Party, child with visible difference

[donttake]

Was 8 year olds birthday party on Saturday,
Some school friends, some out of school friends and some family were invited. First time doing a mixed party like that and the different groups kind of kept together so Dd was a bit pulled around but otherwise everything went great .

One of DD’s cousins who was at the party has a significant facial difference, purely physical and had no effect of their behaviour or abilities. I’ve had a message from a school friends mother saying thank-you for the party, dc had a great time etc but that she would have appreciated a heads up about dd’s cousin. That her dc were scared and upset and she doesn’t know how to deal with it so could I give advice.

I’m not being being unreasonable to think that’s outrageous, am I?

I have no idea what to reply

I actually at no point said that it was OK. I can only assume you skimmed rather than read my comment. What I said was that she may of asked because she wanted to explain it to her child. I was simply trying to provide a reason as to why she might of asked.

You are correct that it is absolutely perfectly normal and age appropriate when children become frightened of, or anxious about, obvious physical differences.

I do think that asking for a heads up was a bit insenstiive. But the other mother also asked for advice.

But virtue signalling is far more important than connecting with or educating anyone to some people. They just get a rush out of moral grandstanding, it makes them feel superior. By loudly proclaiming their virtue and attacking others, they reinforce their self-image as morally elite. It’s less about the cause and more about them looking good.

Sometimes it’s a cover-up. If someone’s unsure of their own worth, yelling about righteousness can drown out their doubts. Putting others down makes them feel taller.

It is also a type of emotional release, fuelled by social approval. There is a lot of this behaviour on mumsnet.

It is performative posturing and you will not get a decent, fair response to your question.

Studies on social media behaviour back this up: people get hooked on the rush of being “right” while tearing someone else apart.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024292118
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0213-3

This is the correct response imv

I’m really not sure what you’re asking me here! I’ve not mentioned treating a child like anything! Only the parent.

I do agree with @whynot2025 that there seems to be a type of performative outrage on this thread which, while reassuring to the OP that her shock is not unreasonable, does nothing to help her formulate a response that is not aggressive, offensive and risking ongoing problems within the group of friends/parents that her children will be in contact with for years to come.

@steppemum summed it up perfectly with "This women's attitude is awful, but the goal is to change it, to make her think, so that she approaches people differently and so that her child knows how to behave.
Calling her a cunt and blocking her will just confirm to her that she is in the right."

The book idea is a perfect response!

Yes, and this is what you proposed:

• corner the parent
• loudly berate her (and 'I wouldn't be nice about it')
• in front of her social group and children
• telling her:
• she's failing as a mother
• her children are being ruined
• she's a nasty human being
• her children will be nasty human beings.

In what possible world is that a proportionate response? The crime here is basically being clumsy or insensitive in a private text message to another adult.

You clearly don't believe adults are basically robust and can shrug off words: if you thought that, the text wouldn't be a big deal. You know this is the nuclear option and you are enjoying the blood-lust of moral condemnation. Every point above is crafted to maximise hurt and harm to the parent.

For what crime? You (presumably) think it's fair for the parent to wish she could have managed the situation better by addressing it earlier. You can't think it's wrong that she wants to do that well now.

The crime here is that the parent raised it with the aunt. i.e. difficult issues are fine so long as we don't mention them.

Unless you think that the very fact her children were (we are told) scared is what merits your response above. In which case you really must think you are a perfect parent if you think there is no possible mis-step you children could make that might put you on the receiving end of the social beating you are advocating.

The poster isn’t asking how your child would wish to be treated, they’re asking how you, as the parent of the child, would wish to be treated .

I agree with most of this, but not your point about raising it with the Aunt. I think difficult issues absolutely should be raised. But not in the way this woman did - essentially asking for a trigger warning on a child’s’ appearance due to disability is not the way to go. As I’ve said repeatedly on this thread, it is not the job of disabled people to educate others about theirs, or any other disability. There is plenty of literature out there and plenty of inclusive messages in childrens’ TV programming for parents to deal with disability and inclusivity without resorting to dehumanising the disabled child involved. Which is what she did no matter which way you look at it.

I’m assuming you’re talking about mine and one or two others’ responses to this poster. Mine was not ‘performative’ in any way. I am signficantly and obviously disabled myself, and was a disability advisor for a charity for a number of years, so I’ve seen it all. I’ve been at the receiving end of far more ableist and intrusive comments from adults than I ever had as a child. And for many years part of my job was dealing with the after effects of disabled children and adults being treated with the most appalling disrespect. But actually messaging someone to ask why there wasn’t a trigger warning on the invitation is on another level.

This is the part of @Shmee1988’s post with which I took issue:

is it possible that she's just asking what the childs condition is so that she knows how to explain it to her child? So that she can present facts? Just because her child was frightened doesn't mean she's not trying to teach inclusivity.

Despite a disclaimer that they didn’t agree with the womans’ behaviour, they were still attempting to justify it. There is no possible justification for asking for specifics about a health condition/disability. The details aren’t needed to present facts about disability and inclusivity to an eight year old. The basics that everyone is different and that you should look beyond the disability at the person themselves and be kind is appropriate, along with more and deeper exploration as they get older.

