To think actually what she did was not ok

[TryNOTTOworry1]

I go to a group for children with special needs, one mum is nice but at a group session she was talking about her dc (who has autism) she was saying how dc has meltdowns and she cannot do some things as dc as they will have a meltdown.

She said "I can't do X, y, z or dc will go spastic" she has never said this word again but it was like a pin had dropped in the room. I don't think she meant to say it but most of us are giving the mum a wide birth now.

She keep saying hello and trying to talk to us but I can just manage a hello and a wave. She's not come back since that day and although I feel a bit mean for not talking engaging more with her, what she said was just awful.

Aibu?

I have no time to read the whole thread but I have seen disabled people using potentially very offensive words for themselves and the disease itself. Since She is the primary carer, there is a chance this is the way she deals with it all. By giving a peice of shit about how she at least talks about it IYSWIM? Take off your judgmental pants and let her get on with her life. Not your problem.

She shouldn't have used it, but for goodness sake, you're adults, couldn't one of you have said 'I'd rather you didn't use that word' instead of turning your backs on her like schoolchildren. She probably feels isolated enough if she is struggling with her child

The entire group is ostracising a mother of a sn child for using a questionable word? No she shouldn't use it but she probably didn't mean anything by it. Your behaviour on the other hand is calculating and bitchy. You and the rest come off worse if we're judging

YABI and I have to agree with the above. You are adults, so why not act like it? Why on earth didn't you simply ask her not to use that word and move on? After all, she only did it once and is otherwise pleasant according to you. Of course, if she had kept using that kind of language you would be justified in giving a wide berth.

However, instead of being sensible you all decided to act like playground bullies and ostracise her. This from parents of children with SN attending this group for SUPPORT. She is probably feeling awful now- your later post implies she was immediately mortified by what she said. I hope you and the others in your group never make a mistake. As a PP said, if I was judging I'd say you and your group come off as far more unpleasant than this mum who made a mistake (once).

Sorry I haven't rtft but surely one of you could speak to her and say that some of you had been offended by the word? It's incredible unpleasant to all be avoiding her.

You do realise this us bullying behaviour. Yes she used a word that is offensive to many and it sounds like she immediately realised her mistake.

It would have be much easier to say I'm sure you didn't mean to cause offense but the use of the word spastic is very outdated.

However no..... much easier to have no decency and ostracise her. I hope the group facilitator realises what's happening before the woman feels she can't come to group.

Personally, I don't like the word and wouldn't use it but I wouldn't isolate and ostracise someone who did as a one-off slip up, felt awful about it and attempted to make amends. FFS she came to the group for support! She will have enough challenges to deal with as the parent of a special needs child without grown adults who she turned to for support acting like they are still in the playground! How would you feel if your child one day inadvertently upset someone and was treated like this by their peers? Show some empathy and compassion, we all make mistakes.

its like when people say god what a nuttter or nut case .am i to be offended at everyone who says this because my hubby got serious phsychiatric problems .i would fall out with a lot of people .

People who say that long ago it used to be ok to call people morons or spaz or retard. I cannot agree that it was ever considered ok to insult others or put them down, regardless of the words used. My mother would tell me off for calling people 'stupid' or 'foolish' - nothing to do with whether the words are acceptable, more to do with whether it's ok to insult other people or just make derogatory comments about them. The word 'fat' is acceptable as a word but I don't let my dd say things like 'oh, look at that fat woman'.

Using words as medical descriptions is completely different from using them as insults.

For that poster who uses nasty words to her dog, it's not ok to call a dog a nigger, regardless of whether he is a jack russell or not. You shouldn't insult your dog, his breed has nothing to do with it.

