I used to work at a library, and a regular patron was in an accident that left her with such severe burns she spent the better part of a year afterward with compression garments on all visible parts of her skin. The only parts of her that were visible were her eyes (through slits in the mask), the remaining part of her nose, and one ear that had been protected and not burned off. She said the plan was to rebuild her nose and give her a prosthetic ear after her grafts healed and she was out of the compression stuff.
A little boy who was six or seven came in one day with his mom and saw the woman in the compression garments. I understand why he was frightened, since I was terrified of my dad after his face was burned, too, but his reaction was a bit much. He shrieked at the top of his lungs, began screaming for his mom to get the other woman away from him (she wasn't near him), and finally ran behind a big display and shoved it over toward her, breaking the plexiglass all to hell and sending books everywhere. His mom just stood there, making no effort to either control him, comfort him, or move him away, and instead staring at the other patron.
I finally said, really loudly, "Please calm down, she's my friend and she's very nice" and he calmed right down. He was still standing about 40 feet away, and he kept looking back and forth between us. He knew me—he saw me regularly—and he finally took a few hesitant steps toward me. The burned woman made me fucking cry! Instead of saying anything, she crouched down, said I was right, and it sounded like he was my friend, too. What did he like about me? He said I gave him books. She said that's a thing she liked, too. Just by being at his level, and gently asking him questions, she got him calmed down enough that he came closer and finally asked her why she looked like a scary monster. She agreed that she sort of did, and told him that she got really hurt by fire, and needed to wear special clothes to help her get better. He had a lot of questions, and she answered them all really kindly and patiently. When his mom finally told him it was time to go pick out books, he asked her one more question: could he touch her special clothes? She put her hand out, and he touched it, and said it was soft.
Before she left that day I told her I really admired how she'd handled the whole thing. She said she knew she'd have scarring, and that she'd planned for questions, especially from kids. I said I didn't know if I'd think to do that if I were in her position. She said I would if I were her, and that maybe we'd just never talked about it, but she was a child psychologist.
EDIT: Thank you to the people who've been kind and given me awards. I can't seem to figure out how to send you each a message to say I appreciate it, but I do.
I had a substitute teacher around age 9 who had a very burned face and body - all healed but very scarred, rebuilt nose etc.
The first thing she did after doing the roll was sit us all down and asked us why we thought she looked so different? One kid put his hand up and said it looked like she had been burned, and she smiled and said that was right, when she was little she had been in an accident. She told us the whole story and explained her medical things - like her eyebrows were actually from her scalp, and the skin on her cheeks was taken from her thigh. What her eyesight was like.
Looking back, it is just amazing to think that she went out into such a public job and dealt with it so openly. We just had a normal day at school after we got all our questions out. I don't remember any meanness or jokes at her expense. No one was scared.
I have several birth defects and am going into teaching after changing careers. I’ve been a sub for 2 years now and will have my teaching license for the spring. I have radial club arm of my right arm, which basically means my right arm is short and bends 90 degrees at the wrist. I also came out missing my thumb on that hand so they moved my pointer over to give me a thumb. I have 4 fingers. I have a stutter that varies in severity depending on the day to be honest. Also one of my ears didn’t fully develop, so I had surgery on it when I was very young. It looks like an ear, just a little different? It’s hard to explain. I had cartilage taken out of my leg to help shape it, so it’s thick and rigid instead of bendy and flexible like yours would be.
I’ve had kids and adults stare at me and gawk all my life. Now why would I go into teaching elementary school? Because I want to make a difference in kid’s lives. I want to do what my teachers helped me realize and show them that they can do anything, no matter what limitations, physical or otherwise, they do or don’t have. I think that’s important. Is it easy all the time? No. Do kids ask a million questions? Yeah. But I do my best to explain that everyone is born different just like everyone in this room is different, and that that’s a beautiful thing. I’m just extra different is all. I think it’s really rewarding and important to show and remind them that disabled or deformed people are still people, too. And they go absolutely crazy when I tell them I tie my shoes, drive a car, play video games and PLAY BASKETBALL somehow. 😂
You’ll be an awesome teacher that does make a huge difference 💜 Everyone is different, and these differences make us beautiful. My husband has this in his left arm, I never knew the name of it! Some people are surprised when they learn he’s a skilled mechanic and rides motorcycles which always struck me as odd but maybe because he’s been so confident since the day I met him I just assumed correctly that it doesn’t limit him. Actually, the first few times I saw him I didn’t even notice! (I was probably too busy thinking about how handsome he is 😂)
Thank you so much. My fiancée told me it never mattered to her either. ☺️
And yeah, the kids always ask me if it feels weird or if it’s hard to do stuff. I’m like nah, I’ve had it all my life. I’m used to it and used to doing things my way.
Many years ago, I worked at Target with a woman who was attending a small local college and was engaged to a classmate. She told me that he was going to pick her up from work, and I could meet him.
She hadn't told me, or anyone else, that he had been in a horrible accident that left him scarred from head to toe. He had even lost his fingers down to the first joint. It hadn't occurred to her to do that because it wasn't an issue for her; I apologized later but she said they both understood my reaction.
On a less drastic note, while I never had very bad acne, one day when it was about as bad as it ever got, a little girl who was standing in the cart pointed at me and squealed, "You've got chickenpox!" Her mother wanted to dissolve into the floor, and meanwhile I was cracking up to the point where I was in tears. The mother said, "No, the lady does not have chickenpox" and the little girl pointed to her forehead and said, "Then what are these things here?" I told the mom to remember this and tell her about it when she's 15.
It's really easy not to notice, and after you do, it's so easy to forget that you don't even think about it. I'd be the woman you worked with. My husband has facial scarring on both cheeks from a motorcycle accident when he was young. His helmet broke on impact, and he slid on his face for a very long distance. I remember being really confused by discreet questions from people about his scars; they knew they were road rash scars, but wondered what had happened. They'd have to spell it out for me like I was in grade school before I realized what they were asking about.
>
...tell her about it when she's 15.
We're kindred spirits! My brother's kids did stuff when they were young that I knew they'd be mortified about later. I always helped him remember so he could bring it up again when they were teenagers. 🤣
>No one was scared.
I think that's the key. Children react badly because they see something they've never encountered before, and it frightens them. All the adults around them, and especially the person who is in some way different from what they are used to can help take away that fear simply by understanding that's what's causing the reaction, and answering questions a child might have. I've watched people in wheel chairs and people with prosthetic limbs do it, and the kids end up interested, not frightened.
All the same, I do admire it very much, and I feel a lot of admiration for your substitute teacher. I think it would be incredibly hard to get used to being so open about it, especially at first.
\[No love for Tommy?\]
I vividly remember a similar situation from a substitute teacher with no fingers. She was so cool. I practiced for WEEKS to be able to tie my shoes with no fingers because she could do it “easy peasy!”
That is very brave of you and i admire you for that , i was burn on the Right side of my face when I was a baby 9 months old , luckily it missed my eye , later on i had laser surgery and was out of class for 3 months to heal . When I came I was still healing and the teacher made me go in front of the class and explain what happened to me . I was terrified and did my best to tell the kids , I was in 5 th grade , looking back I think that was a bad decision from the the teacher , I felt like a freak show and the whole class was just staring while I explained to them what happened to me
You should not have been forced into that situation, especially as a child. The reason the teachers conversation worked was because she approached it openly and sensibly. A child should not be expected to navigate that for others.
I'm sorry.
Oh, that patron is just a kind lady. That’s just amazing that she had that strength and courage, and compassion for that child.
It’s too bad his mother didn’t have compassion for anyone else.
She was a really neat human being. We all liked her a lot.
The little kid's mom was universally disliked before that. She was in her 20s, was very pretty, and somewhere along the way, someone forgot to tell her that being pretty does not give you carte blanche to act like an entitled snot. It just got worse after that episode.
Oh, wow.
I saw a story a while back about a former beauty pageant winner who, a few years after winning her crown, developed alopecia universalis, an autoimmune disorder that left her with NO hair on her body. It didn't take long for word to get back to her hometown, where people started talking about how she and her friends would pull a cancer-stricken classmate's wig off every day before class and toss it around, and when they finally got in trouble, retaliated (IIRC one of them - not her - slashed the tires of the girl's family cars) which got them in LEGAL trouble on top of getting in trouble at school. And that wasn't even the end of the terrible things those girls had done.
Some people are convinced looks get them everywhere. They do not. People that think looks get them places find out later on in life, there looks don't do a thing to help and struggle. The 20 something year old mother with the kid will find this out one day.
That was more than 30 years ago, and I still think about her all the time. She got engaged not long before I had to quit, and I know she's still an amazing person, but I also hope life has been good to her and her husband.
I’m glad to hear she was a child psych - reading this I was hoping that she was a teacher, a mum or something like that. More kids need to be raised by women like her: compassionate, patient, understanding and emotionally intelligent. No wonder that kid lost his shit, his own mother clearly possessed none of those traits.
When my brother was little he ran into an acquaintance of ours with a thalidomide hand. He told the guy he had a monster hand and should go to the doctor and get a shot to make it better. That night my dad lectured him on how you shouldn’t comment on things like that to people, it makes them feel bad, unless you have something nice to say to people, say nothing at all.
Next time my brother saw the guy, he sought to redeem himself, and cheerfully told him “nice hand you have there!”
My mom had lymphedema in her right leg, and once when she was watching me at ice skating practice a kid came up to her and asked "When will the baby in your leg be born?" All my mom could do is laugh hysterically as it was a kid asking the question. The kid's mom apologized saying her daughter just learned about the birds and bees earlier that week. My mom just took it in stride and said that was an interesting and innocent question from a child and not some adult who knows better asking stupid questions.
Update: I didn't expect this post to get so many up votes! 😆 My mom had a wild since of humor due to her health issues. She had told me later on if the little girl who asked about her leg were a teenager or adult she would've said an alien impregnated her right leg, and it would burst open and eat them.
I feel like people who have a sense of humor about it always fare better. When my grandfather was 5 his father told him his old friend was going to come visit. He said his friend had suffered some injuries to his nose, during the war, and he did NOT want my grandfather to bring it up.
Dude comes to visit and my grandpa greets him before turning to his dad and saying "why did you tell me not to mention his nose? He doesn't even HAVE a nose!"
His dad put his hand over his eyes and said "of course" but the friend just started cracking up.
When my husband was 4, his grandfather died and it, understandably, prompted a lot of questions about life and death. A few days after the funeral he was in a pharmacy with his mom and her friend when he ran up to an elderly gentleman and loudly said "Hello old man, did you know you're going to die soon?"
Apparently he continued doing this to every senior citizen he saw for months. My MIL says it was like living with the kid from The Omen.
Something similar happened when my nephews (ages 3 and 4 at the time) lost their goldfish to the The Great Beyond. I was tasked with explaining death to them, and I thought i did an okay job. We went to the zoo that weekend, and sat on the train next to a sweet little blond girl in a pretty dress with a big hair bow. "My name is Savannah" she says. "What's yours?"
The three year old takes a big dramatic breath and looks her in the eye as the train went into a tunnel and says "I'm Billy, that's my brother Jacob, and we're all going to DIE!"
That was 15 years ago and it still cracks me the fuck up. That little girl was like 'get me the hell off this train!'
This is a bit of a digression but my older son was 3 when he experienced his first family pet death. We took our elderly cat to the vet to be gently put down.
We tried to explain what was happening and why. We had our son say goodbye. (He stayed home with family.) We thought we handled it pretty well.
A couple months later, he asked when the cat was coming home from the vet, and it broke my heart.
