid. You just don’t say so. Just like you don’t call attention to a fart and you don’t point and laugh loudly at people whose socks don’t match. These are not things that grown-ups do.

And realize that this comes from a person who considers wearing clean sneakers and her nicest T-shirt “dressing up” and spends Friday evening and all day Sunday playing games with her friends. I don’t think I’m the most mature person in the world, nor am I some formal stick-in-the-mud–I just put a certain amount of stock in being nice. You can get away with name-calling on the elementary-school playground, but eventually I expect people to move beyond that.

It’s suprising that you’ve never heard this rule before. Ever notice what happens when a poster calls another poster stupid anywhere outside the Pit?

I don’t know what you consider a stupid person. If I was defining stupid, holding stupid beliefs and to consistently say stupid things would make the cut–there’s some deeper level of stupidity? Anyway, my MIL’s definition of a stupid person seems to be someone who does anything that causes her any sort of inconvenience or just irritates her, so who knows, you might find this habit of hers objectionable as well. The way she spits out the word “stupid,” with such venom and vehemence, without any apology for her rudeness. . . It just makes me very uncomfortable.

It’s not like I go, “Hey, he just called that girl stupid! That’s it, I’m never talking to him again!” The nice thing about jerks is that they never hesitate to provide more evidence that, yes, indeed, they’re jerks. I simply find name-calling an excellent indicator of jerkitude.

Incidentally, I consulted my husband, and he said that, no, his mother never told him not to call people stupid, nor did she hesitate to refer to people as stupid when he was growing up. He says that at a certain point in his life (and, knowing him, I’m guessing it was probably well before the age of ten) he decided that he was not going to act like the people who were raising him. I’m grateful that he did, but what a horrible decision for a child to have to make. Maybe that’s why he’s odd in many ways–he had decided not to act like his parents and grandparents, but I don’t know if he ever had another strong role-model.

I must remember to call my own mother and tell her I love her. :slight_smile:

8

I really think that many (most?) people do not make this distinction. I agree with you and I have taught my own children this way, but from what I hear from other children (and from other adults) I don’t think that we are the norm.

I must ask you if you make another distinction, in which I find myself in the greater minority. I do not ever use the phrase “good girl” or “good boy” with my children. I tell them “you did a great job cleaning your room” rather than “good girl, you cleaned your room well.” For the same reasons, I never tell them that they are “bad.” I say “what you did was mean” or “what you said was thoughtless” but I have never said “bad girl” to one of my daughters. I think it is very clear to children whether we comment on their actions or on who we think they are.

9

I wasn’t raised with this rule, per se, but I have had my friends (peers) and teachers mention it time and time again. And the people on the board believe it too, as far as I know. You can insult their idea, just not them. More general, but the same idea.

10

My parents taught me not to insult people to their face, but made no bones about what I said about them behind their backs. Heck, I recall more than one occasion in the car where my mom called another driver a “stunned cunt.”

11

Oops, sorry for the egregious use of the “c” word in my last post. Thought I was in the Pit.

Looks like Podkayne has a point after all.