Mummy Mafia

[Milims]

Hi there Boots - and I'm sending you solidarity from across the world. You are so right about the blokes in industry for a few years and they think they own it thing!!! I'm suffering from the same ailment! I decided last year to train as an electrican and since then have gained 4 distinctions and a credit in my college exams, have become 16th edition qualified, gained my site safety qualification, part P (domestic installers qualification) and portable appliance testing as well as gaining site experience, cooking for the family, doing the housework and going to college etc etc etc. When it comes to applying for jobs I've been turned down with "but I was looking for a young man", "for all I know you could be 6 feet tall and 15 stone but I don't think the work we do is suitable for you", I've been laughed at, passed over, I've confused the secretary I was speaking to so many times - invariably they think I'm ringing on behalf of a bloke who's looking for work and just can't get their heads around the fact that its me!!! It seems that the reason I can't find work is because I just don't have the right "lunch box"!!!
The worst part about this is I'm told that if I try to do something about it I'll be branded a trouble maker and won't be given work!!! I've contacted the equal opportnities commission and their response is that I should take any company that has acted in this way to court - thats just me against an entire construction company, with no actual support from the powers that we believe are there to ensure that the law is upheld - they just have no teeth!!
So here I am, well qualified and prepared to work to be more so, experienced, enthusiastic, dedicated, willing to work hard and to a high standard but with no willy and no job!!!
It strikes me that there are bullies everywhere and that the reason they get away with it so much is because there are few who will stand up to them and no-one to support those who do and so we are left with a bullying culture!!

Keep your hair on gal - and if you must rip their heads off just make sure you have somewhere to compost the bodies!! lol

Helen

[Stonehead]

So here I am, well qualified and prepared to work to be more so, experienced, enthusiastic, dedicated, willing to work hard and to a high standard but with no willy and no job!!!

It's a shame you're not up our way. I can't get an electrician in to check various things (very dodgy wiring in the newest part of the house for a start), put the work/security lights on one circuit with a switch in the house, and fit an isolator/changeover switch so we can use the generator more effectively in power outages.

All the sparkies up here are too busy, the job's not big enough, they didn't do the wiring in the first place, etc. Pathetic.

I've done bits and pieces myself in the past (both my brothers-in-law are sparkies so I can ask them for advice) but the new regulations make that inadviseable and I'd not want to do the isolator/changeover switch myself anyway.

Keep your hair on gal - and if you must rip their heads off just make sure you have somewhere to compost the bodies!! lol

I think she has pigs...

[red]

truth is the bullies dont grow out of it.. they just get taller


I always found the school gate thing difficult as my son is disabled. I made a few friends - but the majority were not so good. I went to a meeting - where only 4 parents out of the whole class turned up, and this one woman started rantingon about how the disabled children take up all of the classroom assistant's time. I had to explain to her that classes dont have classroom assistants for all the kids... the CA that she saw was my son's personal one to one helper only there for him. if my son were not in the class - the CA would not be either!
Now you understand, my son has a physical disability, and learning difficultes. he does not have behavioural difficulties. and yet many parents would act almost as if their child might catch something if they played with him (the kids were much more accepting!!)

then i had one mother whining on at me about how her beloved son did not get a place at grammar school (failed 11+) and that the local school would be awful. yet she knew that A my son would not pass the 11+ and B the local school was the height of our ambition.

and then there is the small minority (usually the 4x4 types) who acted as though they were the clever ones in not having a disabled child.

still at the end of the day, I knew which child i wanted to take home! mine! by far the more polite and loving. (biased? moi?)

we do home ed now.. works out better for both of us.

[baldowrie]

Red

Now you understand, my son has a physical disability, and learning difficulties. he does not have behavioural difficulties. and yet many parents would act almost as if their child might catch something if they played with him (the kids were much more accepting!!)

I can relate to that 100%!

I have heard the parents saying 'don't play with him he is not right', and the kiddies pleading saying they like my son only to be told we don't talk to people who are like that.