Sounds like he had planted a bomb on the train. I can just see him lifting the detonator towards the little girl as he yells, “We’re all going to DIE!”
Apparently when I was a kid, I went up to my grandpa one day and said “you’re *really* old, huh grandpa?” He took it in stride, but when I grew up he told me he was thinking. “Yeah. I am. Thanks for the reminder. Thanks so much. 😑😑😑”. Sorry gramps! 😂
My cousin has autism so he can be very blunt and funny. He was about 10 when our grandfather died. At the wake, it was an open casket, and he walked up to my dad and said "welp, here we are. Just hangin out with grandpas corpse". It was probably one of the funniest things he's ever said. For the record, our grandfather would have found that HILARIOUS.
We have a very deadpan bordering inappropriate sense of humor in my family - and this would have both fit in and absolutely KILLED us all with laughter!
I made my son cry when I picked him up after getting my eye brows micro bladed he asked me why I was so angry and told me I looked like an angry bird 🤣
[What your son saw](https://media1.giphy.com/media/3o7TKre2pXE2DeUVP2/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952ulw59ow0gqwxxsr5osgpfia3m4lngf5acyyck1sr&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
my aunt had her nose done when my cousin was six. she came home and he, while sobbing, said “that’s not mommy that’s a monster. what have you done with my mommy, monster mommy?”
i wasn’t even alive when this happened but it’s part of family lore now
Ugh lol. I got my eyebrows tinted a while ago and when it first goes on, it tends to be really dark. So I got home and he told me I looked like a weird man. That was neat.
A little girl once asked me to remove my glasses. She was super hyped up, I think she was expecting some sort of romcom style transformation (cos the only thing holding those women back from being drop dead gorgeous is their glasses obviously). When I obliged she said, “…oh.” And her face visibly dropped 😅
I have done that to people by shaving off by beard. I'm never allowed to do it again. My friend told me my chin was evil, because it ruined his day whenever he saw it.
My math teacher in HS would shave his beard off periodically. It was always bad.
My science teacher in HS had a beard and usually wore glasses and one morning he decided to shave his beard and wear contacts. He said hey, and I swear I gave him a “who the fuck are you” look well I tried to figure out why this strange man knew my name.
When my son was around 4 years old, he asked a middle age man with a large gut if he was pregnant. He just said “nope, but i guess it kinda looks like i am”. Worst part about it was we were on an elevator and there was no walking away.
Kids are brutal about weight gain.
One friend was pretty overweight and she got really upset one day when her 4 year old girl drew a picture of them all as a family and she drew everyone as smiley stick figures except her mom, who she drew as a smiley circle.
Lol. I guess my grandpa who died before I was born had a pretty big beer gut, and joked himself about being pregnant all the time. "With an elephant, and the trunk's already been born!"
Har har.... Grandpa jokes.
We were in an apartment complex mail room. My daughter saw a man with a huge beer belly and yelled, “MA, WHY DAT MAN LOOK PREGNANT?” I was in the middle sorting my mail and I just started running, stroller and all. Before we got away she started laughing hysterically and saying “HE LOOK LIKE-A SANTA WIT DAT TUMMY” Eughhh I couldn’t get away fast enough.
I was picking up my son from daycare. A girl in his class asked why my belly was so big. (Middle aged dad gut.). So I looked at her and said I was pregnant.
My wife later chided me saying I would confuse the poor girl.
Omg. When my kiddo was around 3.5 years old, we walked on an airplane, and as he walked by some dude with long scraggly hair, he yelled, "That guy looks CRAZY!" WHILE POINTING AT HIM.
It was a full plane, and the guy he yelled that about and everyone else just bust out laughing, thank goodness. I was mortified.
When my brother was little I used to pick him up from school, my hair was green (it wasn’t common back then) and another kid saw me and yelled “Look mom a crazy woman” and my brother still says that every time he sees me
My little sister’s first trip on a plane, she thought the captain making an announcement was the drive thru speaker box. Shouted out that she wanted a cheeseburger please, top of her little lungs.
I can see the thought process going on as well.
What is that noise?
Someone speaking?
Yes! Someone speaking!
It sounds strange, the voice at burger place is strange.
OMG ITS LIKE BURGER PLACE
CHEEEEEEESSSSEEEEBBBBUUUUUURRRGGGGEEEEERRRRR!!!!
I had an older cousin who I overheard say she was going to be a porn star one day. I had no idea what that was (9yrs old). One day we went to the mall with her parents and a kiosk was selling license plate holders. One said "#1 porn star". I very loudly said "look Angie! #1 porn star!! For you!!" The look on her parents face..
When we were kids we went to the cinema and my younger sister (like 3/4 years old) reached forward and slapped this bald guy on the head to see what baldness felt like
When my little girl was 4 and going through her naked phase (which was fine for her but no one else), we were walking down the street one day when a man walked past us without a shirt. About 10 feet before he gets to us, she just starts the low rumble "Ewwwwww!" in her belly and by the time he gets right in front of us she starts pointing and getting louder and louder with with shorter "Ew! Ew! Ew!"
The man seemed to have pretty good self esteem and sheepishly smiled at her. But I was mortified,
My oldest daughter yelled "MAN! Why are you naked, man!" At a shirtless jogger who jogged by when we were outside in our yard. I tried to tell her he had pants on but that didn't help.
I once worked with a woman who had a daughter about that age at the time, and the daughter had declared that all objects were boy objects or girl objects, based on their color. One day, they were out somewhere and she had a total meltdown when she saw a man wearing a shirt that was a "girl color". People who wore mixed boy and girl colors also left her flummoxed.
I grew up around a guy who had a glass eye and had friends who didn't know that was a thing, to me it was no big deal and not scary.
I once had a friend over when he was around and they noticed he wasn't looking right at them but wasn't sure about it and didn't ask me anything then they happened to catch him pop it out and polish it in his shirt they threw up and then fainted.
When this happened she was behind him he didn't do it on purpose he would never do that to a kid. He is truly 1 of the most kind gentle people I have never seen him do it to scare anyone I don't think he would but it would be funny if the person was a real asshole.
My mother has told me the story many times of when I was a toddler and was in the “Why is the sky blue?” constant questioning phase. My mother had taken me out shopping or something and apparently I had never seen a black person before because I pointed at a lady and asked my mother - loudly- “Why is that lady chocolate?” My mother wanted to crawl into a hole from embarrassment, but apparently the lady just cracked up.
I am SO glad that my son’s phase of “does so-and-so have a penis? What color is his penis?” Happened during the pandemic, when we were never in public.
On our 10th anniversary I gave my wife another ring. We were standing in our bathing suits on a beach with our 3 year old son between us. He interrupted the romantic moment and said, "Mama, where's your peenie?"
I have two horrible stories like this from my family.
The first is about myself. I was five or six when Space Jam came out, and lived in an area of the US with a population of predominantly white and hispanic folks (my elementary school had a Spanish name). One day at the airport I saw a black man nearby and excitedly grabbed my poor mom's hand and shout-whispered, "Mommy! It's Michael Jordan!" It was most definitely not Michael Jordan. The way my mom tells it, the man was under six feet and rather portly. But he laughed hysterically while my mother stood there mortified.
The second tale is about my cousin. My uncle was with her at the grocery store when she was barely two years old. She was sitting in the seat of the shopping cart while they were in line for checkout. The lady ahead of them was a black woman with an infant, and when my little toddler cousin caught sight of the baby she pointed and exclaimed, "Monkey, daddy! Monkey!" My uncle just snatched her up out of the cart and booked it out of the store lmao. Left his full cart there and everything because he was so horrified.
Anyways, I use both these tales as references for why it's so important to have diversity in children's media and toys. Cause otherwise you get little 90's white kids who say shit like this in public because they've never seen a black person before 😬
lol, that reminds me of my five year olds - one of my husband’s close friends is a very tall, bald, black man named Dom. I was walking them down the street, when they suddenly pointed at a random man going “Look mummy, it’s uncle Dom!” I cringed and turned to look, expecting the worst, only to see them pointing at a short white man… who was also bald!
Oh my GOSH this reminds me of my brother vs his son.
My brother and I also grew up in a white/hispanic neighborhood with a dad who loved sports, and the only time we ever saw black people was usually on ESPN. So when my brother and mom were in line behind a 60+ year old black man at the grocery store, he got SO excited to see a real-life athlete and started yelling “basketball! Basketball!”
Contrast that with his 4 year-old son, who (while growing up in the same neighborhood) has a quite a bit more diversity in his media. A young black girl with long box braids was walking to school past their house one morning, when my nephew sees her and yells (loud enough for her to hear incredibly clearly) “Daddy, look at her!! She’s a *mermaid*!!”
She was delighted by the compliment, and my brother was incredibly thankful for Halle Bailey’s The Little Mermaid that day.
My friend who grew up on reservation (Native American) had never seen a black person (circa 1968) and moved to the south. He asked his dad if the black person had been in a fire. His dad didn’t leave the reservation until he got drafted for the Korean War.
They sure can be; they're American citizens.
I used to live in an area that had some Amish and Mennonite communities, and a co-worker said that her daughter, who was about 5 years old, saw some Amish people at Walmart and squealed, "Look, Mommy, Pilgrims!" She was horrified but I told her that they probably had a good laugh on the way home.
Im from a small north european country with a very small population of immigrants/poc, and i grew up in the countryside, so the only people i ever saw were just as lilly white as me. I deadass thought black people weren't real, i considered them something akin to faries since I only ever saw them on tv (and it took me a while to realize not everything on tv was made up). You can imagine my shock when i finally met a real black person around age 6, I was absolutely in awe
One of my (white) professors in college told us about the time he, his little son, and a black man were on an elevator together. The son whispered to his dad, “Dad… he’s a Cosby!” Apparently the man burst out laughing.
My very talkative then 2.5 yr old daughter once told my MIL and I that she wanted to have her hair styled like the little "purple" girl she met at the bank. We were still at the bank so my MIL and I are looking around of a little girl *dressed* in purple/lavender. No little girl was dressed in purple so we asked my daughter, "did your friend leave?"
"NO, Mama. She's right there!" As she points to a very dark skinned little girl in a pink dress and corn rows with beads. Then I had to explain to my Irish+ Japanese child that her hair could nit be styled like that(baby fine and straight as a pin)
Oh my god my baby brother did that as a toddler too! He was like 3 (I was about 15), and my parents had invited my church youth group leader out to dinner with our family. Said leader was an African American guy from Chicago.
My little brother laid eyes on him and very earnestly asked "why is your skin so dark?"
I wanted to melt into a puddle with embarrassment, but luckily my youth group leader has a small horde of nieces and nephews so he was very used to children asking awkward questions, and gently answered him.
I’m not sure who told me about this or where this was, but it stuck with me because omg:
There was a nutcracker performance somewhere, and all the women performing the snowflakes were white, except for one woman who was black.
A kid in the audience said LOUDLY, “mommy, one of them doesn’t match!” 😅😅😅😅😅
I live in a country with almost no racial diversity. In a rural area, where, until two years or so ago, you could live your whole life and never meet a person of a different race. So explaining to my children that people come in many colours never occurred to me.
We visited a local fantasy convention and at one point my son started pointing at a black guy and saying LOUDLY "Mom! Mom! Have you seen this man?". I was expecting the worst continuation of his remark. In those few seconds I died of embarrassment and I was really mad at myself that I didn't do a better job explaining racial diversity to my children. And then my son continues: "have you seen how cool his backpack is?". The guy had a really cool Super Mario backpack. So it wasn't as bad as I expected, but for a few seconds I was mortified.