My youngest daughter has Cerebral Palsy, "spastic" is still current usage and not offensive when used to describe hypertonia (muscle spasm, stiffness and rigidity) in people with cerebral palsy, Drs and physios use it all the time. There are three main physical types of CP, spastic (hypertonic); athetoid (uncontrolled movements) and hypotonic (lack of tone/floppy). People can exhibit a combination. Most people are more familiar with spastic CP so when describing my daughter's condition to new HCPs I will often say "She has CP with severe global delay but she is hypotonic, not spastic."

It is possible that the poor woman was using the term in a casual construction "go spastic" but accurately, not perjoratively. Spasticity usually gets worse when people have over-exerted themselves or are distressed.

The fact that she is funny and sarcastic suggests that maybe she does use a degree of black humour, I have some sympathy. My dad was great but always jokingly called me "Fred", "Face-ache", "Madam Mim" rather than "Princess" and the like. When I whined about my brother saying something horrible, he'd always respond by mock-rebuking him with "Don't mock the afflicted!" I have no disabilities and I always knew it was affectionate. When I got into Cambridge my mum was furious that all he said was "Well you can't be as stupid as you look.", but it was obvious that he was thrilled beyond belief and was joking. Unsurprisingly I tend not to be saccharine when describing or responding to compliments about my own children. When people gushed about DD1 as a baby I'd sometimes respond as my dad would have "Thank you, she's not sooo bad, I think we'll keep her". Naturally I occasionally did the same about DD2 without thinking, - until the day her two Physios both gave me a very strange look and it dawned on me that it could possibly be taken literally given DD2's severe disabilities.

I adore both my girls and do praise them both liberally to their faces and we are very close. I also affectionately take the piss out of them at times which they find funny. I still often mix deprecation when communicating their successes. "She's great and doing really well at work [DD1], she's still a messy bastard though! You wouldn't believe it!"

Using spastic as an insult is awful, but there are arguments for reclaiming words descriptively. Even if it was a bad slip, she doesn't deserve to be ostracised, she clearly picked up on her own misjudgment. DD2 is as three dimensional, robust and complex as her sister and other people; just because she has disabilities, I don't feel that she can only be talked about or to in speshul, cotton-wool tones. I'll happily tell her 1:1 at school that she has been a little toad if she has.

She may have used a word that offended people but you all sound like a bunch of judgmental bullying bitches.

Hope she finds support from another source, she sure as hell won't get it from you lot, poor woman.

The word Spastic or to describe someone as 'spastic' was just a term used to describe some of the symptoms of CP, it was never a derivative of anything offensive, it just became so because people started shortening it or using it in a derogatory way, hence partly why The Spastic Society changed its name. I think you're being really hard on this mum, I would hate to unintentionally offend someone and be outcast like that.

For crying out loud. She was using gallows humour, thinking she was in a safe space. You guys didn't appreciate the joke. Fine. that should have been the end of it.

I saw several references on an internet forum to "the R word". I asked a friend which word they were referencing and she said Retard. I had no idea this was now an offensive term, I hadn't used this word since childhood when it was common in the playground as a mild insult, and I'd never thought about the origins.

I don't think I'd used it or thought about that word in decades, but since I found out it is now a Bad Word it has been in the forefront of my mind, "don't say that word, don't say that word!!!!" , I would be mortified to use an offensive word, but unfortunately now I'm aware of it it keeps popping into my mind :(

If it does slip out one day, e.g. when I'm anxious or nervous and gabbling, I hope I don't get socially ostracized....

I think it's horrible to ostracize this lady over what was probably a mistake. Either ignore it or raise it with her, don't just blank her, she will have no idea what she has done.

Spasticity is not just associated with cerebral palsy. My (adult) DD has MS and spasticity is a common feature of MS.
I can't see DD having the energy to be 'offended' by an inappropriate use of the term. I think she would just assume the person was not very well informed - or perhaps that her child does indeed experience spasticity when distressed.

Of course its not ok to use language like that. But whats wrong with explaining to her that such language is offensive rather than a group of adults ostracizing her? If it was a recurring problem, I would ignore her too as I have no time for bigots, but as a one off...no way would I be behaving like a schoolyard bully.

