Mother-to-be deemed 'too stupid' to raise child or marry fiance

TECHNICALLY, people with learning disabilities ARE stupid, it's just considered politically incorrect to call them that, and you have to be understanding.

Still, she's pregnant, and her fiance WANTS to marry her so they can raise the child together, but Social Services won't permit her to GET MARRIED because she's too 'stupid'.

What the fuck does Social Services usually care about intervening in marriage? They let Islamic girls get forced into marriage by their parents all the time; since when did they care about 'stupid' people?

Why dont' they just fucking cut her tubes and be done with it?

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

TECHNICALLY, people with learning disabilities ARE stupid, it's just considered politically incorrect to call them that, and you have to be understanding.

The definition that Wandering Critic gave of stupid is, "someone of below average intelligence". Having a learning disability doesn't make you less intelligent.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Whinging about "political correctness" means you lose all credibility.

Saying WC was making a "High pitched, ringing sound" when he clearly wasn't makes you lose the credibility you didn't have to begin with.

whinge
–verb (used without object), whinged, whing⋅ing. British and Australian Informal.

to complain; whine.

Go back to school Michael.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Why dont' they just fucking cut her tubes and be done with it?

Because forcing an invasive and largely irreversible surgery on her is somehow magically less of a violation than forbidding her to marry the guy she apparently loves, and who loves her, and forbidding her to raise her child with her fiance? :bang:

Harley... no. Just no. Have you ever read one fucking thing about eugenics in the 19th and early 20th centuries?

Wandering Critic, again, I think that was said about her being 'stupid' in the paper was morally wrong and also inaccurate. Now she is likely going to be mocked and tarred as the 'stupid' girl who wasn't even allowed to marry and/or raise her child. How is that brand of shame going to help her try to overcome any learning difficulties she might have, which have never been defined, or even proven to be at all existent in her case? Simple answer: it won't help, and could even hurt.

Hey Mal, crazy as it sounds, Harley was being sarcastic. Read her post again, please.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Hey Mal, crazy as it sounds, Harley was being sarcastic. Read her post again, please.

...

Point taken. Thanks Cyber.

Sorry, Harley, my apologies for misreading your post.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Quote :

I have to disagree. She is (or may be, since they give us no usable information) stupid. Assholes who leave their cigarettes out and then beat their 2-year-old to death are not stupid; they're murderous sons of bitches. "Stupid" is lacking intelligence; "murderous son of a bitch" is lacking humanity.

Stupid is a perfectly valid word, meaning "not smart". I prefer it to whatever euphemism is in fashion this year, if for no better reason than I don't have to keep learning new ones or risk being told that whatever was last year's proper euphemism is politically incorrect this year.

One has to wonder what word should apply to someone who complains that a word isn't being used as an insult.

Yet calling her stupid still remains inaccurate, at least until we know the extent of her "mild disabilities". Stupid implies that she is of below average mental functioning (ie: retarded), while "mild disabilities" could mean a wide variety of disorders that don't necessarily impair her intelligence. For all we know, her "mild disability" could be as (relatively) minor as ADHD.

I gotta agree here. I would get damn pissed off if I was called stupid just because I have ADHD. Calling me stupid, because I actually am not the brightest kid there is okay though.

I don't mean to be offensive, sitting here with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder as I do, but if a kid has a learning disability, they are generally less intelligent than those without. YES, they may have some amazing hidden talent, I don't deny that. Hell, depending on the disorder they might even have perfectly normal intelligence.

But in matters of looking after themselves, and other people, they often prove to be less capable. That includes me, btw. I can barely take care of myself, and I couldn't take care of a dog, let alone a baby.
(Do NOT start insulting me about that, PLEASE. Having the common sense to know I couldn't take care of a baby of my own makes me sad.)

Calling them 'stupid' for that reason is EXTREMELY offensive.

But regardless, they wouldn't take away the child if she was married. And yet they sit there and they say, "No, you're not smart enough to get married so your husband can help you look after this baby. We're just going to take it away from you."