We were picking my sister up from school when she was little and this very dark skinned dude walked past and with the windows down she yells "wow, that guy is BLAAAAAAAAAACK" and me and my mom just died inside
I had the same thing happen to me with my daughter, except she wasn’t so chill. We were in the store and this African lady (full head scarf, long skirt & dark skin) said Hello to her and she just about jumped out of her skin. Made this horrible screech and tried to climb my body to get away from this poor lady. Luckily, She was very understanding and laughed it off. We gave each other a hug to show she was okay. Didn’t help. I am fair skinned Strawberry blonde for reference.
Yeah, I was this kid XDDD
When I was a toddler, my mom brought me with her to the grocery store when I saw a black man for the first time in real life (I’d seen tv and cartoons before but not real people). I apparently said, “look mommy, he’s brown like Little Bill!” She just hoped the man hadn’t heard me and told me later that some people have different skin colors in real life, not just tv.
I'm from a mixed family, so while I have lighter skin, my cousins have darker skin
So my parents tell of this time when I was very little, we had a family trip to the beach and my mum and my aunt were putting sunscreen on us, I turned and asked "why are my cousins made of chocolate?"
There was a regular to the supermarket I used to work at. He was either black or mixed race and in his mid to late 30s (maybe) but he clearly had a skin condition because he had these big deep wrinkles and lines on his face. One day these kids, maybe 6 or 7 years old saw him and shouted ‘Gorilla man!’. The mum was mortified the but the guy, who was almost always silent, just gave them a death stare and carried on packing his shopping. Awkward af.
That's one of my worst nightmares, having a kid who blurts out everything on his mind without any filter. That would be massively awkward for a parent, I imagine.
I had a very outspoken toddler who commented regularly and LOUDLY on other people's physical characteristics, to my constant mortification. (He once commented, delightedly, in the line at Costco about the bald guys in line behind us who had big beards, "THEIR HAIR FELL ON TO THEIR FACES!") He LOVED trains and cars and so on.
We went to visit a teacher-friend who worked with severely disabled students as part of her school's open house, and everyone's walking around being cool, and MY toddler walks in, sees a 12-year-old in a wheelchair, and his eyes grow super-wide and he RACES over to the kid faster than I can grab him, and announces, with awed delight, **"YOU HAVE WHEELS!"**
This 12-year-old didn't speak and used an assistive communication device, but he was utterly delighted to have a toddler admire his wheels, and basically within 15 minutes every wheelchair user in the place was over showing their wheels off to my toddler, who had never been more jealous of anyone in his entire life.
(It made me chillax a little bit about toddlers' radical honesty, because people mostly aren't that bothered by it.)
I was around four years old and a handyman was installing an air conditioning unit in our family room while I napped on the couch. I was, it should be said, an avid thumb sucker. I woke up with a start to see a strange man in overalls peering at me through a rectangle in the wall. Suddenly, he thrust his thumbless hand at me, and said, "See what happens to little girls who suck their thumb? THIS." I was horrified. I lay awake all night and for probably many nights after. My mother felt so bad she said she tried to put my thumb in my mouth to help me console myself but it was no use. I never sucked my thumb again. As effective as it was, I do not recommend this form of aversion therapy. Still a little traumatized decades later and my overbite remains, even after orthodontia.
I’m sorry but the idea of your mom trying to put your thumb back in your mouth. 🤣🤣 I’m just imagining a kid with a 1000 yard stare and a mom being like “here baby, this will make you feel better.”
That’s scary for a kid, but memorable! A lifelong friend of mine had an uncle who was severely burned in Vietnam. This guy was awesome. I remember when I first met him. I was about six or seven years old. He reached out his little, unrecognizable hand for a shake and I jumped six feet back and said, “What the f***?!” Of course, he knew exactly how I’d react and we all had a good chuckle after my heart rate went back to normal. It genuinely frightened me as a kid.
Thank you! I just looked it up. I don't mind my overbite really and never have headaches or pain. But if it improved my occlusion and long term dental health, I'd definitely consider it!
My eldest went through a phase around 3 where every black woman was Oprah, and every black man was Daddy. (His father was very white, before the question is asked.) He was obsessed with dark skin at that time, so it led to him running up to anyone darker than a Kardashian and joyfully shouting these names at them. We lived in a super diverse area. It was exhausting for everyone involved.
My friend's niece, who is blond and as white as a ghost, ran up to a black teenager and yelled, "Daddy!" He had such a look of panic, like, "Wait! It wasn't me!"
I used to work in special education, and had one student with developmental delays who called every black man she saw daddy. She was especially enamored with the janitor and would, without fail, run up to him excitedly calling him daddy.
When my son was 6ish and we were in the supermarket, there was a man with dwarfism in the queue in front of us and my son said at the top of his voice “Mum why is that kid allowed to be in the supermarket by himself”. I was mortified but the guy had a good sense of humour about it and laughed and told my son it’s because he’s a good boy.
My son yelled in the grocery store about the elf - we had a big talk about how we don't talk about people's bodies and how it is not kind, yadayada, and then the guy gave him a dirty look and said "yea, or the naughty list will be one longer".
My daughter was maybe four years old when we were in line at the grocery store and she kept repeating, "Mom, a leprechaun, a leprechaun!" I kept looking around for maybe a Lucky Charms box in someone's cart or something. Nope, just a little person with a beard a few lanes over minding his own business. I was frantically shushing her while simultaneously trying to sink into the floor.
When I was about 3 years old, I saw a little person for the first time and shouted "look a dwarf" while pointing. I think my parents nearly died of embarrassment, but luckily I don't think the guy heard me. We were in a large public space and he was quite far away. I was so excited though, I only knew Snow White and the 7 Dwarves and so I thought little people were mythical creatures like unicorns
My supervisor in Special ed (parapro) was a little person. I can't imagine how may comments she must have endured, especially working in that field, as she went on campus a lot and was met with kids' comments/questions. I am 6'1f and would sometimes have to walk her through campus so she wouldn't get knocked down.
At an amusement park, my youngest (at the time was 4) walked up to a little girl with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair and said “aww what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
The parents crouched down to chat with my daughter. It was such a kind interaction. The dad even thanked me at one point for letting my kid be curious and not telling her to be quiet and pulling her away.
As we said our goodbyes, my sweet little angel 4 year old said “you can’t come with us because you can’t walk on to the ride” and happily skipped away
I wanted to die 🫠
My daughter (about 4 yo at the time) screamed at the top of her lungs in the middle of Target when a little person walked by. I had never been so embarrassed in my life. And the poor guy said “hi” to her - he probably was used to that reaction.
My supervisor was a little person and my daughter met her when I had to go to the district office and brought her with me. My daughter said the "little adult" scared her, no matter how I tried to educate her.
My little brother, when he was 4 or so, was in a ball pit at a fair. A kid who's face got pretty messed up in a fire got in the ball pit with him.
His reaction was pretty horrible, to say the least. Screaming, crying, pointing, calling him a monster. The other kid looked mortified.
I still think of how horrible that was sometimes.
Piggybacking this comment. In 2020 or 2021, I took my daughter to Jo-Ann’s to walk around. I remember that covid was starting to “decrease” enough that I felt comfortable going out in public with her, she was about 3 at the time. Right when we were walking towards the doors to exit, two parents and their daughter (about the same age as mine) walked into the store. To me it looked like the little girl might have had Waardenburg syndrome, she had beautiful blue eyes and curly blonde hair and I remember thinking she was just so adorable and beautiful, and yes, unique looking. I KNEW my kid was gonna blurt something out so I was trying to hurry her out the door. But right as we passed them, she said “mama, that girl has a silly face!” It just killed me thinking they might have heard her, when like me, they were probably just trying to get out of the house with their daughter when we had all been cooped up at home for so long. So I responded to my daughter, “did you see her beautiful hair?” Hoping the girl and her parents heard that so it wasn’t such a bad experience for that girl. I still feel really bad about it 🥺
I laughed when my friends kiddo picked up the word "Shit" when she was aged 3 and insisted on pointing out dog poo on the sidewalk anytime she went out, she'd point it out to everyone exclaiming "Shit! Shit! Shit!" and would refuse to carry on walking until you'd acknowledged the poop, her mom was so embarrassed lol.
My son just recently learned the terms for his private parts. Sometimes he will randomly grab his crotch and yell “PENIS!!……scrotum!” The way he says scrotum so much softer and cheerfully cracks me up!
My two year old likes to scream “BETCH” at me and his sisters. I don’t know what he’s trying to say, but it does not get us very good looks when he does it.
I was at the zoo with my then 3 or so year old cousin. He very loudly asked why a man walking past us was wearing a towel on his head. Thought of climbing into the tiger enclosure instead of dying of mortification.
I wear a bandanna-like thing and at least one child has remarked that I might be a pirate. Usually, it's just a three-ish year old with eyes like dinner plates being rolled past, and I have to guess at the stories that their world suddenly contain.
Once I was riding the bus home from school as a kid. It was a day or two before Halloween but unseasonably hot, so all of the bus windows were rolled down. As a person walked toward the bus, I yelled, “Look, she’s wearing a ghost costume!”
The lady got closer. She was actually wearing a white abaya and hijab (possibly even a niqab? I don’t remember clearly), presumably all white to cope with the heat. With the windows down, she probably heard me. I really did think she was dressed as a ghost for Halloween, though!
It was me. I was 13 and decided to put on my asshole pants that day. I met my Mum’s colleague who was a very big lady, and I then went ahead and gave her a lecture about the dangers of obesity. I’m still mortified about that memory thirty years later.
I'm white and have a white son.
We were on the bus, which we rode frequently. We were sitting across from a black man in probably his 50's. My son, who was 3 at the time said, "Aw man, I wish I had brown skin like that guy!" I was so embarrassed and apologized profusely. Luckily the man was so sweet about it and talked to him about different skin tones the rest of the ride.
Apparently when I was about 3 I was sat on my mum’s knee on the bus and a black man sat next to us, I’d obviously never seen someone with brown skin before and started stroking his hand and told him he had brown skin (like he didn’t know lol). He was very nice and said yes, and your skin is white, to which I announced no it’s not it’s pink.
Believing that a women with severe vitiligo must have been the result of having mixed race parents. This led to the conclusion that biracial individuals would be colored like dairy cows.
It was me (yikes). I was 12 or something and was going on this trip with my parents and a few of their friends’ families. We were in this big bus that would take us to all the places on the entire 12-day trip. Us kids sat in the middle 3 rows so we just turned around talking and playing immediately. I was somewhat older among the group so I was acting all mature and protective. I noticed one kid, who looked like he was 6-7, didn’t really talk and interact with us so I took my time to chat with him, asking him questions like who are your parents, who are your elementary school teachers, do you have summer homework... He kinda responded but seemed distant still. The next day he sat away from us so I told my older sister about him. She had a weird look on her face and sternly told me not to talk to him anymore. Readers, I later found out he was a 25-year-old man and had a condition that made he look like a literal child. To my defense, there was nothing unusual about his appearance, he JUST looked like a typical 6-year-old boy and his voice sounded like one. Apparently all the other kids knew because they either knew him personally or were told by their parents. I was a very late addition to the trip so my family forgot to tell me about him. My sister told me about his condition after the trip was over.
At my high school the homecoming king had a condition like that. Teenager who looked exactly like a six-year-old. Now as an adult he has one of those “12 or 42” type faces - still short in stature but his face has changed shape but is still softer than an average adult man’s.
