to phone this boys parents

[biggirlsdontcry]

ds's friend (11yrs) has just called in for ds , he had a pellet gun with him & pointed it at me when i answered the door i warned him not to shoot it as those guns are dangerous , when i turned to call ds the boy shot the gun at my arm , it didn't hurt much but i got annoyed at his cheek & told him " how dare he etc & i would ring his mum , he then pointed it up close into my face , i shut the hall door on him & he hung around outside for a few minutes aiming it at the windows of my house & calling ds names wtf .
should i phone his mum or just let it go .

I do live in ireland Hando. I doubt everyone who challenged the worst of the generalisations made here does though and that certainly doesnt make their challenges any less valid than mine.

It's obviously not acceptable to blanket sterotype any group of people. However can you see exactly why teetering is so angry and upset that she feels the need to do express her feelings about the people who live around her and make her life hell? Insulting irish travellers is being rude and prejudice, it is not being racist, in ROI.

Any ideas as to what she should do then claudia?

Of course not all travellers are thugs, theives or bad people. That would be a crazy thing to say. However, travellers have such a strong community spirit (not a bad thing in itself of course) that if you cross one you generally cross all of them living locally. I'm sure that's the reason people often claim "most" or "all" travellers cause trouble.

I think you must live in a much better area than me Claudia.

Want to swap for a week?

On a seperate note, I love Ireland. My Dp is from Wicklow and it's beautiful! Just a bot too quiet for me to live there, but holidays are perfect.

Wicklow is lovely.

Poor OP. She probably popped round and had a nice cup of tea and a chat, while it all kicked off here. Hope so.

Im sure teethering does need to express her feelings about the people who live around her. They are the people who live around her which must be very difficult and their behaviour sounds horrific. Using them to make the claimns she has made here about all irish travellers is not justified.

Very unfortunaely hers is not the only estate in Ireland where that level of horror exists and the vast majority of irish estates where people are terrorised have settled irish people. Insulting Irish travellers is being racist, whether the person doing the insulting is Irish or not, and for an irish person to fail to acknowledge and respect the seperate ethnicity of irish Travellers is insulting to irish travellers.

No teethering i dont think you would want to live in our situation either.

It's not just here, I have seen this behavior wherever I have lived in Ireland.

I'm sorry if I don't properly recognise their "ethnicity", as far as I am concerned we are all trying to get on with our lives and bring up our children as best we can. They live in the same type of house as me, their children (occasionally) go to the same school as my daughter.

The fact that they hinder me doing that, and that my DD has to see, on a daily basis, the complete opposite to everything I try to teach her, pisses me off.

If that makes me racist - so be it.

All this over a toy gun...

Ah yes, Wallace, but this was 'a traveller child' with a toy gun! Obviously so different it warrants some of the abuse directed at the travelling community on this thread.

TBH, I was shocked enough about some of the posts on this thread before I went to bed last night. I was hoping that on reading it this morning, some sense might have kicked in, but clearly not

crikey, this thread has kicked off!

I am still not clear exactly what sort of gun it was - I interpreted "pellet" gun as the sort that shoots plastic pellets, not an air gun.

If so, then my 11 year old has got one, and also a pen knife. We live in rural Germany, where this is common.

I would say this family sounds as though they are trying hard. The boy knows what size of blade is legal - the mum is always coming round looking for him (ie she doesnt just sit at home not caring) - and the dad takes him to sport (ok I wouldnt choose boxing, but he is making an effort).

OP, I still think you are a good neighbour and if my son behaved like that (which I pray he wouldnt), I hope it would be in front of someoen like you who would tell him what was what, and not someone who would call the police.

so when is the op speaking to the boys mum?

and can you lot stop fighting FGS!

