To LW:

When you're the one crying to your single friends that your marriage:

-sucks

-is being destroyed by infidelity

-is being destroyed by financial problems

-is sooooo not what you thought it was going to be

then they will be the ones sniggering at YOU.

YeaH, Z. man, cudos (or should I say culos) to you for explaining it to me. There are no maquiladoras in Texas you fool. Those are across the border. I didn't know that you could simply "choose" not to turn to crime. Wow. Next time one of my "brown/black" NPR poster kids comes to me saying he's off, back to county for violation of probation cause he's back to selling weed I'll simply show him your post. Then, all is majically solved.

"Juan" or "Jose" or "Jamal" I'll say, "Simply choose not to try to make money in this crime ridden part of the border that you live in that offers nothing else"

"Wow" or "Caramba!" they'll say, "Thanks Miss! I never saw it that way!" or "Nunca jamas volvemos a trafficar las drogas!"

You silly gander. Go back to your pretty blue pond with the other pure white geese. I have to make cheese in my maquiladora while smuggling 25 illlegals into the country.

BTW, the illegals are already here. You missed the point.

then that discriminates against the parents of developmentally challenged children doesn't it? To praise only those lucky enough to have normally developed, reasoning children that clearly already have all the advantages in the world. Yes, by all means make the parents of children with problems that are REAL feel more like shit. Thanks.

(Giving you "the look" now)

:(

BTW to say that you blame the parents of a child with mental or developmental or emotional disturbances is really shitty of you.

my heart goes out, first and foremost, to those parents who must face the sometimes impossible task of "calming" down an autistic kid in public. My kid is 10 now, and never ONCE have I dreamed of putting my kid on a plane. Even now that most of his behavioral problems have dissapated, I can't imagine how horrible it would be to try fruitlessly to get a kid to stop crying or plain old screaming, because there has been a change in the plan.

How can you tell which kid is actually autistic and cannot control his behavior from that of a spoiled rotten brat?

You can't.

I remember getting "the look" at a Wal-Mart, when my kid threw himself on the floor because they didn't have the dollar bags of popcorn that day. I actually turned to the gathering crowd and shouted "Go away! He's autistic! Let me handle this!" and they did. But I was so horrified at getting the "look" that I cried in the car on the way home. Plane rides for us? Hells no. I can't stand being in the damn plane, much less a kid, any kid. So to the parent that HAD to take her kid on a long flight, I feel for you, but yes, of course it was an extreme situation, but unless you have kids that are more patient than the flight crew, who tend to be super snippy these days, or most adults, keep them off the planes, and OUT OF CHURCH!

My brother called me upset the other day because he had gotten the "look" from an older lady of the congregation as my four year old nephew took a regular Catholic mass and turned it into screamfest 09. What did I tell him? What the hell is a four year old gonna get out of a two hour long Catholic mass? Does he have to understand the holy trinity? Keep the kid home until he can sit like a dead robot, the way we all were trained in the old days, when it was perfectly ok to whack your kids in public as hard as you liked, to the approving nods of the same old ladies who give "the look". I don't go to church at all, I can't sit it out. I won't torture my autistic kid with an hour long lesson about the devil and heaven and afterlife bliss or torment. WTF? I don't get people who do this. If your kid is not autistic, and is a bona fide brat, like my adorable little nephew, keep him the hell at home. If he is autistic, you KNOW it's gonna suck. You might as well tell the crew and everyone around you- he is not gonna shut up. I am probably not either.

Just stay off the plane.