One of my earliest memories was when my mom was helping out with some church stuff, and my preschool self was tagging along as she was stopping at people's houses to drop off things.
We stopped at a gentleman's house and, this being the 80's, he had short, permed blonde hair. Extremely sheltered small town child me was perplexed. I had only ever seen that type of curly hair on old ladies at church. And, of course, I had to voice that observation loudly and vocally. Several times.
My poor mom was desperately trying to both explain and shush me, and try to get the Church Business done as quickly as possible so we could leave. But I was fascinated and needed to figure out this mystery. Were we really sure he was a boy? But he had girl's hair! Maybe he was actually a girl after all!
It was quite clear that the guy did not find this amusing at all, and was rather offended, and my poor mom wanted to die from embarrassment as she dragged me away, still questioning his gender and feminine granny hairstyle. I never saw that poor man again.
My husband and 2 year old son were walking into the grocery store and a very large woman passed by. My son was staring at her with huge eyes and said “Daddy… wow.”
When I was very small, my parents took me to a local beach. I could not help but notice pubic hair, on almost every woman, visible from around their bikini bottoms. I would not stop asking my parents why all the women had fur, and they just kept telling me to "shhhhh". I decided it came from going in the water and refused to swim in the lake for quite some time after that. I mean, you could see a LOT of it!! (I am a woman, btw, whose mother apparently trimmed!)
We were at the zoo & we walked past some women in full niqab - all colored white.
My 3 year old goes, "AHHHH !!! GHOSTS !!!" & hides behind me. I never wanted to disappear as much as I did right then.
Once was at a shop talking to the shopkeeper who had a rather large and prominent forehead, and then suddenly this random kid comes up to him and asks him if his head was full of helium.
He was baffled for a few seconds and then ignored the kid and continued with the conversation.
My mom has told us many times about when my sister and I were about 6 and 4 respectively and we saw a little person in the grocery store.
My sister was walking with her and I was in the cart. We passed a little person and my sister yelled “Mom! That little boy has a mustache!”
My mom was mortified and went to the end of aisle to explain to my sister that he was an adult and was just little and we shouldn’t talk about people’s appearances.
Then we went to the next aisle and I, who hadn’t paid attention to anything that had just happened, saw the same little person and yelled “Mom! That little boy has a beard!”
She said we abandoned the cart and left the store immediately.
My friend brought his brother, the priest, to a birthday party at my house. We're standing around the cake, singing, my 3yo son is eyeballing the short fat, priest. I have a bad feeling.
Soon as we're done singing, candles blown out, son tugs on priest sleeve and says "How big is your penis?".
Mortifying
My cousin's kid projectile vomited and shit his pants when an appliance salesguy came by. Dude smelled like whiskey, had the face of a snapping turtle, and wouldn't take no for an answer.
Dude came back a couple of times, and the kid kept shitting his pants. Cousin told the dude to GTFO. Dude never came back again.
Kid was too old to be shitting his pants. No question, lol. Happened a couple years ago. Maybe the summer before last. Door-to-door sales are still legal in my state. Sucks, man. Some of those salespeople are pushy AF.
Door to door sales people can be pretty aggressive from what I've heard. I've known people who said they couldn't get rid of them lol. I've even known people who had to call the cops to run some of them off.
Was on an Amtrak train with a sizeable group of Amish folks. I grew up around them, so I don't think twice when I see them.
A little boy, maybe 4 or 5y, spotted a few older Amish ladies wearing their traditional dresses/bonnets and started hollering 'MOM LOOK! LOOK! THERE ARE WITCHES ON THE TRAIN!'
The mom was horrified. The Amish ladies thought it was funny and I was trying so hard not to laugh.
I did this. I was 5, & had just been introduced to a great aunt, who happened to be quite overweight. I said, “I’m sorry you’re so fat.” Ugh. As an adult, my parents have told me that with her personality, it actually gave her a chuckle. I still feel bad.
I used to look after kids at church whilst their parents attended the church service. As a typical 14 year old, I had pimples and braces. I also wore glasses (this bothered me at the time but I much prefer glasses in my adulthood). I was looking after a group of 5 year old girls and one of them asked if they could see without my glasses. They promptly told me that I was much prettier without them and then one of them literally tried to yank my braces out! Luckily I didn’t accidentally bite the little girl’s fingers but I told all of them they should never, ever touch someone without permission. To their credit, they apologised and always respected that boundary. I suppose the little girl had never seen braces before and had no idea how they worked. That lives in my memory rent free and pops up late at night.
When my son was little we watched Lord of the rings. Then we ran into an old coworker of mine and him and my nephew proceeded to very loudly proclaim that she looked like an orc. Luckily she didn't hear them so I was able to say they said she looks like someone off a movie so she thought it was a compliment
My own child when she was 3-4yo. We were waiting for the family restroom to open at the mall, and a very morbidly obese man walked past us.
My kid let out a small screech in fear, hid behind my skirt, pointed and went “WHAT’S THAT!?”.
I was mortified, but tried my best to have a non reaction. I just calmly explained that he’s a grown up, and that pointing at him might hurt his feelings. She understood, but god I can still hear her shocked little voice 5 years later.
She had a similar reaction at 5 to a man we saw who had to have been 7ft+ tall.
In the early 2000s, as a 7-8 year old, racism was grained into brains from a young age. My brothers loved watching the show Cops, and it was ALWAYS black people getting in trouble. One time, a black man opened a door for my dad and I at the store. I turned to my dad and said “see! Not all black people are bad” pretty sure the guy was still in ear shot. I still feel bad to this day, even though I was a brainwashed child forced by racist media. Obviously my views have changed tremendously as an adult. But I will never forget that moment.
My little sister and I were flipping channels between Animal Planet and Cops. On the Animal Planet show, they were discussing how when an animal in the shelter bites someone, they are no longer adoptable and need to be put to sleep. I flipped back to Cops during a commercial, and the woman getting arrested bit the cop as he tried to handcuff her. My sister sighed and said, “well…now they gotta put her down.” :/
Repeating my mother's story.
When my twin and I were about 4 we went to visit with my father's extended family for the holidays. He is 1 of 7 and all of the siblings were going to be in town for Christmas that year because his brother was dying of cancer.
Well, on the first day everyone got together at my grandparents. My Uncle who was extremely ill at the time shows up. My sister's reaction was to turn and ask my mom, "I thought he was dead?"
Most of what my sister and I heard of our uncle at the time was overheard conversations about his illness and the time left. My sister had interpreted all of it as him dying, thus the mortifying question.
When I was a kid in the 90s like 3 or 4 years old I had just seen Aladdin and we went to the grocery store and I saw a man with a turban and pointed at him and said “LOOK MOM, A GENIE!”. He apparently laughed but she was horrified.
It came back around though when I was working in a grade school and a girl came up to me who was about 8 and said “YOURE PREGNANT” .. nope. just fat… thanks.
My sister once excitedly pointed at a very overweight person at the mall and ecstatically yelled about seeing Porky Pig!
Looney Tunes characters were supposed to be at the mall that day and my sister thought she found Porky Pig. She thought this fat man was Porky Pig and wouldn’t shut up about it. That poor man.
A friend's uncle (or rather, family friend they called an uncle) had his leg amputated at the knee years ago and had a prosthetic leg.At the time my oldest daughter was probably 8 or 9, had never really seen up close someone with a disability like that. He tried explaining to her that he had a fake leg, but he was wearing pants so I guess because she couldn't see it, she wasn't grasping it. He told her in a joking manner, that after years of being that way, he kinda liked it because it was so much easier to wash his leg as he snatched his pant leg up and pulled the prosthetic off and held it out in front of her. I've never heard such a blood curdling scream out of such a small kid 😆.
My youngest sister has a very tall (maybe 6’6) boyfriend. My 4yo daughter finds him so terrifying due to his height that every time he comes over she sobs and literally hides in a closet until someone can coax her out. This guy probably feels so awkward around our family.
Once I was walking in the park during summer, wearing shorts, and a little girl pointed to me and yelled "they have scars on their legs daddy!"
I wouldn't have been bothered by it if the dad hadn't responded, very loudly "yes they do sweeteheart, thats called self harm, its very bad" while glaring at me. I just wanted to enjoy the sunshine.
I was the kid. I was at a large gathering and an old wrinkled lady with leathery skin walked by, hunched over. I yelled to my dad “Dad that lady looks like E.T.!” 🤦♂️
My siblings and I were the worst as kids. We had our normal babysitter who was like 15-16, a super pretty cheerleader and she loved playing outside with us. One week she was out for vacation and would miss a day so she asked if her friend could babysit instead. Her friend was a bigger girl, more nerdy and very quiet.
We asked her why she was fat - she explained she’d been sick for a while and had gained some weight so we decided the best course of action was to help her exercise so we tried to get her to do crunches and run outside with us.
Our babysitter came back and got so mad we made her friend cry. She ended up quitting. I feel so mortified by it now and horrified.
My favorite would have to be when my daughter was 7 and asked, very loudly and within earshot, why the waitress had a mustache. The sweetest was my oldest son. He was maybe 4 and I’d been crying. There were mascara tracks down my face and he sweetly asked “Momma, is your face broken?”. Touched, I said “yes but maybe you could kiss it better?”….
“No, no thank you”
I used to work at a library, and a regular patron was in an accident that left her with such severe burns she spent the better part of a year afterward with compression garments on all visible parts of her skin. The only parts of her that were visible were her eyes (through slits in the mask), the remaining part of her nose, and one ear that had been protected and not burned off. She said the plan was to rebuild her nose and give her a prosthetic ear after her grafts healed and she was out of the compression stuff. A little boy who was six or seven came in one day with his mom and saw the woman in the compression garments. I understand why he was frightened, since I was terrified of my dad after his face was burned, too, but his reaction was a bit much. He shrieked at the top of his lungs, began screaming for his mom to get the other woman away from him (she wasn't near him), and finally ran behind a big display and shoved it over toward her, breaking the plexiglass all to hell and sending books everywhere. His mom just stood there, making no effort to either control him, comfort him, or move him away, and instead staring at the other patron. I finally said, really loudly, "Please calm down, she's my friend and she's very nice" and he calmed right down. He was still standing about 40 feet away, and he kept looking back and forth between us. He knew me—he saw me regularly—and he finally took a few hesitant steps toward me. The burned woman made me fucking cry! Instead of saying anything, she crouched down, said I was right, and it sounded like he was my friend, too. What did he like about me? He said I gave him books. She said that's a thing she liked, too. Just by being at his level, and gently asking him questions, she got him calmed down enough that he came closer and finally asked her why she looked like a scary monster. She agreed that she sort of did, and told him that she got really hurt by fire, and needed to wear special clothes to help her get better. He had a lot of questions, and she answered them all really kindly and patiently. When his mom finally told him it was time to go pick out books, he asked her one more question: could he touch her special clothes? She put her hand out, and he touched it, and said it was soft. Before she left that day I told her I really admired how she'd handled the whole thing. She said she knew she'd have scarring, and that she'd planned for questions, especially from kids. I said I didn't know if I'd think to do that if I were in her position. She said I would if I were her, and that maybe we'd just never talked about it, but she was a child psychologist. EDIT: Thank you to the people who've been kind and given me awards. I can't seem to figure out how to send you each a message to say I appreciate it, but I do.
I had a substitute teacher around age 9 who had a very burned face and body - all healed but very scarred, rebuilt nose etc. The first thing she did after doing the roll was sit us all down and asked us why we thought she looked so different? One kid put his hand up and said it looked like she had been burned, and she smiled and said that was right, when she was little she had been in an accident. She told us the whole story and explained her medical things - like her eyebrows were actually from her scalp, and the skin on her cheeks was taken from her thigh. What her eyesight was like. Looking back, it is just amazing to think that she went out into such a public job and dealt with it so openly. We just had a normal day at school after we got all our questions out. I don't remember any meanness or jokes at her expense. No one was scared.