My son was invited to a swim party when he first went to the particular school. After a chat with him we declined as he couldn't swim and the water frightened him. He would be a liability to the life guards and was only invited to be bullied I believe. Any way the parent of said child came up to me, tracked me down actually to the shop, more or less saying I was spoiling the party etc. The fact of the matter is when my son fully realised what a pool party was and not just a paddling pool in the garden he didn't want to go as he was afraid.

He rarely gets invited to parties and he is perceived as someone to be avoided and it gets so obvious because the entire class invited except him and that includes his twin sister.

There is too much prejudice in the world. With the correct explanation to a child a situation is except and embraced. As an example a boy at my sons school had a disability that gave him facial disfigurement. My son was scarred of him and we had a chat about how he wasn't made right like you weren't only in a different way and we must be nasty just like you don't want the boys to be nasty you...they became best friends after he ran up and said your not made right like me lets be friends

[Muddypause]

Gad, I love reading your posts, Boots.

Hmm... That doesn't come over as a bit patronising, does it?

[Shirley]

There is too much prejudice in the world. With the correct explanation to a child a situation is except and embraced. As an example a boy at my sons school had a disability that gave him facial disfigurement. My son was scarred of him and we had a chat about how he wasn't made right like you weren't only in a different way and we must be nasty just like you don't want the boys to be nasty you...they became best friends after he ran up and said your not made right like me lets be friends

This reminds me so much of an episode at school when J was first born. He was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate and looked quite different. A boy in the playground came over and was asking why his lip was like it was - I was explaining (more than happy to be doing so) about it and the boy was understanding and naturally inquisitive... before I had chance to finish, his mother shouted him and literally dragged him away while I was in mid-speech.

[2steps]

I used to get this stuff all the time when we lived in london. my son has special needs but not one person ever asked about it just pointed and muttered to each other grrrrr it was all so pathetic, I used to just ignore it all but hating taking him to/picking up from school

up here people don't seem as bad overall. although I have also noticed that some of the issues don't exsist - for example there doesn't appear to be the 'designer label' problems but people are poorer generally here it seems and more easy going with their kids rather than dressing them up like little fashion models as I'd see so often at my sons old school

I don't really care what they think and say about me, they don't even know me. I'm happy so stuff what they think so as long as they don't or don't have their kids, start on my kids all is well

[baldowrie]

As you would have noticed when we meet Shirley my son never asked about your son because he now understands that when people are 'made' some are 'made' differently but it doesn't matter as long as they are not mean or nasty.

Perhaps we should harvest that and inject into some adults

My son tells other children 'I have a short circuit in my brain' he understands that and so do the children.

[Shirley]

I thought your children were really great Baldowrie - a credit to you.

Yes.. you are right, it would be great if more people, adults and children, thought the same way.

[red]

I think these days kids with special needs are more often included in schools, and so the kids are more used to seeing different kids, more willing to accept than their parents... my generation.. the different kids were..well.. somewhere else.

its going to take several generations before a more level sense of acceptance comes about.

[HILLDREAMER90]

Great rants & posts!! I allways try to treat people as i would like to be treated, guess at my advanced age i should have learnt by now that some folk are just horrid & nothing will change them A.

[Milims]

Great point Hilldreamer - thats just what I tell my kids!! That said I also tell them to be especially nice to the horridest people - it will drive them crazy and theres not a damn thing they can say against you!!!

[mrsflibble]

"that dress came from where? you made it? whyever did you do that?!"
a comment from a local mum recently when she commented on how pretty my daughter's sun dress was- not the complete change of tone after I told her I made it. *holds head high* I think she's jealous. either she wants one or feels inferior and threateened 'cso I made it and she couldn't hahaha!

[the.fee.fairy]

She probably does want one so wh can have a 'one off handmade piece' for her daughter.

I love telling people i've made things by hand - the looks on their faces when they realise it really is a one off are priceless!

[Wombat]

once upon a time everyone did it. My mil made all my wifes and her sisters clothes when they were kids. Such a valuable skill, for me, clothes making ranks up there with growing food! She must have been jealous!

Nev