To think a lot of MN are ableist?

[Sweetlifeofyours]

So I wasn’t going to post but as a mum with a disabled child myself I feel like I have to get things off my chest. I have read a couple of threads over the past week or so regarding mothers who are looking for advice and support for their disabled child/children (2 that stick out to me)

I was very sad to see that there were only a few posters who actually gave support and advice to the OP’s. The rest were in my opinion, downright rude and nasty and clearly just wanted to upset the OP’s even more for whatever reason.

As a mum with a SEN child, it is incredibly difficult and I myself don’t always get the correct help and support I need so to come on here and see that other women/parents show their (somewhat) true opinions of disabled children upset me.

I am completely 100% on board that autism shouldn’t be an excuse for everything, but surely some compassion wouldn’t go amiss to a struggling parent.

One of the worst things I read was a poster saying to the OP that they should make sure their child doesn’t turn into a sex offender because he enjoys hugs. Says more to me about the poster rather than the OP and their child.

I guess my AIBU is, do you think people (maybe especially on here) should have more compassion for the disabled community or have you read threads where you agree with the majority of comments (especially where we are talking about young children)?

The OP started a thread saying that a lot of people on MN are ableist. I am responding to that, not to someone looking for support or advice about themselves or their disabled child. I really, really would like people to be more understanding about disability and therefore I do desperately want to win them over. I’m not interested in hurling insults at people.

Can you give examples of how the definitions of adhd and autism have broadened over the years please? Where are these new definitions and who has created them? Because I find comments like this also very ableist because you’re implying many people who have been diagnosed (by a qualified, medical professional) do not really have these conditions

Doctors prescribe adhd medication, not parents

im sure those poor poor people, working hard, scrimping and saving would much rather be healthy, able bodied, and able to continue doing that, than in constant pain and unable to exist like me.

I've been the healthy bodied parent, struggling for money, to make ends meet, and i'm where i am now, physically disabled, reliant on benefits.. i know which i'd rather be.

The people being resentful need to give their heads a fucking wobble. I'd swap with them any day of the week.

The UK goverment can't make any good decisions about anything.

They try, the public is 'outraged' and so they back down.

We are all just waiting now for complete disorder/civil war when the money runs out and all welfare is stopped.

They did try to have sensible discussions about assisted dying but nothing seems to have come of it

They did try to bring in a tax for elderly social care but nothing came of it.

And so we go on until the money runs out which based on all the news/talk/late date of this years budget might actually be now.

Denmark sounds like a country making good decisions for the good of the entire nation even if sometimes that involves tough choices. The UK goverment is fiddling while Rome burns (and members of the public argue over who's benefits should be cut or not cut whilst not realising that actually there is no money for any benefits)

There's a lot of posters who just like to stick the knife in ..they don't care what the subject is or who they upset.
And that's always the risk when posting on an internet site , people type things they wouldn't say in real life , probably because they are having a bad day themselves.
I would personally concern yourself with how you and your child are treated in real life
Don't give a second thought to no marks on an internet site with no life other than running other people down .
I used to post about my DC with autism..but I gave up and don't bother any more .

I work long hours and can’t get my nails done but how could I, physically abled and neurotypical, possibly resent someone on pip getting their nails done? I mean, they have their nails but I have all the privileges of not being disabled or in chronic pain. So if anyone should be complaining about unfairness, it isn’t me

Not everyone that is disabled is in constant pain. In fact the majority aren't.

Not every able bodies person is in fantastic health and doesn't suffer chronic pain.

The world isn't black and white.

I think what is happening is the country is in dire straits. Not enough working people to support all the services being dished out.

This always happens in society. In times of plenty people are generous to the elderly, weak or disabled.

When resources become scarce (like they are now in the UK) people start looking after their own more and become far less charitable.

I can see all sides. People with disabled kids might be doing the best they can with difficult circumstances. By the same token working people struggling to buy a home of their own don't want to lose more of their income to fund more social care.

I forget what the saying is but something about rats scrapping in a barrel. That's what's happening in the UK and as a reflection here on Mumsnet.