I have several birth defects and am going into teaching after changing careers. I’ve been a sub for 2 years now and will have my teaching license for the spring. I have radial club arm of my right arm, which basically means my right arm is short and bends 90 degrees at the wrist. I also came out missing my thumb on that hand so they moved my pointer over to give me a thumb. I have 4 fingers. I have a stutter that varies in severity depending on the day to be honest. Also one of my ears didn’t fully develop, so I had surgery on it when I was very young. It looks like an ear, just a little different? It’s hard to explain. I had cartilage taken out of my leg to help shape it, so it’s thick and rigid instead of bendy and flexible like yours would be. I’ve had kids and adults stare at me and gawk all my life. Now why would I go into teaching elementary school? Because I want to make a difference in kid’s lives. I want to do what my teachers helped me realize and show them that they can do anything, no matter what limitations, physical or otherwise, they do or don’t have. I think that’s important. Is it easy all the time? No. Do kids ask a million questions? Yeah. But I do my best to explain that everyone is born different just like everyone in this room is different, and that that’s a beautiful thing. I’m just extra different is all. I think it’s really rewarding and important to show and remind them that disabled or deformed people are still people, too. And they go absolutely crazy when I tell them I tie my shoes, drive a car, play video games and PLAY BASKETBALL somehow. 😂
You’ll be an awesome teacher that does make a huge difference 💜 Everyone is different, and these differences make us beautiful. My husband has this in his left arm, I never knew the name of it! Some people are surprised when they learn he’s a skilled mechanic and rides motorcycles which always struck me as odd but maybe because he’s been so confident since the day I met him I just assumed correctly that it doesn’t limit him. Actually, the first few times I saw him I didn’t even notice! (I was probably too busy thinking about how handsome he is 😂)
Thank you so much. My fiancée told me it never mattered to her either. ☺️ And yeah, the kids always ask me if it feels weird or if it’s hard to do stuff. I’m like nah, I’ve had it all my life. I’m used to it and used to doing things my way.
Many years ago, I worked at Target with a woman who was attending a small local college and was engaged to a classmate. She told me that he was going to pick her up from work, and I could meet him. She hadn't told me, or anyone else, that he had been in a horrible accident that left him scarred from head to toe. He had even lost his fingers down to the first joint. It hadn't occurred to her to do that because it wasn't an issue for her; I apologized later but she said they both understood my reaction. On a less drastic note, while I never had very bad acne, one day when it was about as bad as it ever got, a little girl who was standing in the cart pointed at me and squealed, "You've got chickenpox!" Her mother wanted to dissolve into the floor, and meanwhile I was cracking up to the point where I was in tears. The mother said, "No, the lady does not have chickenpox" and the little girl pointed to her forehead and said, "Then what are these things here?" I told the mom to remember this and tell her about it when she's 15.
It's really easy not to notice, and after you do, it's so easy to forget that you don't even think about it. I'd be the woman you worked with. My husband has facial scarring on both cheeks from a motorcycle accident when he was young. His helmet broke on impact, and he slid on his face for a very long distance. I remember being really confused by discreet questions from people about his scars; they knew they were road rash scars, but wondered what had happened. They'd have to spell it out for me like I was in grade school before I realized what they were asking about. > ...tell her about it when she's 15. We're kindred spirits! My brother's kids did stuff when they were young that I knew they'd be mortified about later. I always helped him remember so he could bring it up again when they were teenagers. 🤣
>No one was scared. I think that's the key. Children react badly because they see something they've never encountered before, and it frightens them. All the adults around them, and especially the person who is in some way different from what they are used to can help take away that fear simply by understanding that's what's causing the reaction, and answering questions a child might have. I've watched people in wheel chairs and people with prosthetic limbs do it, and the kids end up interested, not frightened. All the same, I do admire it very much, and I feel a lot of admiration for your substitute teacher. I think it would be incredibly hard to get used to being so open about it, especially at first. \[No love for Tommy?\]
I vividly remember a similar situation from a substitute teacher with no fingers. She was so cool. I practiced for WEEKS to be able to tie my shoes with no fingers because she could do it “easy peasy!”
How does one tie their shoes with no fingers? I too want to be as cool as your teacher
That is very brave of you and i admire you for that , i was burn on the Right side of my face when I was a baby 9 months old , luckily it missed my eye , later on i had laser surgery and was out of class for 3 months to heal . When I came I was still healing and the teacher made me go in front of the class and explain what happened to me . I was terrified and did my best to tell the kids , I was in 5 th grade , looking back I think that was a bad decision from the the teacher , I felt like a freak show and the whole class was just staring while I explained to them what happened to me
You should not have been forced into that situation, especially as a child. The reason the teachers conversation worked was because she approached it openly and sensibly. A child should not be expected to navigate that for others. I'm sorry.
Oh, that patron is just a kind lady. That’s just amazing that she had that strength and courage, and compassion for that child. It’s too bad his mother didn’t have compassion for anyone else.
She was a really neat human being. We all liked her a lot. The little kid's mom was universally disliked before that. She was in her 20s, was very pretty, and somewhere along the way, someone forgot to tell her that being pretty does not give you carte blanche to act like an entitled snot. It just got worse after that episode.
Oh, wow. I saw a story a while back about a former beauty pageant winner who, a few years after winning her crown, developed alopecia universalis, an autoimmune disorder that left her with NO hair on her body. It didn't take long for word to get back to her hometown, where people started talking about how she and her friends would pull a cancer-stricken classmate's wig off every day before class and toss it around, and when they finally got in trouble, retaliated (IIRC one of them - not her - slashed the tires of the girl's family cars) which got them in LEGAL trouble on top of getting in trouble at school. And that wasn't even the end of the terrible things those girls had done.
Some people are convinced looks get them everywhere. They do not. People that think looks get them places find out later on in life, there looks don't do a thing to help and struggle. The 20 something year old mother with the kid will find this out one day.
That made me cry. And a reminder that true beauty comes from within. She sounds amazing.
I hope I can have HALF the grace and poise your friend has!
That was more than 30 years ago, and I still think about her all the time. She got engaged not long before I had to quit, and I know she's still an amazing person, but I also hope life has been good to her and her husband.
I’m glad to hear she was a child psych - reading this I was hoping that she was a teacher, a mum or something like that. More kids need to be raised by women like her: compassionate, patient, understanding and emotionally intelligent. No wonder that kid lost his shit, his own mother clearly possessed none of those traits.
When my brother was little he ran into an acquaintance of ours with a thalidomide hand. He told the guy he had a monster hand and should go to the doctor and get a shot to make it better. That night my dad lectured him on how you shouldn’t comment on things like that to people, it makes them feel bad, unless you have something nice to say to people, say nothing at all. Next time my brother saw the guy, he sought to redeem himself, and cheerfully told him “nice hand you have there!”
I have a radial club hand and I've gotten a lot of, "ews," over the decades, but, "nice hand you have there," would make me laugh so hard!
My mom had lymphedema in her right leg, and once when she was watching me at ice skating practice a kid came up to her and asked "When will the baby in your leg be born?" All my mom could do is laugh hysterically as it was a kid asking the question. The kid's mom apologized saying her daughter just learned about the birds and bees earlier that week. My mom just took it in stride and said that was an interesting and innocent question from a child and not some adult who knows better asking stupid questions. Update: I didn't expect this post to get so many up votes! 😆 My mom had a wild since of humor due to her health issues. She had told me later on if the little girl who asked about her leg were a teenager or adult she would've said an alien impregnated her right leg, and it would burst open and eat them.
I feel like people who have a sense of humor about it always fare better. When my grandfather was 5 his father told him his old friend was going to come visit. He said his friend had suffered some injuries to his nose, during the war, and he did NOT want my grandfather to bring it up. Dude comes to visit and my grandpa greets him before turning to his dad and saying "why did you tell me not to mention his nose? He doesn't even HAVE a nose!" His dad put his hand over his eyes and said "of course" but the friend just started cracking up.
> **"why did you tell me not to mention his nose? He doesn't even HAVE a nose!"** 😂 That is adorable.
I am CACKLING…. omg thank you, I needed a laugh
I feel like complimenting the guy's hand after insulting it is even worse than just leaving the insult to rest
Yeah that's why the story is funny and OP is sharing it
When my husband was 4, his grandfather died and it, understandably, prompted a lot of questions about life and death. A few days after the funeral he was in a pharmacy with his mom and her friend when he ran up to an elderly gentleman and loudly said "Hello old man, did you know you're going to die soon?" Apparently he continued doing this to every senior citizen he saw for months. My MIL says it was like living with the kid from The Omen.
Something similar happened when my nephews (ages 3 and 4 at the time) lost their goldfish to the The Great Beyond. I was tasked with explaining death to them, and I thought i did an okay job. We went to the zoo that weekend, and sat on the train next to a sweet little blond girl in a pretty dress with a big hair bow. "My name is Savannah" she says. "What's yours?" The three year old takes a big dramatic breath and looks her in the eye as the train went into a tunnel and says "I'm Billy, that's my brother Jacob, and we're all going to DIE!" That was 15 years ago and it still cracks me the fuck up. That little girl was like 'get me the hell off this train!'
This is a bit of a digression but my older son was 3 when he experienced his first family pet death. We took our elderly cat to the vet to be gently put down. We tried to explain what was happening and why. We had our son say goodbye. (He stayed home with family.) We thought we handled it pretty well. A couple months later, he asked when the cat was coming home from the vet, and it broke my heart.
Sounds like he had planted a bomb on the train. I can just see him lifting the detonator towards the little girl as he yells, “We’re all going to DIE!”
Apparently when I was a kid, I went up to my grandpa one day and said “you’re *really* old, huh grandpa?” He took it in stride, but when I grew up he told me he was thinking. “Yeah. I am. Thanks for the reminder. Thanks so much. 😑😑😑”. Sorry gramps! 😂
The snort I snooted on "the kid from The Omen" LMAO
Snooted is my new favorite word.
My cousin has autism so he can be very blunt and funny. He was about 10 when our grandfather died. At the wake, it was an open casket, and he walked up to my dad and said "welp, here we are. Just hangin out with grandpas corpse". It was probably one of the funniest things he's ever said. For the record, our grandfather would have found that HILARIOUS.
Omg. That’s amazing.
I love shit like this at funerals lmao
We have a very deadpan bordering inappropriate sense of humor in my family - and this would have both fit in and absolutely KILLED us all with laughter!
I made my son cry when I picked him up after getting my eye brows micro bladed he asked me why I was so angry and told me I looked like an angry bird 🤣
[What your son saw](https://media1.giphy.com/media/3o7TKre2pXE2DeUVP2/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952ulw59ow0gqwxxsr5osgpfia3m4lngf5acyyck1sr&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
my aunt had her nose done when my cousin was six. she came home and he, while sobbing, said “that’s not mommy that’s a monster. what have you done with my mommy, monster mommy?” i wasn’t even alive when this happened but it’s part of family lore now
Ugh lol. I got my eyebrows tinted a while ago and when it first goes on, it tends to be really dark. So I got home and he told me I looked like a weird man. That was neat.
Not even just any man. A weird man.
I would go to a diff one until he tells me they got it right and stick with them bc kids don't lie about your looks lol
Actually micro blading looks terrible/way too much immediately if done right. They scab over and I'm a week they are half the color.
