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| Seething Sitter, Wondering, and Mom | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 20 2010, 10:33 AM (82 Views) | |
| Post #1 Feb 20 2010, 10:33 AM |
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Saturday, February 20, 2010 DEAR SEETHING SITTER: It is entirely your decision whether to be at this mother's beck and call. If you are not available when she calls you, politely tell her so and decline the job. Remember, though, the more you decline jobs, the fewer that will be offered. So, choose wisely, Grasshopper, and accept the consequences of your choices. DEAR WONDERING: Abby is right that you all acted badly, including the host who allowed all of this to happen. Here are the precise errors in judgment that I saw in your recounting of the evening: You should not have used your coats to reserve seats for a long period of time. If you had indeed already been using the seats, and gotten up momentarily to use the facilities, your coat is an appropriate place-holder. Coats should not be used to claim "dibs." The young couple should not have moved your coats. They were either being presumptuous, assuming you had not just left your seats for a moment, or they were being judgmental of your inappropriate dibs-calling. You should have said nothing to the couple. You were being judgmental of their behavior, just as they may have been judgmental of yours. This gathering was neither the time nor the place for battling judgmentalism. Neither you nor the other couple should have let things escalate to the point where they left. You clearly know you have some fault here, as you glossed over what must have been an ugly scene prior to the other couple's departure. The host should have defused the situation, politely asking if some other folks would like to move just a little bit so you two could sit together. I can't imagine the host observing all of these goings-on and saying and doing nothing! Everyone of you needs to learn a new word: Gracious. DEAR MOM: You just need to chill a bit. I am sorry for your daughter, and even for the impact her difficulties have on your life. But, let's have a reality check. To start with, it is not illegal under the American with Disabilities Act for people to ask your daughter about her disability. This is still America, and we are free to be as tacky as we want in our speech. There may be specific circumstances under which public accommodations and potential employers might be restricted from asking specific questions that would violate some specific provisions of the American with Disabilities Act, in order to protect some "rights" defined in the act. However, any broad ban on anyone asking your daughter about her disability would have been long ago rightly struck down as unconstitutional. That's not to say that folks asking the question are never being rude. They well may be rude, but they are not law-breakers, and, if you react as though they are, you are being rude. At worst, you should give Abby's suggested response. However, unless you have a reasonable, not emotional, justification for not answering the question, here's an idea: answer the question. It should take a few seconds, and can also stop further questioning. "My daughter has MS, but let's not talk about that now," would be a good example. |
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1:54 PM Feb 7