Hello, Anne
When we read your post, we thought you were referring to the insensitive jokes (so-called jokes) cracked left right and centre by people mentioned by Nat at the start of her thread and then discussed throughout the thread.
But from Connie’s comment, it is possible that you were perhaps talking about the book ‘Contented Dementia’, that was mentioned briefly towards the end of the thread. In which case, we may have misunderstood you.
If you are referring to the insensitive jokes, then we could not agree more with you.
There are some things which people perhaps should think about before they open their mouths – and jokes about disability in any form whatsoever rank amongst the lowest of the low, in our experience of various physical and mental disabilities.
If you were indeed referring to the 2 newspaper articles about the book, then it might well be worth reading the book, because it contains a lot of useful information. Useful for many professional support workers, as well as family. Having read the book, there is very little ignorance displayed by the author in the book, but much experience.
However, the sick jokes display ignorance – and we will forever and a day continue to fight that kind of ignorance. In order to achieve a far better understanding of any disability.
There’s a BBC “Have Your Say” page currently asking people whether or not they will be watching the Paralympics. It is genuinely shocking to read some of the “Readers Recommended” comments about disability, in any shape or form, and especially about the efforts made by all the disabled athletes competing in the Paralympics.
This so-called civilised world that we live in has a long way to go if it is ever to learn tolerance, acceptance, understanding and compassion.