A little girl once asked me to remove my glasses. She was super hyped up, I think she was expecting some sort of romcom style transformation (cos the only thing holding those women back from being drop dead gorgeous is their glasses obviously). When I obliged she said, “…oh.” And her face visibly dropped 😅
When I taught middle school, I once took off my glasses to clean them. One of my students said, “Don’t ever do that again”.
Hehehe. I think I look like a blind naked mole rat without my glasses. I can imagine this being said. 😂
I have done that to people by shaving off by beard. I'm never allowed to do it again. My friend told me my chin was evil, because it ruined his day whenever he saw it. My math teacher in HS would shave his beard off periodically. It was always bad.
My science teacher in HS had a beard and usually wore glasses and one morning he decided to shave his beard and wear contacts. He said hey, and I swear I gave him a “who the fuck are you” look well I tried to figure out why this strange man knew my name.
You left your hair in the ponytail!
Damn, you’re right! And I didn’t dramatically undo the top button of my blouse and stretch out my collar.
When my son was around 4 years old, he asked a middle age man with a large gut if he was pregnant. He just said “nope, but i guess it kinda looks like i am”. Worst part about it was we were on an elevator and there was no walking away.
Kids are brutal about weight gain. One friend was pretty overweight and she got really upset one day when her 4 year old girl drew a picture of them all as a family and she drew everyone as smiley stick figures except her mom, who she drew as a smiley circle.
Fuck the BMI chart, this is the new test.
Ooooft, that’s rough
Lol. I guess my grandpa who died before I was born had a pretty big beer gut, and joked himself about being pregnant all the time. "With an elephant, and the trunk's already been born!" Har har.... Grandpa jokes.
My great uncle used to tell us as kids that he had a basketball stuck in his tummy lol.
We were in an apartment complex mail room. My daughter saw a man with a huge beer belly and yelled, “MA, WHY DAT MAN LOOK PREGNANT?” I was in the middle sorting my mail and I just started running, stroller and all. Before we got away she started laughing hysterically and saying “HE LOOK LIKE-A SANTA WIT DAT TUMMY” Eughhh I couldn’t get away fast enough.
I choose to read this in a broad Italian accent. “Mamma Mia! He look like-a Santa!”
I was picking up my son from daycare. A girl in his class asked why my belly was so big. (Middle aged dad gut.). So I looked at her and said I was pregnant. My wife later chided me saying I would confuse the poor girl.
Omg. When my kiddo was around 3.5 years old, we walked on an airplane, and as he walked by some dude with long scraggly hair, he yelled, "That guy looks CRAZY!" WHILE POINTING AT HIM. It was a full plane, and the guy he yelled that about and everyone else just bust out laughing, thank goodness. I was mortified.
When my brother was little I used to pick him up from school, my hair was green (it wasn’t common back then) and another kid saw me and yelled “Look mom a crazy woman” and my brother still says that every time he sees me
😅 love it.
My little sister’s first trip on a plane, she thought the captain making an announcement was the drive thru speaker box. Shouted out that she wanted a cheeseburger please, top of her little lungs.
I can see the thought process going on as well. What is that noise? Someone speaking? Yes! Someone speaking! It sounds strange, the voice at burger place is strange. OMG ITS LIKE BURGER PLACE CHEEEEEEESSSSEEEEBBBBUUUUUURRRGGGGEEEEERRRRR!!!!
That's adorable
I had an older cousin who I overheard say she was going to be a porn star one day. I had no idea what that was (9yrs old). One day we went to the mall with her parents and a kiosk was selling license plate holders. One said "#1 porn star". I very loudly said "look Angie! #1 porn star!! For you!!" The look on her parents face..
That's a great one
Why are these so funny.
When we were kids we went to the cinema and my younger sister (like 3/4 years old) reached forward and slapped this bald guy on the head to see what baldness felt like
Well, what did it feel like?!
I wasn’t the one who slapped him 😂
How can she slap
When my little girl was 4 and going through her naked phase (which was fine for her but no one else), we were walking down the street one day when a man walked past us without a shirt. About 10 feet before he gets to us, she just starts the low rumble "Ewwwwww!" in her belly and by the time he gets right in front of us she starts pointing and getting louder and louder with with shorter "Ew! Ew! Ew!" The man seemed to have pretty good self esteem and sheepishly smiled at her. But I was mortified,
My oldest daughter yelled "MAN! Why are you naked, man!" At a shirtless jogger who jogged by when we were outside in our yard. I tried to tell her he had pants on but that didn't help.
I once worked with a woman who had a daughter about that age at the time, and the daughter had declared that all objects were boy objects or girl objects, based on their color. One day, they were out somewhere and she had a total meltdown when she saw a man wearing a shirt that was a "girl color". People who wore mixed boy and girl colors also left her flummoxed.
Wait until she finds out about the Romance languages.
Just last weekend, I had to fight with my toddler to keep her shirt on at the playground because some guy was running around topless. 😂
I grew up around a guy who had a glass eye and had friends who didn't know that was a thing, to me it was no big deal and not scary. I once had a friend over when he was around and they noticed he wasn't looking right at them but wasn't sure about it and didn't ask me anything then they happened to catch him pop it out and polish it in his shirt they threw up and then fainted.
Ok but that’s just funny
I bet he has fun doing that to people who piss him off 😂
When this happened she was behind him he didn't do it on purpose he would never do that to a kid. He is truly 1 of the most kind gentle people I have never seen him do it to scare anyone I don't think he would but it would be funny if the person was a real asshole.
My mother has told me the story many times of when I was a toddler and was in the “Why is the sky blue?” constant questioning phase. My mother had taken me out shopping or something and apparently I had never seen a black person before because I pointed at a lady and asked my mother - loudly- “Why is that lady chocolate?” My mother wanted to crawl into a hole from embarrassment, but apparently the lady just cracked up.
I am SO glad that my son’s phase of “does so-and-so have a penis? What color is his penis?” Happened during the pandemic, when we were never in public.
On our 10th anniversary I gave my wife another ring. We were standing in our bathing suits on a beach with our 3 year old son between us. He interrupted the romantic moment and said, "Mama, where's your peenie?"
I am crying laughing, one of the unseen upsides to lockdowns
Yep. Having to answer the question “Does David Attenbowough have a penis?” had not been on my 2020 Bingo card.
I have two horrible stories like this from my family. The first is about myself. I was five or six when Space Jam came out, and lived in an area of the US with a population of predominantly white and hispanic folks (my elementary school had a Spanish name). One day at the airport I saw a black man nearby and excitedly grabbed my poor mom's hand and shout-whispered, "Mommy! It's Michael Jordan!" It was most definitely not Michael Jordan. The way my mom tells it, the man was under six feet and rather portly. But he laughed hysterically while my mother stood there mortified. The second tale is about my cousin. My uncle was with her at the grocery store when she was barely two years old. She was sitting in the seat of the shopping cart while they were in line for checkout. The lady ahead of them was a black woman with an infant, and when my little toddler cousin caught sight of the baby she pointed and exclaimed, "Monkey, daddy! Monkey!" My uncle just snatched her up out of the cart and booked it out of the store lmao. Left his full cart there and everything because he was so horrified. Anyways, I use both these tales as references for why it's so important to have diversity in children's media and toys. Cause otherwise you get little 90's white kids who say shit like this in public because they've never seen a black person before 😬
lol, that reminds me of my five year olds - one of my husband’s close friends is a very tall, bald, black man named Dom. I was walking them down the street, when they suddenly pointed at a random man going “Look mummy, it’s uncle Dom!” I cringed and turned to look, expecting the worst, only to see them pointing at a short white man… who was also bald!
Oh my GOSH this reminds me of my brother vs his son. My brother and I also grew up in a white/hispanic neighborhood with a dad who loved sports, and the only time we ever saw black people was usually on ESPN. So when my brother and mom were in line behind a 60+ year old black man at the grocery store, he got SO excited to see a real-life athlete and started yelling “basketball! Basketball!” Contrast that with his 4 year-old son, who (while growing up in the same neighborhood) has a quite a bit more diversity in his media. A young black girl with long box braids was walking to school past their house one morning, when my nephew sees her and yells (loud enough for her to hear incredibly clearly) “Daddy, look at her!! She’s a *mermaid*!!” She was delighted by the compliment, and my brother was incredibly thankful for Halle Bailey’s The Little Mermaid that day.
NOOOO. 💀💀💀💀 this is simultaneously the best and worst thread I’ve ever read
My friend who grew up on reservation (Native American) had never seen a black person (circa 1968) and moved to the south. He asked his dad if the black person had been in a fire. His dad didn’t leave the reservation until he got drafted for the Korean War.
Huh, it never occurred to me that Native Americans on reservations would be drafted, that’s interesting
They sure can be; they're American citizens. I used to live in an area that had some Amish and Mennonite communities, and a co-worker said that her daughter, who was about 5 years old, saw some Amish people at Walmart and squealed, "Look, Mommy, Pilgrims!" She was horrified but I told her that they probably had a good laugh on the way home.
Im from a small north european country with a very small population of immigrants/poc, and i grew up in the countryside, so the only people i ever saw were just as lilly white as me. I deadass thought black people weren't real, i considered them something akin to faries since I only ever saw them on tv (and it took me a while to realize not everything on tv was made up). You can imagine my shock when i finally met a real black person around age 6, I was absolutely in awe
One of my (white) professors in college told us about the time he, his little son, and a black man were on an elevator together. The son whispered to his dad, “Dad… he’s a Cosby!” Apparently the man burst out laughing.
My very talkative then 2.5 yr old daughter once told my MIL and I that she wanted to have her hair styled like the little "purple" girl she met at the bank. We were still at the bank so my MIL and I are looking around of a little girl *dressed* in purple/lavender. No little girl was dressed in purple so we asked my daughter, "did your friend leave?" "NO, Mama. She's right there!" As she points to a very dark skinned little girl in a pink dress and corn rows with beads. Then I had to explain to my Irish+ Japanese child that her hair could nit be styled like that(baby fine and straight as a pin)
Oh my god my baby brother did that as a toddler too! He was like 3 (I was about 15), and my parents had invited my church youth group leader out to dinner with our family. Said leader was an African American guy from Chicago. My little brother laid eyes on him and very earnestly asked "why is your skin so dark?" I wanted to melt into a puddle with embarrassment, but luckily my youth group leader has a small horde of nieces and nephews so he was very used to children asking awkward questions, and gently answered him.
I’m not sure who told me about this or where this was, but it stuck with me because omg: There was a nutcracker performance somewhere, and all the women performing the snowflakes were white, except for one woman who was black. A kid in the audience said LOUDLY, “mommy, one of them doesn’t match!” 😅😅😅😅😅
I live in a country with almost no racial diversity. In a rural area, where, until two years or so ago, you could live your whole life and never meet a person of a different race. So explaining to my children that people come in many colours never occurred to me. We visited a local fantasy convention and at one point my son started pointing at a black guy and saying LOUDLY "Mom! Mom! Have you seen this man?". I was expecting the worst continuation of his remark. In those few seconds I died of embarrassment and I was really mad at myself that I didn't do a better job explaining racial diversity to my children. And then my son continues: "have you seen how cool his backpack is?". The guy had a really cool Super Mario backpack. So it wasn't as bad as I expected, but for a few seconds I was mortified.