Also it doesn't make it right, but a lot of people don't actually realize how offensive some stuff is. For example (and I am preparing to be flamed for this) I regularly used the word spaz at school, I didn't know its connections, to me it mean...idiot. Obviously once I came out of my own little bubble I understood I had been wrong to use such language in the way I did, but as noone ever said anything, I did not know until I came across a blog on the internet (believe it or not...) which taught me a few things about respect and offensive terms.

'to me it mean...idiot.'

MEANT.

I was brought up in Canada and that word isn't used with any negative connotations. If she was brought up abroad, she may not even know it's bad.

Same here in the US.

OP, quite a different situation, but you've reminded me of a horrible experience I had as a new mum. I was on the periphery of what turned out to be quite a cliquey group, but as the first by quite a long way to give birth I had already been going along to a stay and play for a while when four of them turned up. I went over to chat for a while, and one of them said something about having been a size six prior to the baby, and I stupidly said 'really?' She was about a size 14 at this point, as was I, and my slip of the tongue was genuinely from a sort of amazement that anyone was a size six and just my standard response when I'm half preoccupied with keeping an eye one of the DCs. I realised how it came across straight away and apologised and explained what I meant, but from the point on they would get up and walk away as I approached. It was only when I cut them loose and stopped giving a fuck that they'd used one verbal mishap as a cue to ostracise me that I began to see them for what they really were.

Please cut her some slack - I can almost guarantee that she will never use that word in public again, and if she did in your hearing, then give it up as a lost cause.

As a previous poster has said, the words spastic/spaz, retard and eppy have been commonplace though not necessarily used by many of us in our formative years. We're in a process of cleaning up our language and not everyone is on the same page yet. I'm sure the woman in your OP wouldn't use a word like Paki even in a darkly humorous context, but offensive words relating to mental health haven't fully filtered out yet. Do give her a chance.

"She keeps saying hello and trying to talk to us"

What incredibly, incredibly shitty behaviour to intentionally ostracise someone who made a mistake - and not exactly a hanging offense, either - and is trying to be friends. Horrible.

I know it's been said, but if she was raised in North America or if the word came into her usage there, then she won't have meant anything offensive by it at all. It's not that people there use it to mean "disabled" and just don't care that it's offensive, it's that in America it has no connotations of disability at all. The etymology from "spastic" as it relates to CP isn't even on the radar, it's just used as a nonsense kind of word - it has connotations of chaos, energy and goofiness, not disability. It is quite often used with affection about high spirited children or animals or party animal types.

I'm not saying that it's okay to use it once you know it's offensive, but using it when you don't know how hurtful it is, or letting it slip when you've been used to using it as a fairly benign, affectionate term for someone who's going wild for some reason (careful not to say 'going crazy' or 'going mad' or 'going nuts') is certainly not justification for bullying and excluding someone.

In the very rural part of the UK where I live the dialect frequently uses "spastic" "spaz" "spoon" "mong" and until I was about 21 I had absolutely no idea they were referring to SN or offensive.... It was like calling someone a "wally" or a "twit" I now obviously never use them but it can be very hard to kick a habit of a lifetime so this woman has probably slipped up due to nerves. At the time she should have said "I can't believe I just said that, I'd like to apologise" but distancing from her is awful

It makes me sad though, to see how much TRUE IGNORANCE here is out there still and that most people don't even recognise it and even if they do, don't think it's worth acting on

It's pretty obvious that "most people" are neither failing to recognise the offensiveness of the term nor saying that it's not worth acting on. What they are very clearly saying is that yes, it's offensive, yes it's worth acting on, but the way to act on it would have been to talk to the mother at the time and let her know it's not acceptable. They're simply saying that failing to do that and ostracising the woman instead is not the way to deal with it. That seems to me a perfectly reasonable reaction and in no way demonstrative of ignorance.

