re: #354 littleoldlady

10%.

/little steps for little people ;-)

Do they use “mentally challenged” anymore? About 20+ years ago a friend who has a son who is [fill in your own euphemism here] and was wired into the community of parents of [fill in your own euphemism here] children told me they don’t use the word “retarded” anymore. They say “mentally challenged”. It’s good, she tells me.

Is it? I’m “mentally challenged”, too. Every single day. But I call it “thinking”.

/and when I stop being mentally challenged I’ll call it “dead”.

I’m trying to think back. My ex-gf was going for her master in special ed and I think I used the word mentally challenged or disabled. I received a lecture and that led to me giving her a lecture about “keeping up” with the ever changing nomenclature. There’s no telling what the politically acceptable terminology is for many of these mental states are in the current environment but you can rest assured that if you get it wrong, you’ll hear about it. The buzzword went from disabled to challenged. In the end I just gave up.