Hello, I am the father of a four year old daughter with autism who is the light of my life. I am looking for some advice from another parent who has maybe dealt with a similar situation. To cut a long and ugly story short, three members of my extended family sent texts to me with the most awful joke i have heard about people with learning difficulties and i cant forgive them or get past it. I text them back asking if they forgot i had an autistic daughter and did they think i would find it funny. The apologies they made were not accepted as they made it worse, eg in one text they said they were sorry but its the first thing that made them smile for weeks, etc etc i could go on all day with my thoughts on people like this but i wont. I have since seen all of them at family functions and i cannot bring myself to even look at them or speak to them all i can do is try to bury my anger deep down, this of course makes things very tense and awkward. Im tempted to abstain from being anywhere they are as i dont want my daughter around anyone who thinks learning difficulties are funny but then my children would lose out on seeing other decent family members, its difficult to avoid them at this time of year and i dont know what to do. I thank you in advance for any help or advice you can offer me because i find this horrible situation deeply distressing. Thank god my little angel is unaware of some of the disgraceful people she is related t

Unfortuantely people can be cruel. Esp those that don't understand. Having a disabled child can alienate you from people esp family and it's hard. I stopped talking to some of my family members over comments made about my son. You obviously love your daughter very much and i'm glad she is unaware of everything. We can only shield them for so long xx

It is unfortunate that as a nation we see humour in things that aren't always funny. Think if u ever had a joke about Michael Jackson or when the twin towers went down I bet they would have upset families but its a coping mechanism mainly I think. They were insensitive posting it to you if I have friends who get these jokes they don't forward them to me even if they find it funny as we as parents are too close to it. Basically it's our lives they are laughing at the same as we might laugh at a joke that affects others but not us. I am in no way saying you shouldn't be upset but I think you need to see it as bad judgement on their part as anger will eat you up and I don't think they meant to hurt you.
I used to meet up with friends and they would call each other a window licker until I told then not to say it in my company if they wanted to stay friends, I couldn't control what went on elsewhere but in my car my rules or walk. Perhaps you could speak to the ppl involved and explain that it upset u deeply and 4 the sake of family relations you want to draw a line under it as long as you don't get included in these jokes again.
I am suggesting this for you not them, if they had been ppl you could avoid it would be different but you have enough stress to cope with and it's a matter of priorities and you are more important than an insensitive joke.
It took me a lot of years to decide if it only offended me and matt wasn't bothered I had to let it drop as he picked up on my moods and that affected him more than the idiots that mock him as he just points and laughs at them.
Corinne

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(This post was last modified: 12-08-2011 03:01 PM by corinne.)