I think it is called a debate ssd

good morning , i have just read through all the posts that came about after i went to bed & i am sorry & my thread has upset soooo many people . i really did not intend for it to.
teetering what you have to live with on a daily basis is a nightmare i also live in Ireland ,& up until recently we have never had any real connection with the travelling community , the boys mum does seem to try & fit in around here & i also have the mind set of " a child is a child no matter what their background is " but what you have described is terrible & it must be hard to live where you live
i will just try explain to the boys mum later that i was concerned that after he shot this gun at me he might have done the same to another child & caused an injury , & gotten himself into trouble at the same time , tbh i was half expecting her to knock around to us last night but she didn't ,
x

Tombliboobs some of us sure did try! But there seems to be no getting through.

Cherryblossoms said back at 01.45 about perhaps getting the thread pulled as atm "the comments are still standing and by still standing, there is a chance that it reads as endorsement of those comments"

Cherryblossoms thank you! there is a lot of info in Ireland now on this if people are willing to open their minds beyond stereotypes and actually look at it. Our Economic & Social Research Institute has been flagging up for years how marginalised travellers are from services by the policies designed for the settled majority. We have books written like "Responding to Racism in Ireland" which I learnt a lot from. There are NGOs with the sole purpose of working for human rights for Irish Travellers. So efforts are being made to address the type of attitude expressed in some of the threads.

But OP on balance I'm asking for the thread to be removed, or at the very least some of the posts deleted. Nothing to do with you as you did not start any of this. But a number of people have jumped on the child coming from a Travelling community to make fairly horrific comments last night and as cherryblossoms said there is a danger that letting such comments sit here on MN suggests endorsement.

Korma, perhaps we all things differently.

Teetering posted awful things that had happened and were witnessed by her. She said the travellers near her have children who were feral and obviously inbred. She didn't not say ALL travellers children worldwide are feral and inbred. I do not see that as a vile opinion, I see that as an account of something vile that has happened to her.

PLUS "Muslim children" is refering to a religion, the travellers near Teetering are travellers as a way of life, it is not their religion, colour or race.

Yes I do think it's fine to be derogative about someones way of life if the way of life they choose hurts, intimidates and ruins life for other people. Of course all travellers do not live in trailers or caravans - as adults we make a choice about how we live. It is perfectly possible to live as a traveller and not steal, fight and teach your kids boxing.

Korma fair play to you for coming back here. These posts will do your head in. I would say run away to save your sanity, this is a very depressing thread, but it is a relief to have someone trying to shine a light here!

MN HQ say it has turned into "a valid discussion on challenging people's perceptions" so they are leaving the thread for now but have deleted teetherings post last night on "inbred" children. Then I stick my head back in and hey its the same sickening stuff again in her 1315 post

Teethering, The Government task force in Ireland has recognises that there are "widespread obstacles to Traveller access to health services." and that this situation is unacceptable. Health services in Ireland were designed for the majority (settled)population, by the majority population and are far harder to avail of successfully and negotiate if you are not from that majority. This obviously makes a massive contribution to the unaccetable differences between the health, wellbeing and mortality of Irish Travellers compared to settled irish people.

Martin Collins of the Human Rights Commission has highlighted how the set-up of vital services in Ireland - health, education , housing etc - are institutionally racist in their design and delivery.

And yes racism is the operative word. Travellers are a group with a distinct ethnic identity and from the UN definitions of Racist Discrimination discrimination and predjudice against this group is undoubtedly racist

Wow this is an interesting thread. I started one a while ago about racism towards travellers and it looks as though they really are the last acceptable minority to hate.

Teeteringontheedge you sound like life is very hard. I don't blame you for holding a lot of resentment towards the group of travellers who live near you. However you need to recognise that you are taking the experience of living near some very anti-social people, and extrapolating from that tha all travellers are anti-social and unpleasant. People could say the same about any group of people. There's a very rough estate near here where some people have been stabbed and there is a high rate of unemployment. Should I conclude that all people who lie in council houses are unemployed and carry knives? Or that all unemployed people are likely to stab you?

There are a group of travellers that set up near my work every year. They are peaceful, the rate of crime stays exactly the same, and all they leave behind is some horse poo. I think you are suffering from a rotten community, not that all travelling communities are rotten.