It's a goddamn Catch-22.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Wandering Critic wrote:

BAAAAWWWWWWWWW I CAN'T CALL PEOPLE RETARDS AND SPASTICS WITHOUT PEOPLE LOOKING AT ME LIKE I'M A FUCKING ASSHOLE WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO

ps the only one who's "all upset" here is you

Uh, yo. :hmm:

I'm with him. This accomplishes nothing but irritating the people who have to keep up with all of this bullshit.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Wandering Critic wrote:

BAAAAWWWWWWWWW I CAN'T CALL PEOPLE RETARDS AND SPASTICS WITHOUT PEOPLE LOOKING AT ME LIKE I'M A FUCKING ASSHOLE WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO

ps the only one who's "all upset" here is you

Uh, yo. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I'm with him. This accomplishes nothing but irritating the people who have to keep up with all of this bullshit.

Oh my word. We are on a forum dedicated to making fun of stupid people. It's not like we're hard up for legitimate idiocy to point and laugh at. Complaining because you "can't call people stupid anymore" really only makes you stupid for not noticing where it is you are making the complaint!

Learning disabled does not mean stupid. The two are not the same. They are different. As in unequal. These are non-identical things. Separated. Disparate. Apart. Unalike. Dissimilar. Not synonymous. Divorced. Removed from one another. Chalk and cheese. Apples and oranges. A square peg and a round hole. Unrelated. Two different circles on a Venn Diagram. Two things you could not put on a list like this one where everything on it means basically the same thing!

Good grief, a mild learning disability might only affect one subject area. In fact, depending on just how mild it is, you might not be able to tell when interacting with her in a standard classroom! Maybe she is stupid. Who am I to guess? The fact that she's LD does not make her unable to raise a child, nor does it mean she is stupid. And while the fact that she's seventeen and he's twenty-five does make my eyebrows go up (which I notice everyone, Cyberwulf included, has passed over mentioning in favor of arguing about whether or not we can call people stupid), none of this "she has a learning disability" is sufficient justification for taking her child away from her.

KelinciHutan wrote:

And while the fact that she's seventeen and he's twenty-five does make my eyebrows go up (which I notice everyone, Cyberwulf included, has passed over mentioning in favor of arguing about whether or not we can call people stupid)

The age of consent in Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland is 16, with Ireland having an age of consent set at "17 for carnal acts and 15 for non-carnal contact". So their relationship is perfectly legal, and I honestly have to commend the guy for caring about this young woman so much that he wants to marry her, be a good partner for her, and that he feels responsible and loving towards their child.

There are much greater age differences than 17 and 25. It's only 8 years. It's only one year short of my parent's age difference.

Snoof wrote:

Remember the awesome power of selective reporting. "Social Worker Does Job Well" isn't news, whereas you can get two or three days worth of headlines out of "Social Worker Fucks Up Completely" if you spin it right.

This, exactly. If a surgeon fucks up an operation badly enough to get on the news, there's talk for a bit about policy and preventative measures, but because the profession is revered in the public eye, it blows over pretty fast. If a social worker makes a mistake and it gets on the news, there's no consideration given for them being human and having to make really fucking tough choices as their job definition, it's just OH SOCIAL WORKERS ARE SOULLESS MONSTERS THAT DO NOTHING BUT KILL OLD PEOPLE AND TAKE BABIES AWAY FROM THEIR MOTHERS.

Fuck that. My mother and her district work long hours during the day and are on the phone late into the night making the terminally ill comfortable andeasing the grief of the living. They do everything they can to make sure people get to keep their power turned on and their fridges filled and the medication they need, which, I might add, is getting harder and harder these days. They do the icky bits when the nurses aren't there whether it's in their job description or not, because it has to be done. They deal with human suffering every day of their lives because someone has to. And they never, ever get on the news for it.

Social workers are fucking unsung saints. There are bad ones the same as there are bad ones in any profession, but they don't deserve to be vilified for that.

Are we all clear on that?

...good, then. Er. Don't, um. Do it again.

...I'm not good at being angry.