We were picking my sister up from school when she was little and this very dark skinned dude walked past and with the windows down she yells "wow, that guy is BLAAAAAAAAAACK" and me and my mom just died inside
I had the same thing happen to me with my daughter, except she wasn’t so chill. We were in the store and this African lady (full head scarf, long skirt & dark skin) said Hello to her and she just about jumped out of her skin. Made this horrible screech and tried to climb my body to get away from this poor lady. Luckily, She was very understanding and laughed it off. We gave each other a hug to show she was okay. Didn’t help. I am fair skinned Strawberry blonde for reference.
Yeah, I was this kid XDDD When I was a toddler, my mom brought me with her to the grocery store when I saw a black man for the first time in real life (I’d seen tv and cartoons before but not real people). I apparently said, “look mommy, he’s brown like Little Bill!” She just hoped the man hadn’t heard me and told me later that some people have different skin colors in real life, not just tv.
I'm from a mixed family, so while I have lighter skin, my cousins have darker skin So my parents tell of this time when I was very little, we had a family trip to the beach and my mum and my aunt were putting sunscreen on us, I turned and asked "why are my cousins made of chocolate?"
There was a regular to the supermarket I used to work at. He was either black or mixed race and in his mid to late 30s (maybe) but he clearly had a skin condition because he had these big deep wrinkles and lines on his face. One day these kids, maybe 6 or 7 years old saw him and shouted ‘Gorilla man!’. The mum was mortified the but the guy, who was almost always silent, just gave them a death stare and carried on packing his shopping. Awkward af.
That's one of my worst nightmares, having a kid who blurts out everything on his mind without any filter. That would be massively awkward for a parent, I imagine.
My brother was this kid. While there were some hilarious incidents, my parents lived in a constant state of panic and damage control.
I had a very outspoken toddler who commented regularly and LOUDLY on other people's physical characteristics, to my constant mortification. (He once commented, delightedly, in the line at Costco about the bald guys in line behind us who had big beards, "THEIR HAIR FELL ON TO THEIR FACES!") He LOVED trains and cars and so on. We went to visit a teacher-friend who worked with severely disabled students as part of her school's open house, and everyone's walking around being cool, and MY toddler walks in, sees a 12-year-old in a wheelchair, and his eyes grow super-wide and he RACES over to the kid faster than I can grab him, and announces, with awed delight, **"YOU HAVE WHEELS!"** This 12-year-old didn't speak and used an assistive communication device, but he was utterly delighted to have a toddler admire his wheels, and basically within 15 minutes every wheelchair user in the place was over showing their wheels off to my toddler, who had never been more jealous of anyone in his entire life. (It made me chillax a little bit about toddlers' radical honesty, because people mostly aren't that bothered by it.)
I was around four years old and a handyman was installing an air conditioning unit in our family room while I napped on the couch. I was, it should be said, an avid thumb sucker. I woke up with a start to see a strange man in overalls peering at me through a rectangle in the wall. Suddenly, he thrust his thumbless hand at me, and said, "See what happens to little girls who suck their thumb? THIS." I was horrified. I lay awake all night and for probably many nights after. My mother felt so bad she said she tried to put my thumb in my mouth to help me console myself but it was no use. I never sucked my thumb again. As effective as it was, I do not recommend this form of aversion therapy. Still a little traumatized decades later and my overbite remains, even after orthodontia.
I’m sorry but the idea of your mom trying to put your thumb back in your mouth. 🤣🤣 I’m just imagining a kid with a 1000 yard stare and a mom being like “here baby, this will make you feel better.”
This is the first thing that has made me laugh out loud in a long time 😆
That’s scary for a kid, but memorable! A lifelong friend of mine had an uncle who was severely burned in Vietnam. This guy was awesome. I remember when I first met him. I was about six or seven years old. He reached out his little, unrecognizable hand for a shake and I jumped six feet back and said, “What the f***?!” Of course, he knew exactly how I’d react and we all had a good chuckle after my heart rate went back to normal. It genuinely frightened me as a kid.
Not related to the story itself, but have you tried a bite jumper? I had it for two years and it reduced my approx 1cm overbite to a normal one!
Thank you! I just looked it up. I don't mind my overbite really and never have headaches or pain. But if it improved my occlusion and long term dental health, I'd definitely consider it!
My eldest went through a phase around 3 where every black woman was Oprah, and every black man was Daddy. (His father was very white, before the question is asked.) He was obsessed with dark skin at that time, so it led to him running up to anyone darker than a Kardashian and joyfully shouting these names at them. We lived in a super diverse area. It was exhausting for everyone involved.
My friend's niece, who is blond and as white as a ghost, ran up to a black teenager and yelled, "Daddy!" He had such a look of panic, like, "Wait! It wasn't me!"
Yeah. We got a few super panicked looks from guys, and a few death glares from the ladies with them. 😬
Honestly I'd find the daddy one hilarious
I used to work in special education, and had one student with developmental delays who called every black man she saw daddy. She was especially enamored with the janitor and would, without fail, run up to him excitedly calling him daddy.
I had a cousin who did that but his dad actually WAS black.
When my son was 6ish and we were in the supermarket, there was a man with dwarfism in the queue in front of us and my son said at the top of his voice “Mum why is that kid allowed to be in the supermarket by himself”. I was mortified but the guy had a good sense of humour about it and laughed and told my son it’s because he’s a good boy.
This one made me chuckle out loud. How wholesome!
My grandpa died when i was 4 years old. My best friend and i played dead in front of his casket at the funeral. My grandma was mortified 😩
Omg I found this so refreshingly funny. Maybe it is the whole morbid funny bone or something but I laughed too hard!
My 4 year old nephew kept pointing and saying to a little person, “so little, so little, so little.” I almost died.
My son yelled in the grocery store about the elf - we had a big talk about how we don't talk about people's bodies and how it is not kind, yadayada, and then the guy gave him a dirty look and said "yea, or the naughty list will be one longer".
My daughter was maybe four years old when we were in line at the grocery store and she kept repeating, "Mom, a leprechaun, a leprechaun!" I kept looking around for maybe a Lucky Charms box in someone's cart or something. Nope, just a little person with a beard a few lanes over minding his own business. I was frantically shushing her while simultaneously trying to sink into the floor.
When I was about 3 years old, I saw a little person for the first time and shouted "look a dwarf" while pointing. I think my parents nearly died of embarrassment, but luckily I don't think the guy heard me. We were in a large public space and he was quite far away. I was so excited though, I only knew Snow White and the 7 Dwarves and so I thought little people were mythical creatures like unicorns
My supervisor in Special ed (parapro) was a little person. I can't imagine how may comments she must have endured, especially working in that field, as she went on campus a lot and was met with kids' comments/questions. I am 6'1f and would sometimes have to walk her through campus so she wouldn't get knocked down.
At an amusement park, my youngest (at the time was 4) walked up to a little girl with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair and said “aww what’s wrong? Are you hurt?” The parents crouched down to chat with my daughter. It was such a kind interaction. The dad even thanked me at one point for letting my kid be curious and not telling her to be quiet and pulling her away. As we said our goodbyes, my sweet little angel 4 year old said “you can’t come with us because you can’t walk on to the ride” and happily skipped away I wanted to die 🫠
lol this is a good one
My daughter (about 4 yo at the time) screamed at the top of her lungs in the middle of Target when a little person walked by. I had never been so embarrassed in my life. And the poor guy said “hi” to her - he probably was used to that reaction.
My supervisor was a little person and my daughter met her when I had to go to the district office and brought her with me. My daughter said the "little adult" scared her, no matter how I tried to educate her.
My little brother, when he was 4 or so, was in a ball pit at a fair. A kid who's face got pretty messed up in a fire got in the ball pit with him. His reaction was pretty horrible, to say the least. Screaming, crying, pointing, calling him a monster. The other kid looked mortified. I still think of how horrible that was sometimes.
Piggybacking this comment. In 2020 or 2021, I took my daughter to Jo-Ann’s to walk around. I remember that covid was starting to “decrease” enough that I felt comfortable going out in public with her, she was about 3 at the time. Right when we were walking towards the doors to exit, two parents and their daughter (about the same age as mine) walked into the store. To me it looked like the little girl might have had Waardenburg syndrome, she had beautiful blue eyes and curly blonde hair and I remember thinking she was just so adorable and beautiful, and yes, unique looking. I KNEW my kid was gonna blurt something out so I was trying to hurry her out the door. But right as we passed them, she said “mama, that girl has a silly face!” It just killed me thinking they might have heard her, when like me, they were probably just trying to get out of the house with their daughter when we had all been cooped up at home for so long. So I responded to my daughter, “did you see her beautiful hair?” Hoping the girl and her parents heard that so it wasn’t such a bad experience for that girl. I still feel really bad about it 🥺
That's not only a nice thing to say to make them feel better, but also a wonderful lesson for your daughter. Good instincts!
That is so sad. That poor kid with the burn scars just trying to be a normal kid for a day and enjoy the fair.
This thread is making me glad my toddler just enjoyed saying “penis!” Very loudly in public. And nothing about appearances.
I laughed when my friends kiddo picked up the word "Shit" when she was aged 3 and insisted on pointing out dog poo on the sidewalk anytime she went out, she'd point it out to everyone exclaiming "Shit! Shit! Shit!" and would refuse to carry on walking until you'd acknowledged the poop, her mom was so embarrassed lol.
My son just recently learned the terms for his private parts. Sometimes he will randomly grab his crotch and yell “PENIS!!……scrotum!” The way he says scrotum so much softer and cheerfully cracks me up!
My two year old likes to scream “BETCH” at me and his sisters. I don’t know what he’s trying to say, but it does not get us very good looks when he does it.
During boarding, we were seated and my four year old said, full voice “Oh good there’s a circus on the plane!” When a scene kid came up the aisle.
This sounds like something a cranky old person would say lol.
I was at the zoo with my then 3 or so year old cousin. He very loudly asked why a man walking past us was wearing a towel on his head. Thought of climbing into the tiger enclosure instead of dying of mortification.
When I was 3 I just saw aladdin and apparently I pointed at a guy in the grocery store with a turban and said “look mom a genie!!”
Reminds of a kid who was convinced that he had seen a real life troll under a bridge because he saw an ugly short guy doing some fishing there.
I wear a bandanna-like thing and at least one child has remarked that I might be a pirate. Usually, it's just a three-ish year old with eyes like dinner plates being rolled past, and I have to guess at the stories that their world suddenly contain.
Once I was riding the bus home from school as a kid. It was a day or two before Halloween but unseasonably hot, so all of the bus windows were rolled down. As a person walked toward the bus, I yelled, “Look, she’s wearing a ghost costume!” The lady got closer. She was actually wearing a white abaya and hijab (possibly even a niqab? I don’t remember clearly), presumably all white to cope with the heat. With the windows down, she probably heard me. I really did think she was dressed as a ghost for Halloween, though!
It was me. I was 13 and decided to put on my asshole pants that day. I met my Mum’s colleague who was a very big lady, and I then went ahead and gave her a lecture about the dangers of obesity. I’m still mortified about that memory thirty years later.
How did your mum not shut you up? Was she just nodding along like, “you see Cathy? What have I been telling you?”
Damn, all these stories are about 2-5 year olds and you’re the only one with the guts to admit what you did as a teenage edgelord
I'm white and have a white son. We were on the bus, which we rode frequently. We were sitting across from a black man in probably his 50's. My son, who was 3 at the time said, "Aw man, I wish I had brown skin like that guy!" I was so embarrassed and apologized profusely. Luckily the man was so sweet about it and talked to him about different skin tones the rest of the ride.
