At the dentist yesterday

[B00]

I'm sat in the waiting room, waiting to go in for a filling, and in barged 3 of the chavviest (that a word?) women I'd ever seen with a toddler boy in a pram told the receptionist their details and noisily sat down.

Anyway, after glancing up I noticed the toddler boy has plastercasts on both his legs and was wearing the soft velcro sandel type booty things they dole out at the hospital. It brought back memories for me as my eldest daughter had a condition called talipes as a baby (club feet) and i was assuming he had the same condition. Bearing all this in mind, perhaps i was paying them more attention than i normally would folk, however I was utterly gobsmacked and appalled when after taking him out of his pushchair and he toddled to play with something, they yelled "c'mere fat feet" then proceeded to pee themselves laughing at their obviously enormous wit.

I remember being really upset when my eldest daughter was in the casts, and with this in mind perhaps i am super sensitive about it, but would it strike anyone else as horribly cruel to laugh at your child like this? I never did suss which of the 3 women this child belonged to, don't suppose it mattered really as they all thought it really funny, and continued to call him "fat feet" until i was thankfully called in to have my filling done, before i smacked all 3 of them in the mouth.

Would anyone else find it funny to laugh at your own child this way?

[WELSHYORKIE]

It must be a northerner thing, Boo, but I would have smacked 'em one in 'tgob too

[mazie]

How did you get on BOO, is all the work on your tooth finished now?

[tiggerblue10]

I was about to ask the same question Mazie :o)

[NOX]

To be honest I'm with the Ed on this- I think ' fat feet' is a touch endearing if anything and not something I think will harm the child. now if she'd been yelling ' come 'ete you little scr0te, I'm sick of you, i' wish you'd never been born, you ruined my life...' etc etc etc , that'd be different- but to me it seems a harmless and endearing thing to be honest.

[chrissa1]

I had a sharp intake of breath when I reached the comment they made in your posting Boo. I think my shock would have registered on my face at the time too and if it had been noticed by the morons I would have spoken up.

[sherrardk]

Absolutely disgusting. If this is what they say when they are out and about, it's any ones guess what they say/do in their own homes.

[jno]

depends, Nox... families do have pet names for each other. But ones like that should be kept in the family, not yelled across a public place.

[ummmm]

I see where you're coming from Ed....I was ripped to shreds as a kid....but it would never have been about something that was actually wrong with me.

[NOX]

I actually strongly disagree about that jno- people ought to be free to call each other whatever they feel like- and calling a little kid ' fat feet; is not going to mentally scar him IF it's meant in an endearing way. It's the IF I can't get a handle on asI wasn't personally there to judge how they meant it and the more I think about it the more I really am not seeing the harm in this as long as it wasn't meant nastily. I come from a background where I was physically and empotionally abused as a kid so I'm not talking on the strap either, kids are more savvy than you give them credit for and will sense and know how things are meant towards them. I suppose then we've been abusive calling our eldest daughter ' Gremlin' in public all these years?

[daffy654]

When my son was little I used to have to take him to a Child Developement Centre, there were lots of children with varying disabilities who also attended. One little girl who has Down's Syndrome was lovingly referred to by her dad as 'Mongo'. I was shocked at first when I heard it, but as I got to know the family better it was obvious that they doted on their little girl.

[tiggerblue10]

I call Lt Tiggs "Little Monkey" but, if he ever had a disability or ailment I wouldn't call him something derogetory pertaining to it.

[yinyang]

I can see where Nox and Ed are coming from to a point, but it's the fact that they're drawing attention to a problem area that makes the problem. We tease each other in the family but I would never, for example, call the youngest daughter - who attends speech therapy - a name like ' lispy' and i would come done like a rampaging mammoth on anybody that teased her for having speech problems.

Boo, the comment you heard would have upset me because my daughter spent a lot of time in plaster as a baby too, just on the one leg though. The first time she got a plaster she was only about 3 months old and I cried all the way home from the hospital.

[andy-hughes]

My only surprise here is that anyone is surprised at adults laughing at the discomfort of children.

There is a long-running TV programmes that actually pays people money to send in films of their children hurting themselves, or being hurt - it's the excerable 'You've Been Framed'.

Of course, they edit a cut just before the child takes breath to scream with fear or pain or both, so it looks 'hilarious' to everyone, including the taped laughter track.

Personally, I am not at all surprised at this - I have long believed - an attitude borne out by the way our European neighbours treat their - and our children - the British don't actually like children very much at all.

[RATTER15]

Its all right for you ed, you short arsed stumpy little git with a stupid hat!!

[B00]

Been at work all day, so haven't had chance to reply, thanks all for your replies.

I can sort of see where nox and Ed and Od Geezer are coming from, but like others have pointed out, there's nothing on God's earth that would make anything physically wrong with my child remotely funny. And even, on the slim chance it might, I certainly wouldn't call my child that in public, knowing how it would come across to others.

It might be because I remember so vividly how i felt when my eldest was in casts for months at a time for the first 3 moths of my life, and it was horrific for me, she didn't know any different, but I found it extremely hard to see her like that.

Tiggs & Mazie, yep all done for another 6 months- i was very brave too! ;-)

[tamborine]

Why didn't you admonish them, the child would have learned how wrong his elders were.

[New Judge]

It is unlikely that this treatment (not nice, but by no means tragic) will have a lasting effect on the child. If it had any effect on him at all he’ll soon get over it.

As I mentioned in a recent thread about the Christian couple who were denied the opportunity to foster:

http://www.theanswerb...s/Question993383.html

parents are rarely perfect when it comes to bringing up their children. The unfortunate thing is that so much effort is expended striving for (unachievable) perfection in foster parents and those wishing to adopt (often denying children the chance of a stable upbringing). Meanwhile very little effort is spent addressing the problem of biological parents who display appalling parenting skills (often condemning children to a wretched childhood).

[redcrx]

i call littlest "dimple" at times, as she only has one dimple. What i find repulsive of your story, B00, is that they laughed at the name, so they obviously feel that they are being amusing and continued to do so :(
poor love, and for it to be something like talipes too that they have chosen to take the "nickname" from (something that causes children a lot of physical pain and suffering), and not a single dimple, just makes it sad.

[B00]

sorry, my reply should have said "first 3 YEARS of HER life"

[tiggerblue10]

Well done B00 :o) x