Wandering Critic wrote:

The problem with euphemisms (since Cyberwulf got all upset about me
saying "politically correct") is you're never entirely sure what they
mean. "Learning disabilities" might mean something like dyslexia, and
the person could be brilliant once they get information through that
bottleneck.

You're right, "learning disabilities" is a really broad classification. It could stand to be clarified.

...then you get into some areas I'm not gonna touch, but I agree about the broadness thing.

I, uh. Have a friend with dyslexia, and stuff.

It was a valid point, okay?

Malganis wrote:

KelinciHutan wrote:

And while the fact that she's seventeen and he's twenty-five does make my eyebrows go up (which I notice everyone, Cyberwulf included, has passed over mentioning in favor of arguing about whether or not we can call people stupid)

The age of consent in Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland is 16, with Ireland having an age of consent set at "17 for carnal acts and 15 for non-carnal contact". So their relationship is perfectly legal, and I honestly have to commend the guy for caring about this young woman so much that he wants to marry her, be a good partner for her, and that he feels responsible and loving towards their child.

I suppose that as stupid as Social Services thinks she is, she's still smart enough to have chosen a decent guy as the father of her child. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

And hasn't half of this board advocated a parenting license to keep fools like this from raising kids?

Mmmmmno.

Don't cry, Mikey, your learning disabilities reading comprehension might get better if you keep practising.

Delcat wrote:

If a social worker makes a mistake and it gets on the news, there's no consideration given for them being human and having to make really fucking tough choices as their job definition, it's just OH SOCIAL WORKERS ARE SOULLESS MONSTERS THAT DO NOTHING BUT KILL OLD PEOPLE AND TAKE BABIES AWAY FROM THEIR MOTHERS.

Except that there's a difference between making a mistake and being a heartless bitch. It's possible the worker in this article made a mistake. Our social worker was just a heartless bitch. Someone making mistakes doesn't sit there and roll her eyes when you tell her you've actually won custody despite the odds.

Quote :

They do everything they can to make sure people get to keep their power turned on and their fridges filled and the medication they need, which, I might add, is getting harder and harder these days.

Where's the food stamps that we needed and were denied? Where's the aid that we could have used, that could have kept my mother from having to pawn away irreplaceable, sentimental treasures just to make sure her and my stepdad could pay the mortgage and keep the electric on? Have you ever been through a situation like that, where your life and future (and your child's/grandchild's life and future) rests in an uncaring someone else's hands? It makes you very angry and cynical.

I will concede that not all of them are bad, since the social worker from the other state was very nice and pretty much bent over backwards to help us (and being angry, I forgot about her; she was awesome though. Sorry, ma'am). Maybe it's just my state. And for all I know, your mom could be the best social worker on the planet, but I think I have perfectly good reason to be pissed off at social services, after the Hell they put us through, and let us go through.

Also, my post was a rant, not made deliberately to attack you, so stop taking it as a personal attack. I can't count all the "EVIL RACIST VIOLENT COP" rants I've seen on this forum, around my school, and pretty much everywhere. Sure, I could say "fuck you all for being ignorant," and accuse them of slandering my grandfather, who was an officer for many years and is the gentlest, hardest to anger person I know (and my father, two uncles, and stepmother, who are all officers of various kinds). But, I don't, because they're not attacking me or my family, they're angrily ranting.

That's all I have to say. Take it how you want.

Social Services have been decent enough but they sure do put an assload of paperwork in front of you just to make getting Personal Assisstants and make sure your goddamn DLA is sure taking its time to get paid into the right account.

The Social Services PEOPLE are decent enough, just doing their jobs.

The DEPARTMENT is a bitch.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

I don't mean to be offensive, sitting here with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder as I do, but if a kid has a learning disability, they are generally less intelligent than those without.

Not necessarily. People with learning disabilities can benefit greatly from a teaching method that suits them better.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Wandering Critic wrote:

BAAAAWWWWWWWWW I CAN'T CALL PEOPLE RETARDS AND SPASTICS WITHOUT PEOPLE LOOKING AT ME LIKE I'M A FUCKING ASSHOLE WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO

ps the only one who's "all upset" here is you

Uh, yo. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I'm with him. This accomplishes nothing but irritating the people who have to keep up with all of this bullshit.

