Originally Posted by annette
Originally Posted by AlexsMom
And IMHO saying "my kid is remarkably beautiful" is not at all the same as saying "your kid is ugly," or even "ugly by comparison to mine."


If you are a mother of an "ugly" baby, you aren't going to want to hear any of those statements and you certainly won't thank the other mother for saying the first one instead of the second or third one. The first statement implies the other--it's just a more polite way of being insensitive or even cruel if that's your thing.

Originally Posted by AlexsMom
I'm sure someone is going to respond by saying, "there's absolutely nothing wrong with being sleepy / lazy / glazed / slow / ADHD / blank / sedated / wrong / zombies / handbags / lumps / drugged / babyish / OMG I'm not even halfway through the thread." There's absolutely nothing wrong with being ugly, either. That still doesn't make it polite to point out.


Absolutely agree ... in a different context. Good thing this is a gifted forum!

If I was the mother of an unattractive child and I went on a forum for remarkably beautiful children. What right do I have to complain when they talk about first noticing that their child was different and how, in specific, they were different? If this talk makes me uncomfortable, maybe I shouldn't be frequenting this forum? If hearing about how everyone commented on their infant's amazing beauty or perfect features offends me, why am I reading it? If hearing about how other children just didn't have that same perfect symmetry offends me, why am I reading it? And why shouldn't those parents have a forum to find others like them. More power to them!

Why are we acting like it's not OK to notice that gifted children are different, or to talk about it with other gifted parents?

So silly.

NO one is acting like it isn't OK--there a million posts doing just that, it is the purpose of this forum.

Every parent here is one extra chromosome (although I suppose that brings up a 'whole nother issue better not getting into here), one head injury, one car accident away from finding out what it is like to have a kid on the other end of the curve. And there are already other parents here who live it daily. Just because I happen to have a kid with special needs doesn't mean I don't need a place to discuss his two gifted sisters.