Overheard
I had the extreme misfortune to hear a bit of Joe Duffy today.
Our Joe is a bloke who does a phone in programme every afternoon on RTE radio, and frankly I cannot stand the programme or Duffy. People phone in with their pet peeves and of course the phone lines are then jammed with others who have the same peeve. Duffy then patronises them until someone else phones in with a different peeve.
Now I happened to up in the attic doing some tidying as Doc is due to call later and the radio was on as always. I was doing my best not to listen at all but of course some of it sank in between the other noises I was making [such as complaining that Joe Duffy is on while I’m in the room, but Herself loves it for some masochistic reason].
Anyhows, the programme opened with some woman complaining. Surprise surprise! Her complaint was along the lines that she was in some café or train or pub or somewhere and that she overheard people at the next table talking about ADHD and how they reckoned it was a load of bollox and was probably down to bad diet. Our friend was incensed by this as she had some relative [daughter?] who was Autistic and was apparently a right handful to manage. I missed a lot of it [thankfully] but said woman was positively incandescent that others should treat the subject with such flippancy.
Now there are a couple of things I would have pointed out if I were Duffy [God forbid] but he quietly encouraged her to waffle on about Autism.
The first thing is that ADHD isn’t Autism. There are those that would say it’s part of the autistic spectrum and who am I to argue, but the two are different? My theory is that ADHD is more down to the way that kids are brought up these days where the child is king of the family and must be treated as such.
The second thing I think is the most important and I am surprised that Duffy didn’t mention it. What the fuck was she doing earwigging at other people’s private conversations? Have we reached a state where we have to guard everything we say in case someone is listening in? Can a private conversation be publicly called out on national radio?
Personally I would have just told her to mind her own fucking business.
“ADHD is more down to the way that kids are brought up these days”
I’m with you on this one!
“Personally I would have just told her to mind her own fucking business.”
Here here!
“Have we reached a state where we have to guard everything we say in case someone is listening in?”
Obviously GD.. as demonstrated by your good self getting steamed up about a conversation that you are not included in 😉 which is why I ignore programs like that.
Hah! I’m not falling for that one. Anything that is broadcast on radio has the implicit implication that it is for public consumption. I am supposed to llisten in [in spite of my best efforts], and seeing as Herself has to listen at high volume it’s very difficult to ignore.
But that demonstrates my point, which wasn’t serious by the way, just a bit of fun. But aren’t the rules the same? I mean, what you say in a public place, whether in the street or on radio, you should be prepared for it to become public consumption because someone somewhere will be listening to it, whether they want to hear or not. The point is, should you care? I know I don’t, and people can think of me what they like, its their choice. But confront me and they get short shrift.
“which wasn’t serious” nor was my reply, really. It’s more than likely that the people having the conversation were loudmouths, but unless I am the direct subject of their conversation I just ignore them. The ony exception to that rule is when they start complaining about smoke [outdoors] in which case I turn my pipe up to full volume and smoke ’em out of it.
ADHD. A byproduct of the generation that invented the idea of “Time out” instead of a good wallop on the behind when the kid did something they knew they shouldn’t (which never “scarred for life” any kid–ever). The result of this, after a couple of generations, is now obvious. Instead of kids who say, “yes sir” and “yes ma’am” to their parents, we get kids who now yell, “fu** you!” and throw the middle finger at them.
Unfortunately, it was my generation, the so-called “baby boomers”, that started this whole insane idea of “time out” instead of proper discipline. Fortunately, I didn’t have any kids of my own although I took care of more kids than I can recall these days. If I had, I probably never would have survived the whole “time out” movement.
My generation is near enough your generation, and we brought Daughter up the correct [old] way. I’m sorry to say that she is now using “time out” or as we cal it here “the naughty step”.
God be with the days when kids showed some respect for their elders and betters!
“naughty”
Reminded me (took a little finding!) of Donald Barthelme’s short story “The Baby”
from 40 Stories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Stories
Anyway, you can read it here:
http://jessamyn.com/barth/baby.html
“The first thing the baby did wrong was to tear pages out of her books.” …
Hmm, I’m not sure if that is entirely relevant, but still?
ADHD isn’t even on the Autistic spectrum. That one is Asperger’s, which is on the spectrum as a mild form of Autism. In very simplistic terms (and, I know, missing out a lot of important detail) Autism is a disability which essentially is the inability – either mild or severe, depending where on the spectrum it falls – to understand how one’s actions relate to the consequences of those actions, including the effect on relationships with other people. ADHD is, literally, attention deficit – a “butterfly” mind that can’t concentrate on anything for any length of time. Both are very real disorders for some people but my feeling is that many cases are over-diagnosed and, as pointed out above, in many cases are just bad upbringing. I also strongly suspect that many parents claim that their children are “ADHD” or “on the Autistic spectrum” when they haven’t even bothered to have them assessed, just so that they have a medical-sounding “label” which they can use as an excuse to mask the unpalatable consequences of their appalling parenting skills.
I stand corrected. Of course Autism is a recognised condition which is caused – by my understanding – by some kind of faulty brain wiring where the victim just sees the world differently to varying degrees.
ADHD is basically a mind that cannot concentrate for any length of time. If I remember correctly back to my school days just about everyone in my class was ADHD, as staring out the window was preferable to staring at the teacher. Nowadays everything has to have some kind of label. If a kid isn’t concentrating or is acting badly, instead of a good clip behind the ear the kid gets “ah, sure it’s ADHD, the poor lamb”.
“ADHD” – or as it was called when I was a nipper (1950s), “naughty”.
I overheard a conversation today where one pupil called across the classroom to another that he had been waiting for ages for an ADHD diagnosis and how had the other pupil got his!
Wish I could remeber where I read it nut the chap who discovered/invented ADHD said towards the end of his days it was all bollocks taken out of context. Happy to be corrected.
As for listening in best fun is had when one realises one is being listened to and the flippancy can be enhanced no end.