To hate the word 'underprivileged'

[fackinell]

It's been used a lot on Children in Need tonight. It sounds so old fashioned and patronising. I much prefer 'additional needs' which shows a person is in need of something extra. Underprivileged is right up there with 'handicap' for me; which I was informed by my senior SCO was from a time when some disabled children were sent out to beg. Am I alone in hating this?

I honestly see where you are coming from disadvantaged underpriviliged (sp) special needs is labelling human beings but I do think these words are short and to the point and everybody knows what they mean especially with charities like C I N it gets their message across, fwiw I have worked for C I N projects over the years and these children dont have the best lives I think we need to support and help them to not be these words but it isn't always possible

Nobody seems to have any other words to suggest so maybe that's the problem. Nobody can think of any. Well, whatever terminology they decide to use, they do amazing work to help kids.

yes they do and maybe we have to accept some not all of these words, and words have moved on from crippled waifs etc so that has to be a positive, when I first stated school a million years ago i was crippled when I left i was disabled

The trouble is if you make the object of fundraising sound too, well, ordinary, then you've lost the sympathy factor. And the object is to raise money.

"Additional needs" could be anything. "Special needs" excludes children who have suffered in terms of life experiences.

I agree that "underprivileged" doesn't really work either but then I don't suppose you can ever have a real benchmark of what exact expectations a child might have in life.

WooWooOwl I definitely do consider those things I mentioned should be basics. But the point I was trying to make is that a lot of people don't realise how "privileged" or "advantaged" they are. I'm not trying to say people should accept less, or standards should be driven down in any way, but that people should sometimes count their blessings and realise how much worse off than them others are, and also realise a lot of their success is probably down to good fortune as much as anything else.

For example, I come from a background where no-one went to university, my parents are working class, and while we weren't poor we struggled a fair bit and certainly had no connections or influence to draw on. But I went to university and became a lawyer in a top London firm. Some might say that was all down to their own hard work, I say it was down to a lot of good luck!

The good fortune to have been born to loving parents who valued education, to be intelligent, healthy and able bodied, to be born in the UK where these things are possible, and then after that a lot of things that happened by chance or a snap decision, and could have easily gone another way. I feel very advantaged.