Ablesim on mumsnet

It has.

@anythinginapinch

Ah that paragraph jumped out at me. I only read point one out of the whole post 😮

I don’t agree. I’m certainly not quick to label things as racism, ableism etc. I’ve commented on the bisexual thread to say that preferences are not phobia.

No one would be allowed any opinions if every supposed ableist transphonbic, racist, sexist or ageist post was deleted.

This sounds very much like my FIL who said ‘you can’t say anything nowadays’ when he said something racist
snf was challenged on it.

Yep, I was blasted years ago for not going out to work full time, I was a single parent with a child with Down Syndrome and autism and claiming carers allowance and other associated benefits, you’d have thought I was the scum of the earth, apparently I should drive a daily 100 mile round trip to the nearest special needs child minder so I could work.

Completely agree, that thread is depressing.

Parents of children who are ND have it hard enough already without having to listen to quite frankly ignorant and uneducated people spouting absolute crap!

It isn’t acceptable whatsoever.

Well yes, I would say it was more the sense of entitlement about queue jumping than anything else.

No one would be allowed any opinions if every supposed ableist transphonbic, racist, sexist or ageist post was deleted.

People are very quick to use these terms, when in many cases the opinions aren't the labelled word.

See the current bi thread for an example.

The increase in diagnoses of ND mean that people will experience more and more issues. In mixed classes of 32 there are now usually at least 7-8 children with some sort of diagnosis ime. I wouldn't be waving them all to the front of the queue.

The poster you quote from was I believe being ironic.

Yeah that thread was depressing, not least because her child had only been waiting 'a few minutes'. As I said on the thread if they'd been stood there an hour I could understand the reluctance but if you've been there a few minutes wouldn't you happily give someone the benefit of the doubt?

The attitude on here is - 'there are way too many people with ASD and ADHD and most are probably faking it and they're getting all sorts of advantages that my kids aren't and costing the tax payer a lot of money'.

Goodness if they had any idea what ND kids and their parents go through they'd thank their lucky stars. Mine generally copes very well - but he hasn't had a friend for 6 years now, he hasn't seen anyone outside of school in that time and spends all his break times and lunch times alone - and for someone with ASD I consider him to be coping well because secondary school is brutal when you're ND. But he's got through without self harm, mental breakdown or school refusal so I'll take that.

I think it is important to keep threads up that are ableist though so people can point it out and give another point of view. Obviously there has to be limits but I think the discussion is important if you want to try to change views.

I agree. They can deal with ableism effectively if they choose to.

How do you define ableism please OP? Some of the threads mentioned above are safe spaces for people struggling and I'm not sure how denying them those spaces is kind or helpful so I'd like to understand exactly how ableism is defined.

Classism and attacking people on benefits for whatever reason are rife, as well as ableism. There are often comments attacking carers of disabled relatives, too.

There's also a tendency to suggest any child who doesn't fit the Mumsnet ideal of sporty, extrovert, doing "activities" and "hobbies" out of school, and instead is shy and upset by boisterous, noisy or aggressive children must be neurodivergent, which is not helping anyone.

There’s a lot of Ableism, transphobia, classism and misandry on Mumsnet. Basically- if you’re not a middle aged mum earning a decent wage, with NT children, you’re not welcome.

Another one consistently gobsmacked by the unmoderated ableism on this site, usually directed towards ND children.

Completely support you OP, the ableism on this site is a disgrace.

We must try to make our ASD children as normal as possible rather than making allowances for them.

But they aren't "normal" if you treat a person with autism the same as someone without it that's unfair.

I personally want people to understand I have difficulties and may need extra time, more detailed explanation, quiet etc

(In summary - the view seems to be that the three year old is probably faking it and if he isn’t why on earth is he out of the house without proper paperwork)

That's a completely inaccurate summary of that thread, which really undermines your post.

I find the ASD threads genuinely gobsmacking. Luckily, I think people are kinder in real life.

My takeaway points from the thread in question are:

1- We must try to make our ASD children as normal as possible rather than making allowances for them.

2- If our children require allowances others deem unacceptable (other people are allowed to decide what constitutes an acceptable allowance from one glance at a child) they shouldn’t be in that space at all.

3- As parents, we have to be on top form at all times and displaying award winning disability parenting skills (again, what that constitutes can be decided by others at a glance) despite surviving on 10 minutes sleep and some coffee fumes.

4- We must be open to constant criticism and await clueless people pointing out ‘learning opportunities’ for us and our DC. It’s for our own good.

I don’t necessarily want the shitty posts to be deleted because I’d rather know what people actually think than be unaware. It does make me angry and sad in equal measure though.

There are a lot of issues with this site - I agree about ableism and also the awful transphobia that is rife on the feminism threads, much of which goes unchallenged. I also see quite a lot of ageism, fatphobia, sexism, homophobia etc on here.

All these things come out of the woodwork when people are able to post anonymously on forums. The problem is that anonymity is also one of the advantages of mumsnet and why people can get support here with things like domestic violence and abuse - one of the big strengths of the site.

There are issues but I am unsure what mumsnet can do about it or if they care... I would be interested to see their response if they do read this thread.

I do report some posts, and many are deleted, but I find that there are two things that also happen.

One is they leave it up because it's being robustly dealt with and it's a learning opportunity.

The other is they don't agree with me that it's ableism. I think its because an individual post saying something might not seem much, but when there is thread after thread, or multiple posts through out a thread, taken as a whole, it's not a great place to be. So reporting one post probably doesn't capture it.

If you Google disability microagressions some of the examples are things that are often thread titles or things people say in responses.

I reported one in a thread about a son's "rude" girlfriend, who turned out to be rude because she was barely able to speak to the mum but could speak to her friends and boyfriend. This is a classic presentation of low profile selective mutism, a communication disorder, about which I am very knowledgeable, lecture, run training etc. However whether or not the poster's son's girlfriend had selective mutism (SM), another poster came on to say her grand daughter does have it and people misunderstanding it makes her sad for her granddaughter's future. A well known controversialist poster who probably considers herself "no nonsense, call a spade a spade" quoted this post with a comment about how these queer cold fish types destroy families.

I reported it; Mumsnet let it stand on (in my view) spurious grounds.

Totally with the points raised. Too many people on MN imply that ASD is used as a label to explain away poor behaviour and poor parenting. Please @mumsnet can we do something about this....