ONE IS BETTER THAN NONE.
How many times have we heard people say that one of their parents belts them, or, worse still, throws them around the room when they're angry, and that they won't do that to their kids? And how many of those people, when they become parents, actually stick to it?
This afternoon, I had to take my father shopping, and I actually had to go past a place that had represented great pain to me, my old high school. As we passed by the school oval, I said to him, "See that place, there?" "Yes." "That's where an obnoxious little so-and-so deliberately aimed a softball at my head during PE." And this was the same obnoxious little so and so who said, "Imagine if you had a bump on the head and you changed." The very notion that someone would want to hit you on the head (I remember, sixteen years ago on Neighbours (yes, I know Neighbours isn't real) the character of Harold Bishop had a stroke and Harold, who was a tee-totalling vegetarian (the actor who played him, Ian Smith is not a vegetarian in real life) discharged himself from hospital early and cooked bacon for breakfast one morning, ate a pie and drank a beer in his friend's pub, and was totally uncharacteristic, calling his incompatible friend, Lou Carpenter, a kidney thief, after he'd donated him a kidney the previous year, but Harold went back to his old ways) is abusive and is based around finding your personality unacceptable and wanting to mould you into somebody else. A mature minded person would have said, "Okay, you're incompatible and won't likely be friends." But this is what a bully relies upon, a person who doesn't have a social network to support them!
One of the most ridiculous pieces of advice I ever received was that if someone asks you if you like football, or you like a particular band, to say Yes. Why is that ridiculous? Well, if you're a taxi driver, and someone asks you what you think of a certain politician, you can easily ask them what they think and just agree with what they say, as you're unlikely to see them again and they're unlikely to remember you, anyway. Or, if you're a hairdresser or barber, you only see someone every few weeks or what have you, and they'll come back because they like the way you cut their hair, not because of your political views or which team you support. So, if you know little about something, people will see through it.
My mother has angered me by saying things like it would be wonderful if there was a cure for autism (no, it wouldn't). But here is what angers me with so many people, in many Western countries, if someone is good at sport, they are viewed as national icons, yet if someone is bright academically, they are scorned. And one thing that really annoyed me with some people was when a former cricketer claimed that his mother had given him a banned diuretic, people jumped up and down and protested it was unfair that the ICC said, "Okay, 12 month ban." Yet how many of these people would respond differently if athletes from a rival country were found to have cheated with drugs? Or been involved in match-fixing?
One thing that separates me from my mother is that I became angry, in the lead-up to the 2013 Election, when I knew who I wanted to support, there were spambots on their page trying to get people to vote for the opposing candidate. I have long believed that if you like a candidate, you go on their Facebook page and tell them, if you don't like them, you don't go near them. So, I say, if you KNOW that somebody is autistic and they don't want to be cured, it is basic decency that you don't say in front of them that you think it would be wonderful if there was a cure. And then, you have nobody to blame but yourself if they become angry with you!
I am grateful to have my father's support and I say it's better to be loved and supported by one parent than neither. However, I feel with my mother as though she is no different to the little so-and-so who said imagine if I had a bump on the head and I changed when she makes the repugnant statement that it would be wonderful if there was a cure for it.