I just realised I forgot to blog my first Talking-to-my-companion-and-not-me experience.
It was a couple of weeks ago. The Lad (6) and I were meandering down the footpath. We were chatting about life, and he was resting his hand on my armrest, which helps stop him getting his feet tangled under my wheels.
A woman maybe in around her mid-fifties was walking by the other way. She looked at the Lad, and said in a sickly sweet voice, “Oh, you’re a good boy. A good, GOOD boy.” And kept walking.
…yeah.
Categories: Life
Soggy here, innit? 
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
Getting out the ‘yes’ 
100 books by women in 2016 
Hoyden About Town 
Are you/have you getting the baby-talk yet? I can’t remember if you’ve said or not.
OH GOD SO FUCKING AWFUL ON SO MANY LEVELS I CANNOT BEGIN TO EXPRESS.
*breathes*
Were you and the Lad cool?
Anna: No babytalk yet. Any good comebacks?
QoT: We just ignored and moved on. The Lad, I think, glanced at her as though she had two heads, but he said nothing. We were rather engrossed in our own conversation at the time, you see!
Ahh…. hand-on-armrest – good technique! One of my Misses Eight has a distressing habit of walking right in front of me, which is disconcerting, for both of us.
But as for the rest, bloody hell.
Is it just me, or is that… really creepy?
No,it’s not just you.
Yep! His visual cue responses lag a bit much to avoid entanglement, so we’re trying out the tactile method, and it seems to work better. Plus it frees up his visual brain for broken-glass-spotting duty.
Hey Lauredhel,
Don’s still so shocked that anyone would do babytalk at him that he hasn’t quite sorted a reaction. Although I’m thinking next time it happens with a medical technicion, I’m going to just calmly ask if they know how that makes them appear to people with disabilities and their families.
(Monday, Chest X-ray. I wasn’t in the room, which just confirmed it’s not that people are reacting to my presence and assuming Don needs a full-time care taker.)
Person. Yup, person here. . .
It actually seems a common thing for any disability at all – a colleague of mine who has vision impairment sometimes has a person to assist her to discover a new environment – you can guess which one gets the conversation.
Re: broken glass duty. It might be worth investing in a set of solids (solid tyres) if punctures are a real and regular possibility.
I hook Ryan’s lead to my scooter arm rest as well so I don’t run over his paws… as much {*blush*}.
Maybe, as a response to baby-talk, try baby-talking them right back? It might help them understand how ridiculous it is, without having to explicitly call them out (thereby preventing them from arguing with you). Also, it might feel really, really satisfying, lol. 🙂
Perhaps for your Lad:
“Yeah, I have to keep my hand on Mum’s scoot when she’s too high on heroin to drive”.
In my experience (which, as you all know, is the only experience that counts! *laugh*), the people who babytalk are interacting with Don and other PWD for such a short period of time that there’s not much of a chance to really react.
The last two times for Don were someone taking tickets at the Multicultural Festival (which welcomes “our differently-abled friends” on their website) and almost cooed at him when stamping his hand (it was so embarassing), and the tech who did the afore mentioned x-ray.
Don thinks he should ask them if they want to particpate in his Master’s Research on reactions of people in the medical profession to highly educated people with disabilities. [His actual thesis is on gender and mysticism.]
My first experience of this as the chair pusher was at the NSW Art Gallery, at the Monet exhibition. My late partner asked for two tix and handed over the money The woman behind the desk asked me “Is she on a pension?” I said “Dunno.” Narelle said “No, I’m in full-time employment.” The woman handed the tix to me. I didn’t move my hands off the chair. Eventually she reluctantly handed them to Narelle.
Bizarre.
This happens to little people too. I had a good friend who was a little person and my farmer’s market buddy, and every week at least one vendor would talk to me instead of her when she was making a purchase. I finally started responding with a faux-confused “oh, are little people not allowed to purchase strawberries/apricots/tomatoes/whatever?” And then we would slowly start to move on toward the next booth, which would usually result in a hurried apology to avoid losing our business.
Also, many women who’ve never experienced this personally get a taste of it during childbirth. I was the bitch who banned anyone from the room who babytalked me or communicated with me via my partner. That wittled it down to one reasonable and helpful nurse and a doctor who basically wasn’t speaking to me at all. My midwife, who actually treated me like a rational adult, was unfortunately out of town.
I don’t understand people, sometimes. So astonishingly, incomprehensibly rude. I personally like the babytalking back idea… although I’d be tempted to be pretty sharp-tongued as I did it.
A t-shirt that says “When you baby talk to me you sound like an idiot” might get the point across neatly.
This is such an epic fail on pretty much all levels!
On the babytalk thing… I’m also not keen on people sing-song babytalking to my kid, either. He’s nearly seven, FFS. He speaks and understands standard English, and is a person who typically interacts with other people in the usual way. Which kinda links in to my latest post.