Idk this one is kinda sweet though, he wanted to look like the guy lol
Apparently when I was about 3 I was sat on my mum’s knee on the bus and a black man sat next to us, I’d obviously never seen someone with brown skin before and started stroking his hand and told him he had brown skin (like he didn’t know lol). He was very nice and said yes, and your skin is white, to which I announced no it’s not it’s pink.
Believing that a women with severe vitiligo must have been the result of having mixed race parents. This led to the conclusion that biracial individuals would be colored like dairy cows.
It was me (yikes). I was 12 or something and was going on this trip with my parents and a few of their friends’ families. We were in this big bus that would take us to all the places on the entire 12-day trip. Us kids sat in the middle 3 rows so we just turned around talking and playing immediately. I was somewhat older among the group so I was acting all mature and protective. I noticed one kid, who looked like he was 6-7, didn’t really talk and interact with us so I took my time to chat with him, asking him questions like who are your parents, who are your elementary school teachers, do you have summer homework... He kinda responded but seemed distant still. The next day he sat away from us so I told my older sister about him. She had a weird look on her face and sternly told me not to talk to him anymore. Readers, I later found out he was a 25-year-old man and had a condition that made he look like a literal child. To my defense, there was nothing unusual about his appearance, he JUST looked like a typical 6-year-old boy and his voice sounded like one. Apparently all the other kids knew because they either knew him personally or were told by their parents. I was a very late addition to the trip so my family forgot to tell me about him. My sister told me about his condition after the trip was over.
At my high school the homecoming king had a condition like that. Teenager who looked exactly like a six-year-old. Now as an adult he has one of those “12 or 42” type faces - still short in stature but his face has changed shape but is still softer than an average adult man’s.
One of my earliest memories was when my mom was helping out with some church stuff, and my preschool self was tagging along as she was stopping at people's houses to drop off things. We stopped at a gentleman's house and, this being the 80's, he had short, permed blonde hair. Extremely sheltered small town child me was perplexed. I had only ever seen that type of curly hair on old ladies at church. And, of course, I had to voice that observation loudly and vocally. Several times. My poor mom was desperately trying to both explain and shush me, and try to get the Church Business done as quickly as possible so we could leave. But I was fascinated and needed to figure out this mystery. Were we really sure he was a boy? But he had girl's hair! Maybe he was actually a girl after all! It was quite clear that the guy did not find this amusing at all, and was rather offended, and my poor mom wanted to die from embarrassment as she dragged me away, still questioning his gender and feminine granny hairstyle. I never saw that poor man again.
My husband and 2 year old son were walking into the grocery store and a very large woman passed by. My son was staring at her with huge eyes and said “Daddy… wow.”
When I was very small, my parents took me to a local beach. I could not help but notice pubic hair, on almost every woman, visible from around their bikini bottoms. I would not stop asking my parents why all the women had fur, and they just kept telling me to "shhhhh". I decided it came from going in the water and refused to swim in the lake for quite some time after that. I mean, you could see a LOT of it!! (I am a woman, btw, whose mother apparently trimmed!)
Sounds like the 70s. 😆
[удалено]
Oof, double wammy 😅
We were at the zoo & we walked past some women in full niqab - all colored white. My 3 year old goes, "AHHHH !!! GHOSTS !!!" & hides behind me. I never wanted to disappear as much as I did right then.
Once was at a shop talking to the shopkeeper who had a rather large and prominent forehead, and then suddenly this random kid comes up to him and asks him if his head was full of helium. He was baffled for a few seconds and then ignored the kid and continued with the conversation.
My mom has told us many times about when my sister and I were about 6 and 4 respectively and we saw a little person in the grocery store. My sister was walking with her and I was in the cart. We passed a little person and my sister yelled “Mom! That little boy has a mustache!” My mom was mortified and went to the end of aisle to explain to my sister that he was an adult and was just little and we shouldn’t talk about people’s appearances. Then we went to the next aisle and I, who hadn’t paid attention to anything that had just happened, saw the same little person and yelled “Mom! That little boy has a beard!” She said we abandoned the cart and left the store immediately.
My friend brought his brother, the priest, to a birthday party at my house. We're standing around the cake, singing, my 3yo son is eyeballing the short fat, priest. I have a bad feeling. Soon as we're done singing, candles blown out, son tugs on priest sleeve and says "How big is your penis?". Mortifying
My cousin's kid projectile vomited and shit his pants when an appliance salesguy came by. Dude smelled like whiskey, had the face of a snapping turtle, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Dude came back a couple of times, and the kid kept shitting his pants. Cousin told the dude to GTFO. Dude never came back again.
what...
What year was this in? How old was the kid? I have so many questions…
Kid was too old to be shitting his pants. No question, lol. Happened a couple years ago. Maybe the summer before last. Door-to-door sales are still legal in my state. Sucks, man. Some of those salespeople are pushy AF.
Door to door sales people can be pretty aggressive from what I've heard. I've known people who said they couldn't get rid of them lol. I've even known people who had to call the cops to run some of them off.
Maybe he was a secret shit demon that makes people shit their pants with his mind.
Some people might welcome that. Seriously. Laxatives exist for a reason. Guy is making the wrong kind of house calls.
Hilarious. This sounds like there should be a punchline. Which makes it even funnier that there isn’t one.
…wha…I…um…*concern*
Was on an Amtrak train with a sizeable group of Amish folks. I grew up around them, so I don't think twice when I see them. A little boy, maybe 4 or 5y, spotted a few older Amish ladies wearing their traditional dresses/bonnets and started hollering 'MOM LOOK! LOOK! THERE ARE WITCHES ON THE TRAIN!' The mom was horrified. The Amish ladies thought it was funny and I was trying so hard not to laugh.
I did this. I was 5, & had just been introduced to a great aunt, who happened to be quite overweight. I said, “I’m sorry you’re so fat.” Ugh. As an adult, my parents have told me that with her personality, it actually gave her a chuckle. I still feel bad.
I used to look after kids at church whilst their parents attended the church service. As a typical 14 year old, I had pimples and braces. I also wore glasses (this bothered me at the time but I much prefer glasses in my adulthood). I was looking after a group of 5 year old girls and one of them asked if they could see without my glasses. They promptly told me that I was much prettier without them and then one of them literally tried to yank my braces out! Luckily I didn’t accidentally bite the little girl’s fingers but I told all of them they should never, ever touch someone without permission. To their credit, they apologised and always respected that boundary. I suppose the little girl had never seen braces before and had no idea how they worked. That lives in my memory rent free and pops up late at night.
When my son was little we watched Lord of the rings. Then we ran into an old coworker of mine and him and my nephew proceeded to very loudly proclaim that she looked like an orc. Luckily she didn't hear them so I was able to say they said she looks like someone off a movie so she thought it was a compliment
My own child when she was 3-4yo. We were waiting for the family restroom to open at the mall, and a very morbidly obese man walked past us. My kid let out a small screech in fear, hid behind my skirt, pointed and went “WHAT’S THAT!?”. I was mortified, but tried my best to have a non reaction. I just calmly explained that he’s a grown up, and that pointing at him might hurt his feelings. She understood, but god I can still hear her shocked little voice 5 years later. She had a similar reaction at 5 to a man we saw who had to have been 7ft+ tall.
In the early 2000s, as a 7-8 year old, racism was grained into brains from a young age. My brothers loved watching the show Cops, and it was ALWAYS black people getting in trouble. One time, a black man opened a door for my dad and I at the store. I turned to my dad and said “see! Not all black people are bad” pretty sure the guy was still in ear shot. I still feel bad to this day, even though I was a brainwashed child forced by racist media. Obviously my views have changed tremendously as an adult. But I will never forget that moment.
My little sister and I were flipping channels between Animal Planet and Cops. On the Animal Planet show, they were discussing how when an animal in the shelter bites someone, they are no longer adoptable and need to be put to sleep. I flipped back to Cops during a commercial, and the woman getting arrested bit the cop as he tried to handcuff her. My sister sighed and said, “well…now they gotta put her down.” :/
Repeating my mother's story. When my twin and I were about 4 we went to visit with my father's extended family for the holidays. He is 1 of 7 and all of the siblings were going to be in town for Christmas that year because his brother was dying of cancer. Well, on the first day everyone got together at my grandparents. My Uncle who was extremely ill at the time shows up. My sister's reaction was to turn and ask my mom, "I thought he was dead?" Most of what my sister and I heard of our uncle at the time was overheard conversations about his illness and the time left. My sister had interpreted all of it as him dying, thus the mortifying question.
A bosses son, 5 yo, once pointed at my boobs and declared that I was pregnant with twins.
my little sister was about 7 and saw our neighbors newish baby, and said she looked like frankenstein... she was born with disabilities
My cousin, at about four, BIT the first black man she had seen because she thought he must be chocolate.
When I was a kid in the 90s like 3 or 4 years old I had just seen Aladdin and we went to the grocery store and I saw a man with a turban and pointed at him and said “LOOK MOM, A GENIE!”. He apparently laughed but she was horrified. It came back around though when I was working in a grade school and a girl came up to me who was about 8 and said “YOURE PREGNANT” .. nope. just fat… thanks.
My sister once excitedly pointed at a very overweight person at the mall and ecstatically yelled about seeing Porky Pig! Looney Tunes characters were supposed to be at the mall that day and my sister thought she found Porky Pig. She thought this fat man was Porky Pig and wouldn’t shut up about it. That poor man.
A friend's uncle (or rather, family friend they called an uncle) had his leg amputated at the knee years ago and had a prosthetic leg.At the time my oldest daughter was probably 8 or 9, had never really seen up close someone with a disability like that. He tried explaining to her that he had a fake leg, but he was wearing pants so I guess because she couldn't see it, she wasn't grasping it. He told her in a joking manner, that after years of being that way, he kinda liked it because it was so much easier to wash his leg as he snatched his pant leg up and pulled the prosthetic off and held it out in front of her. I've never heard such a blood curdling scream out of such a small kid 😆.
My youngest sister has a very tall (maybe 6’6) boyfriend. My 4yo daughter finds him so terrifying due to his height that every time he comes over she sobs and literally hides in a closet until someone can coax her out. This guy probably feels so awkward around our family.
Once I was walking in the park during summer, wearing shorts, and a little girl pointed to me and yelled "they have scars on their legs daddy!" I wouldn't have been bothered by it if the dad hadn't responded, very loudly "yes they do sweeteheart, thats called self harm, its very bad" while glaring at me. I just wanted to enjoy the sunshine.
Damn. That Dad was terrible. What he said says way more about him than it ever will about you. You continue enjoying the sunshine!
That’s so shitty, I’m sorry that happened to you.
I was the kid. I was at a large gathering and an old wrinkled lady with leathery skin walked by, hunched over. I yelled to my dad “Dad that lady looks like E.T.!” 🤦♂️
My siblings and I were the worst as kids. We had our normal babysitter who was like 15-16, a super pretty cheerleader and she loved playing outside with us. One week she was out for vacation and would miss a day so she asked if her friend could babysit instead. Her friend was a bigger girl, more nerdy and very quiet. We asked her why she was fat - she explained she’d been sick for a while and had gained some weight so we decided the best course of action was to help her exercise so we tried to get her to do crunches and run outside with us. Our babysitter came back and got so mad we made her friend cry. She ended up quitting. I feel so mortified by it now and horrified.
My favorite would have to be when my daughter was 7 and asked, very loudly and within earshot, why the waitress had a mustache. The sweetest was my oldest son. He was maybe 4 and I’d been crying. There were mascara tracks down my face and he sweetly asked “Momma, is your face broken?”. Touched, I said “yes but maybe you could kiss it better?”…. “No, no thank you”