But I agree. Posters need to separate out their outrage that an adult could be so insensitive, from the fact that calling her out and alienating her as has been suggested on the thread, is counter productive to both her and her child adopting a different and more inclusive approach.

Thank you. And I'm also not saying that the way the parent handled it was good. It's the extremeness of the responses that I'm pushing back on, not the direction of them.

And while I can't know that parent's true motivations, I do think that having words beforehand is not always the wrong way. Knowing the issue ahead of time can, if handled well, mean that the child doesn't become the 'teachable moment' on the spot and reduce the chance of a hurtful (to the child) interaction.

The heart of this should be what's better for the child/ren involved. I guess in theory everyone on this board agrees with that. In practice, it feels like the depth of feeling is because an adult has transgressed adults social norms, which is a nice socially-licensed opportunity to stick the boot in. I think if posters really thought about what is better for the child, it is at the very least, not always as obvious. And what the parent did was, in that light, clumsy or hurtful but not evil, doesn't make the parent a monster, a cunt, an appalling person, etc worthy of the tarring and feathering being proposed (not by you).

Agree. I think I’m possibly coming at it from a different viewpoint being obviously disabled myself and very aware that right up to adolescence, my parents would attempt to ‘pave the way’ when meeting people for the first time. The fact that they did always came back to me - initially in the form of gleeful children actually telling me their parents had sat them down and told them I was disabled and they had to ‘be nice’ and later by friends thinking they were being ‘tactful’ in various situations.

The worst examples of ‘othering’ I have experienced, and also those of the clients I dealt with in my professional life, have been at the hands of adults who were old enough to know better. In one spectacular example, the parent of an adolescent teen I was advising actually contacted my manager and asked if I was mentally competent to do the job - I’m a wheelchair user, educated to degree level !! So in some cases the same prejudices also apply to the parents of disabled children themselves. While I don’t agree that it’s the job of disabled people to educate others, there are many, myself included, who will gladly advise if engaged in the right way, so yes, the best way to approach this with the mum is to engage directly and dispassionately, in the hope that her attitude may change and she will pass on that change to her child. Name calling and yelling in public in order to humiliate, achieves nothing.

@Lovelysausagedogscrumpy Thank you for sharing and for engaging with me, even though we started out on 'opposite sides' upthread (not really opposite, but you know what I mean). I certainly don't think it should be the job of disabled people to educate others. I hope it was clear (but maybe not) that what I mainly want to do is to take that burden off the child in the scenario here. Certainly not saying that the way the parent actually acted here was the best way to do that.

When my children were growing up we always went to a sportsce ter/swimmingpool that also had a physiotherapy-center. My own healthy children met and made friends with children with severe disabilities. Quatroplegic after accident. Spina bifida. A boy who had to learn to walk and everything else again after having been crushed by a motorcycle. When I heard my 8 year old girl tuttutting to a child "let me wipe your face Caroline, you're drooling again" and my little boy saying to a kid "now hold my hand, I don't want you to stumble and fall facedown in the flowerbeds", I knew they would grow up to be great adults. And they are ❣️

The parents reasonable response to their child maybe being scared (more likely parent didn’t feel comfortable) would have been to discus with said child. Talk about differences in people’s physical appearance and it not being anything to be frightened of and the kind thing to be nice and include the child.

to message the party giver, by email or in person, is a totally inappropriate response. The fact that the child is related to the party giver makes it worse, how do you think she felt? Clearly that doesn’t matter to you, only the person, in the wrong, should be sympathised with!

I would reply. ....'my advice is to keep your children indoors at all times to avoid any chance of your children being scared and upset, it's the only way!' . I take it that you might have noticed any children hiding in the cupboard under the stairs, scared and upset?. This didn't happen so much that it unhappened things that did. Its totally the mother being nosey and using the kids as an excuse to pry. Kids tend to be up front and just ask the kid outright, why is your face different!

@Lyraloo

I’m all for reasonable responses. If reasonable was the approach you were going for, you missed quite badly.

Her Dd reaction shows that she needs to meet more children who are disabled or who do not look the same as everyone else. This is what normal life looks like.

I don’t think anyone here is of the opinion that it was anything other than totally inappropriate and insensitive to send that message. I certainly don’t think this poster is excusing that, merely pointing out that it’s better to catch flies with honey. A calm, reasoned and dispassionate common sense response will achieve the best outcome for the disabled child, because this woman will have a better understanding of disability and inclusion, and so will pass that on to her children.

I didn’t read it as saying ‘sorry’ in the conventional sense. It was nuanced and it doesn’t come across well via the written word. The poster actually wrote You just say sorry your kids were scared, hopefully now they will have a better understanding that just because someone looks different does not mean there is anything to be scared of. I think if you replace the word ‘sorry’ with ‘it’s unfortunate’ you get the idea. Unfortunate that her kids were scared but hopefully now they understand etc. I don’t think it was meant to imply an apology made on behalf of the disabled child.

In your opinion!

Wow, don’t you think that a woman old enough to have children should already understand disability and inclusion. Clearly she won’t pass it on to her children as she doesn’t feel they should be subjected to anyone that doesn’t conform to her idea of perfect!

Naturally. If that's your reasonable, though, your mildly ticked off must be a sight to see!

Absolutely!!!

I have no idea who you are and was referring to dozens of posters. My post stands.