Denise

Sent PM instead

hi there! ::cwds::

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!! Hope all is well with you and your family.

Thanks for the word on the other thread -- I have an eight year old too. I think it's easier with the 2 year old, my older girl is very sensitive and overthinks it all, it would be hard to do this with her!

Do you still want emails for the radio host? I wrote out this, but don't know if it's guilty of insensitivity itself. Do you think it would be o.k. to send?



To oversimplify, type 1 diabetes is not caused by sugar IN ANY WAY -- it is caused by a virus. Your radio host's joke made a direct cause/effect link. She was wrong, and is stubbornly remaining so and spreading her ignorance.

To understand why parents are so upset, let me give you an analogy using breast cancer -- not because the two are related in cause or seriousness, but because I believe most people understand and have great sympathy for victims of breast cancer.

Let's say there was a fundraiser for the pink ribbon folks, a lingerie show at the local mall. What if your radio host had commented on the irony of raising money for breast cancer using bra sales? After all, she implies, women who have had mastectomies can't wear bras.

First, this would be absurd. Women who have had mastectomies can be beautiful in lingerie, and if they choose to use modern medical reconstructive surgery they can wear a bra on the mall runway like any supermodel. In addition, the models were not breast cancer survivors themselves, but regular undie models from the store doing the fundraiser. But imagine if, when this was brought to the attention of your host, instead of correcting her ignorance and apologizing she defended herself by insisting that her mother, who had a mastectomy 20 years ago, never wore bras openly at the mall and that people shouldn't be wearing lingerie out in public anyway, and that no one should be allowing their wives and mothers to model bras like that.

The fundraiser was for type 1 diabetes. Sugar does not cause type 1 diabetes. The people eating the sugar were largely not type 1 diabetics themselves. Modern medical technology can get insulin into a diabetic's body so it can do the same job nondiabetics' natural insulin does in processing sugar. If sugar (or public semi-nudity) is a bad thing, it is equally bad for everyone. If I give a cookie to my nondiabetic kid, I can give it to my diabetic kid. Period.

Your radio host is not making the connection, is stubbornly hanging on to her ignorance and has turned an accidental slight into a full insult. If she can't see this, others should be able to and she should be reprimanded and, yes, judged for her arrogant and dismissive attitudes.

hi, just want to say thanks for keeping me company in chat! ;)

Happy birthday!! :)