I recently ran across an article on hunger and how over 17,000 million children live with "food insecurity." Before it was okay to say that these same children went to bed hungry.
My mother had polio as a child and because of it, she had one leg shorter than the other - she limped when she walked. What I find interesting is that we never thought of her as impaired, handicapped, or disabled. She did everything she wanted and then some. I remember her working beside my father in the fields. My job was to keep track of both of them so that I wouldn't get lost.
In thinking about our language usage, most people on the "outside" don't know how to call or say what they mean when they see something that makes them uncomfortable. Most of the time,what they do use, makes the people they are talking about uncomfortable. I remember once in a store, some woman asked my mother how she was able to get along being handicapped. I thought my mother was going to come unglued because she had very little patience when something as directed at her. I remember her saying something to the effect that she was no more handicapped than the woman and could probably run circles around her.
Who makes up the silly rules about being politically correct or not? Do the English professors for the upper classes sit around on Saturday mornings over coffee and pastry and decide what is going to be correct from that point on?
We need to think about our language and our use of it. Because I know that what is in my mind is what is creating my life, I am very careful of what I am thinking and what I say. I invite you to do the same with me.
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