IOW you're too stupid to stop calling people retards and learn to use words that don't carry a whole load of baggage from the bad old days when people with everything from intellectual disabilities to mild cases of depression were locked away in asylums and had chunks of their brains cut out to make them more "manageable".

KelinciHutan wrote:

And while the fact that she's seventeen and he's twenty-five does make my eyebrows go up (which I notice everyone, Cyberwulf included, has passed over mentioning in favor of arguing about whether or not we can call people stupid)

The fact that they would otherwise have been allowed to marry if not for her learning disability, and the fact that the guy hasn't been charged with statutory rape might be little clues for you.

'Stupid' is such a subjective, offensive and vague word. It tells us nothing about the woman, other than that the Social Worker deemed her to be unintelligent.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

I don't mean to be offensive, sitting here with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder as I do, but if a kid has a learning disability, they are generally less intelligent than those without.

Einstein and Edison were both slow learners (learning disabled). I wouldn't call either of them stupid, or even less intelligent than average.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

'Stupid' is such a subjective, offensive and vague word. It tells us nothing about the woman, other than that the Social Worker deemed her to be unintelligent.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

TECHNICALLY, people with learning disabilities ARE stupid, it's just considered politically incorrect to call them that, and you have to be understanding.

I am getting mixed messages here.

Cyberwulf wrote:

KelinciHutan wrote:

And while the fact that she's seventeen and he's twenty-five does make my eyebrows go up (which I notice everyone, Cyberwulf included, has passed over mentioning in favor of arguing about whether or not we can call people stupid)

The fact that they would otherwise have been allowed to marry if not for her learning disability, and the fact that the guy hasn't been charged with statutory rape might be little clues for you.

That seventeen was over the age of majority in her area of residence? Yeah, I did actually manage to catch that particularly glaringly obvious fact, thanks. Honestly, age differences like that always raise my eyebrows. For all that I think that the Pedo Hunt mentality we sometimes get going on in the US could very well be overkill, and for all that this couple is clearly committed to both each other and their child (or would be if the stupid SS hadn't gotten in their way), and even given the fact that anyone here could probably trot out a few examples of couples that clearly haven't had an issue with age difference, when you come right down the point, I'm just as squeamish about seventeen-year-olds dating people in their mid-twenties as a lot of other people in the States. But "makes my eyebrows go up" does not mean "AHHH, CALL THE POLICE ON THIS EVIL PIECE OF SCUM!!!" It means something more along the lines of, "Boy, I hope her relatives kept an extra close eye on him during the getting-to-know-you stage."

KelinciHutan wrote:

But "makes my eyebrows go up" does not mean "AHHH, CALL THE POLICE ON THIS EVIL PIECE OF SCUM!!!" It means something more along the lines of, "Boy, I hope her relatives kept an extra close eye on him during the getting-to-know-you stage."

I'd say that whether she was dating a guy in his twenties or in his teens.

Lady Anne wrote:

Einstein... [was a] slow learner (learning disabled).

Present: Report Card

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I don't know about Edison, but Einstein was an extraordinarily good student and got top marks throughout his entire education.

TheHermit wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

Einstein... [was a] slow learner (learning disabled).

Present: Report Card

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I don't know about Edison, but Einstein was an extraordinarily good student and got top marks throughout his entire education.

Having learning disability doesn't mean that you must have poor marks. I had top marks back in seconary school and I did very well in upper secondary school as well. I am learning disabled, which doesn't mean being bad at school or failing at life. If you are learning disabled, you just need alternative way to learn stuff.

I hate when people automatically assume that you're some sort of stupid retard, if you have learning disability. Thank you very much, both me and my bro' have been IQ tested and we scored above average.

Lots of personal butthurt flying around in this thread. I nearly tripped and lost my scalp at the same time.