I mean during the COVID and food shortage think did everyone say oh dear I better buy two rolls of toilets rolls and give one to my elderly neighbour but not take any more in case some else also needs toilet roll. No they went to the shop bought 20 packets for their own family and to hell with everyone else.

I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your babies. I’ve had a child on life support too, though he fortunately survived.

What I’m talking about is someone who has no personal experience with a baby or child on life support stating that it should be standard to euthanise all babies who are born with a profound disability without parental consent because caring for them will be too costly for the state.

Very, very different to a loving parent making the difficult decision to remove their baby from life support on the advice of multiple doctors after they have done everything possible in attempt to help the baby survive.

Because there is a huge grey area between a totally, fit and able bodied person and someone that is disabled. The threshold is often arbitrary and there will be people either side of it with an awful lot in common.

If you fall under the threshold you are expected to work to fund those below it. You are expected to not complain because your struggles can't possibly be hard as their struggles when actually you may be struggling more in some areas.

It's about being compassionate and empathetic as a society and not assuming that everyone must be experiencing life how you are and therefore must have the same perspective on things as you.

so true

and trying to turn into a competition is never going to help.

When SOME posters try to derail every thread with a "take my disability then! If you are jealous, you take it" they don't help their side of the argument at all.

And it's utterly appalling.

Am I missing a point here? It is harder to be disabled than not? This doesn’t mean I don’t have my own struggles- I do and plenty like many others- but they would be even harder if I was disabled. This surely is just “what about me” ism.

it isn't derailing at all. This thread is about ablism, and that includes discrimination because we're in receipt of benefits due to our disability.

If people want to go 'i wish i had that sort of money' then it follows they clearly wish they had the disability to go with it, because we wouldn't HAVE those benefits without the disability.

What part of that don't you understand?

This makes no sense. Do you not want disabled people to receive benefits?

I think you proved your point with this thread, OP!

The example you gave sounds like a troll.

I think most people are compassionate, but their compassion has been stretched by a broken welfare system that can’t distinguish between severely limiting disabilities worthy of support from taxpaying neighbours and much milder conditions that are part of the natural variety of life. When people feel financially squeezed they are less tolerant when they feel their money isn’t being spent wisely. We also forget that there are many different ways a society can be structured. Centralising and nationalising welfare isn’t the only one. Our country used to operate differently - with large numbers of friendly and benevolent societies and a social compulsion to contribute. There might be a different model again in the future. But I think it’s normal to care about the vulnerable.

I would rather not live in a country where the wholesale murder of disabled children is mandatory, or even legal. That does not sound very humane to me and I am alarmed you are hailing it as a 'good decision', I find your attitude quite chilling in fact.
I do not know the law on euthanasia in Denmark but I would be extremely surprised if it allowed for the blanket killing of profoundly disabled children. This is very different from a family making the heart-breaking decision to remove life support from a terminally ill baby. I cannot imagine that any civilised country in modern times should allow for the former, though I seem to remember there was a political regime in Europe, some time in the last century, who were quite keen on such a eugenicist approach to removing 'undesirable' groups from society. I don't quite remember how it all worked out but I am sure history remembers that particular regime and its activities very fondly.
I find comments like yours, which seem to view the removal of disabled children from society as a wise and fiscally prudent decision a government could make particularly distressing, as I hope, would anyone with even a shred of humanity. However, this is particularly personal for me as I was once a severely physically disabled baby, born without eyes and with multiple joint deformities, someone whose life, according to some of the awful cruel posters on MN was never going to be worth living and who would always be a drain on society. Fortunately, I survived and thrived. My wonderful parents ensured I had a brilliant childhood and education. I did very well at school, got a first class degree from a good university, have a rewarding job I enjoy and am very happily married with a beautiful baby. Still severely disabled but living a great life and glad I had the chance to live and that narrow-minded people, incapable of seeing any value in the life of a disabled baby, didn't get the chance to 'put me out of my misery' when I was first born.