As the mother of a son with spastic CP (as opposed to "floppy" CP not sure what the medical definition of that is), I would have a word and explain how offensive it is and then leave it. Ostracising a woman from a group that she clearly found supportive makes you all far worse than her imo.

Agree with everyone else. She was wrong but you are being worse.

I don't think it's as common as we think on mn to know that words like spastic are offensive.

Silly example but I've been doing Hairspray with my Year 7s (11-12 year olds) and I gave them a section of dialogue to rehearse that included the phrases 'plastic little spastic' and 'I love Negro day'. Before they started I gave them context of 1960s USA and explained that the words and actions were seen as acceptable then but that obviously they shouldn't go around using them now just because they'd seen them in a drama lesson. The children were shocked at the use of Negro but didn't pick up on spastic being unusual. Apparently they use it anyway. When I asked them what they thought it meant they said 'silly'. Makes me wonder if a whole generation are growing up being offensive without even knowing it.

Obviously, knowingly using words like spastic is disablist but I think it's both more widespread and more forgivable than racism or homophobia. For 2 reasons:

1. It's a newer offence. There are far more people around who either don't know the origins of disablist terms or do know them but grew up with them so much that they slip out sometimes.

2. A lot of the words that can cause offense genuinely do have dual meanings - either medical ones in the case of physical disabilities and emotional/behavioural ones in the case of mental disability/illness. This isn't the case with racist or homophobic slurs; there's no ambiguity that those are definitely wrong. If I call someone a puffter, faggot, nigger, paki etc I am very definitely using vile and unacceptable language towards them. But if I say that I'm going mental, freaking out, having a meltdown, brainstorming some ideas etc then there is no suggestion of intended offence. Many words like that were used in the non ill/disabled context first so I wouldn't even say it was wrong to use them (brainstom and meltdown being good examples of words I have recently been told are offensive but, in my mind, very clearly aren't). That grey area means that clear disablist terms like spaz and mong end up being explained away too. Which is wrong but I don't know how quickly things will change.

So you're shunning a woman who was expressing how difficult she's finding her life atm with her SN child, because she made one verbal slip? Lovely.

Yes, I agree. I don't like the word. It's unpleasant and offensive. But it is entirely possible that this poor woman was using the word in a relevant medical context to describe how her sons body reacts during a meltdown. Maybe she comes from a part of the world where using that word isn't as 'frowned upon'. Maybe she's grown up with it being an acceptable word to use to describe a meltdown. She obviously didn't mean to cause offense by saying it, or she wouldn't have said it to a bunch of SN parents who would find it incredibly insensitive. The fact of the matter is you don't know what the deal is because you're all acting like the cast of Mean Girls and shutting her out.

This woman made a very, very small mistake. Pull on your big girl panties and gently tell her that you find the word offensive and would appreciate it if she didn't use it in the future. Be a grown up and stop acting like a bunch of school yard bullies.

Jeez-oh. I feel really sorry for her!

Wait, brainstorm is offensive? I thought that was some kind of business-speak. I suppose it refers to epilepsy? I thought it was used in a positive manner, brainstorming session for great ideas and so on. I've never heard it used negatively, but is the whole point to not co-opt a disease for any other use?

zzzzz, are you American or Canadian? I would be very interested to hear what an American or Canadian disabled person's opinion is. I'm American and I had never heard it as an insult - I'd never really heard spastic at all, but we used 'spaz' to imply fun and dancy. That's probably why I thought it had something to do with jazz. You'd apply it to yourself, and you would be in no way meaning to insult someone by applying it to them - more the opposite, implying they were a fun person to be around. But I suppose it could be like the brainstorm thing, and just not on to co-opt a word for even a positive connotation?

And while on the topic of cultural differences, I've seen 'going postal' used here and among other British groups that I typically think of reasonably socially conscious. Does the average Brit know what that term refers to? As an American who lived through the events in question I find it in rather poor taste, although understand it is in reasonably common parlance.