Empathy for the Palin's
ChicagoTribune.com
October 16, 2008
My 21-year-old son has Asperger's disorder (diagnosed, finally, in his senior year in high school) and has had serious behavioral and psychological issues as well. He endured merciless bullying from middle school forward. He is in his third year of pursuing an Associates degree and has struggled bravely and doggedly to master skills for his education and impending independence. I am enormously proud of him. Since he entered kindergarten, I have attended more school staffings, therapy sessions and psychological evaluations than I can count, and I have done so gladly, but it has been exhausting and at times heartbreaking.
For John McCain to claim that Sarah Palin knows better than anyone the challenges of special needs families is condescending, offensive and frightening. I have enormous empathy for the road ahead for Trig and his parents - both the challenges and rewards are real - but Trig is an infant and Sarah and Todd cannot have fully engaged with the school or health systems yet regarding his needs. Palin does not, cannot, understand the road that lies ahead for her personally, and she sets out on that road with a head start of privilege that most "special needs families" do not enjoy. If she really believes she has some "special" knowledge of the needs of families like mine, she is frighteningly naive. And McCain is shamelessly exploiting Trig to paint Palin as a patron saint of families of special needs kids.
For the first time, after tonight's debate, I truly believe that being a woman was not the only qualification the GOP considered in nominating Palin - the Rovian analysis of niche appeal revealed "special needs families" as a potential untapped microcosm ripe for the picking. How incredibly insulting and venal!
-Janet Takehara
Read the whole story here:
Empathy for the Palin's
Showing posts with label special needs child. Show all posts
Showing posts with label special needs child. Show all posts
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
A Palin example - Edmonton Sun
A Palin example
Republicans' v-p pick says the right things, but actions don't follow
By MICHAEL COREN Edmonton Sun
Tempting as it is to write about imaginary puffins pooping on Stephane Dion, fatuous Tory television ads about how kind and nice Stephen Harper is and that nice old and slightly dotty auntie from the Green Party who has been allowed to debate with the big boys, I have to respond to those who apparently have sent me to hell for daring to criticize Sarah Palin.
Last week I praised this admirable woman but wondered if she could care properly for a tiny handicapped baby, a seven-year-old child and a heavily pregnant teenage daughter, while being vice president of the most powerful country on earth.
This, according to various letters, made me either a "raving liberal" or part of the "mainstream media socialist club." Golly, who knew? My Order of Canada must surely be in the mail as we speak.
Of course the low taxes and low morals types on the political right, who care only about the economy and their right to do whatever they want, couldn't give a flying tax cut about family.
But others who claim to believe in life and faith should know better. They have been the first to criticize people like Hillary Clinton allegedly for being poor mothers and we know how they would react if a Democrat or liberal woman ran for senior office with the same family commitments as Sarah Palin.
She would be condemned by all sorts of people now screaming for Sarah.
They would argue that she symbolized the left's indifference to children and to traditional values.
Let's be blunt here. Being pro-life does not mean merely allowing a child to be born, marvellous though that is. It also means caring for that child. That is something that the genuine pro-life movement established long ago, contrary to the caricature that is painted of them by their opponents.
Read the rest of the story:
A Palin example
Republicans' v-p pick says the right things, but actions don't follow
Republicans' v-p pick says the right things, but actions don't follow
By MICHAEL COREN Edmonton Sun
Tempting as it is to write about imaginary puffins pooping on Stephane Dion, fatuous Tory television ads about how kind and nice Stephen Harper is and that nice old and slightly dotty auntie from the Green Party who has been allowed to debate with the big boys, I have to respond to those who apparently have sent me to hell for daring to criticize Sarah Palin.
Last week I praised this admirable woman but wondered if she could care properly for a tiny handicapped baby, a seven-year-old child and a heavily pregnant teenage daughter, while being vice president of the most powerful country on earth.
This, according to various letters, made me either a "raving liberal" or part of the "mainstream media socialist club." Golly, who knew? My Order of Canada must surely be in the mail as we speak.
Of course the low taxes and low morals types on the political right, who care only about the economy and their right to do whatever they want, couldn't give a flying tax cut about family.
But others who claim to believe in life and faith should know better. They have been the first to criticize people like Hillary Clinton allegedly for being poor mothers and we know how they would react if a Democrat or liberal woman ran for senior office with the same family commitments as Sarah Palin.
She would be condemned by all sorts of people now screaming for Sarah.
They would argue that she symbolized the left's indifference to children and to traditional values.
Let's be blunt here. Being pro-life does not mean merely allowing a child to be born, marvellous though that is. It also means caring for that child. That is something that the genuine pro-life movement established long ago, contrary to the caricature that is painted of them by their opponents.
Read the rest of the story:
A Palin example
Republicans' v-p pick says the right things, but actions don't follow
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