"Boomer " tends to be bandied around here sometimes. Blaming the boomer generation for all the world's ills and thinking that we had it easy.
No we didnt, as it happens!!

Quite!!

A million percent OP. My child is Autistic and I’m physically disabled - the passive aggressive shit I’ve had thrown at me on here about my ‘suitability’ as a parent being disabled, is appalling. Completely ignoring the context I’ve given as to how I actually became a lone parent and how my disability has progressed since.
I’ve also seen posters ever-so-subtly imply that they now refuse to allow their kids to play with Autistic children since it came out that the Southport monster is autistic….. 🫩 I think that’s about as offensive and deeply hurtful as humanly possible. Yet MN let it stand…. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Not once have they actually deleted anything ableist that I’ve reported to them.

No, of course it isn't. It's about acknowledging that the world is grey and you can look at your own struggles and think that they are incomparable to a disabled person but sometimes the distinction or difference isn't as significant as you imagine when it comes to disabled and supposedly non disabled people.

I've mentioned in loads of threads for example that the Broader Autism Phenotype exists for example which is almost a subclinical form of Autism. Someone on the extreme end of this will have a similar level of 'autism' to someone that only just meets the threshold for an autism diagnosis. Brain scans show similar patterns and some traits can actually be experienced more acutely by someone with BAP than an Autism diagnosis. Someone with BAP absolutely wouldn't be committing some whataboutery crime to want their struggles acknowledged and to feel resentful that because they lack the lack of having Autism they aren't considered disabled at all.

The same goes with sight loss. You have to have a specific amount of sight loss to be considered partially or severely sight impaired and to be considered disabled. The idea though that sight loss below this level wouldn't have any adverse impact on your life is of course nonsense.

So in short, no a disabled person's life isn't always significantly harder than a non disabled person's if you just look narrowly at how our health impacts our life and you look at people around the threshold. The world is grey. 40% of people have chronic health conditions. Almost everyone has ND traits that adversely impact our lives. 20% of people experience pain every day and not all of these people are considered disabled. Some people are considered disabled that believe that their condition is an enabler to their lives (look at the autism threads to see posters reflect this). It's messy and nuanced and certainly not something that can be considered in a binary manner.

I'm autistic, both my kids are autistic - one has comorbid dyspraxia/DCD and inattentive ADHD and the other is waiting for an ADHD assessment.

DD2 CHOSE to try ADHD medication herself to try to improve her ability to focus at school - she's a beautifully behaved people pleaser - close to top in the school positive behaviour points awards last year but she knows that things don't stay in her brain long enough for her to do them properly.

As for benefits... because she was so well behaved - DD2 got turned down for DLA (that was the literal reason given). I get nothing - not even child benefit as we're over the income threshold for that, I claim nothing, I work full time and get no benefits for the kids' additional needs. I drive a clapped out Corsa I paid for myself with a huge dent in the side of it (no BMW here) and I'll be driving that till it falls apart (which given I work in community healthcare and the state of the bloody potholes - is likely to be sooner rather than later). I work my fucking arse off at work because I know people have preconceptions and would love to complain I was taking more than I'm entitled to... so I work harder to prove I'm worth the job and earn respect.

I realise I won't ever stop people taking potshots though - society currently has engineered some socially acceptable people to have as "outsiders" and it's people like my family.

'No disabled child takes away resources from non-disabled children.'

this isn't strictly true. I had to pull my little girl from reception last month as an artistic boy was attacking and assaulting her and meeting his own poo on her. His disabilities (if his behaviour was due to them) caused my daughter to not have a right to a safe education.

there are a lot of threads at the moment where a disabled person or child is causing direct harm on others. And it's very much enabled because the child is disabled. And people (like me) are quite sick of it. It doesn't mean we're ableist, it doesn't mean we hate all disabled people. I'm ND myself. But it doesn't mean we wash over poor behaviour and the safety of others in the name of 'Inclusion.'

the thread you're on about OP the boy was hurting the little girl and hugging her and the OP literally thought it was fine and found it funny. That is not ok