Soap Box

All right - its time again for me to climb up on my soap box and tell you how I feel. :)

Today's victim, er...topic would be people who use the word "retarded" to describe things that they find either odd, stupid, defective, slow, or some other real or imagined hindrance. 

I've never been able to use the word in a derogatory way.  I feel skeevy being around people who use it so lightly, so flippantly.  I can recall using it once - and I felt so bad that I just couldn't do it again.  Just last week at work I heard it and was like - Yeah, I don't like that word.  The person who said it agreed that it shouldn't have been said, but....it was already out there.  Why do we think that's ok? 

For a long time, I used the word "renob" instead.  Like "boner" but backwards - Boner Stabone, anyone?  And now I can't use that because it sounds too much like I'm going to say "retard" instead.  Ugh.  

I know that a lot of people lately are all touchy-feely and think that we're raising overly sensitive kids.  I agree on a lot of fronts with that, but I don't feel that this is one that is being overly sensitive.  Why would it be ok?  

T-Dogg came home from school one day last year and they had a session about replacing the "R Word" with Respect.  And I looked at him and asked - would you have ever used it in a "bad" way?  Because I don't want to set the example that it's ok to do so.  And so I know, without a doubt, that he has never heard it from either his mom or his dad in the derogatory way. That fact makes me feel like we're doing a good job.  Sure, he's 7 and can't tie his shoes yet, but he knows the difference between right and wrong.  :) 

You may now resume your regularly scheduled programming.