Oh dear.

[conuly]

Remember the woman who sends evidence about people who illegally park in handicapped spots?

Donovan McNabb and Jeremiah Trotter were found guilty of parking in handicapped spots. Their vehicles were photographed by Mary Ann Cottrell, who has made it her business to police the handicapped spots. I would suggest Ms. Cottrell look in the mirror before she takes another photo.

She has a handicapped license due to her caring for an adult child with autism. An individual with autism has complete mobility, and it is not necessary for them to use handicapped parking. Let those who are physically impaired use the spots, not Ms. Cottrell.

1. Stop it with the asinine phrase "adult child with autism". Just quit it.

2. You and I have no evidence that Ms. Cottrell's daughter does not, in fact, have any physical impairment.

3. Even if she did, she may still have a perfectly valid reason for using the handicapped spot - for example, if she gets lost very easily, as some people (me) do, due (I believe) to a spatial agnosia and bad sense of direction. That's for the courts to decide.

3.5 Which they already did, didn' they?

Shouldn't Ms. Cottrell be working or taking care of her handicapped kid instead of stalking the citizens of New Jersey?

I guess Ms. Cottrell didn't watch the Eagles play last season. Otherwise she would agree that McNabb definitely deserved a handicapped spot.

Humor as a defense mechanism. Never seen that one before.

Why would Donovan be so foolish as to contest a ticket for parking in a handicapped space?

He's a millionaire making more than enough to pay such a fine with the wages of an hour. Yet he brings a well-paid lawyer in to fight this fine. Why? Teammate Jeremiah Trotter isn't much better.

Exactly. He's just making himself look bad. *nodnodnod*

Three letters, two of which aren't worth the paper they're virtually printed on. *le sigh*

On a related note, about how many children under six do you have to have before a presumably non-disabling pregnancy justifies taking the handicapped spot? I'm not sure, but I think it *must* be more than just two.

Comments

[maelorin]

she seems to perserverate over this whole issue somewhat. perhaps mrs cottrell is somewhat autistic herself?


i'm still bemused by the notion of an "adult child". surely she means an adult dependant? :)


as i understand, you cannot use children to justify taking a parking spot for which you have no permit. no matter how many you've popped out, or cart about with you.

[conuly]

She may well be. Of course, there's worse things to perseverate over than issues of massive social justice. *nodnodnod*

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

One's offspring is always one's child, no matter what the age.

I will always be my mother's child, even though I am now 31 and she and I have an adult relationship.

"Child" in the case of the phrase "adult child with autism" merely indicates a relationship, and *should* only be used when referring to a parent-child relationship. I'm sure conuly can cite instances where it's been used incorrectly, but this is how it should be used.

"adult dependant" would (a) broaden the scope to foster children and other non-offspring relationships and could include merely someone for whom you are a caretaker, and (b) introduce even more pejorative word "dependant" into the description.

By the way, I don't think anyone has the right to tell someone not to fight a ticket, even if he's a mega-millionaire. Annoying, sure. But it continues to bring celebrity focus on an important issue, and will help educate the inimical Ms. Cottrell about the proper procedure she needs to use to ticket these law-breakers, so she can tag more of them.

I'd be more interested in knowing if she finds that certain people are more likely to park illegally or not.

[conuly]

I'd prefer "adult autistic daughter" - it clarifies the relationship, and doesn't sound, well, oxymoronic.

[maelorin]

Why mention "adult" at all? Surely even autistic adults look kinda adultish?

[conuly]

Because these weren't her words. They were the words the reporter used, which one letter-writer picked up on.

Since there isn't a picture, calling her kid "her autistic child", or even "her autistic daughter" would, for most people, create the image of a child, I assume.

in de nile

[maelorin]

Ah! That makes a lot more sense.

Still, the correct reference is "her autistic daughter" - the child has a gender, and 'daughter' is more personal than 'child'. It doesn't require a photo to convey that her daughter is an adult, and the mother is her carer. "adult child" is just lazy.

The politicisation of autism is mind-numbing in it's sheer depth of impersonal grandstanding. The "it can't be our fault" crowd are so keen on it not being their fault that they resort to depersonalising the whole thing. F*&(^*^ers.

I'm a person, not an "autism" or whatever. Perhaps we ought to refer to those people as "in denial", or "with denial", or "has denial"? "Has denial" seems fitting ot me - though perhaps confusing since I'd be using it to refer to the people who are fixated on claiming everyone else is in denial.

"The reporter with denial", "her father, who has denial", "I may be autistic, but I don't have denial" ...

daughter

[maelorin]

One's offspring is always one's child, no matter what the age.

Usually a parent would say "my daughter is unable to walk", or "my daughter has red hair". For me to say "my child is six" requires a pretty impersonal situation.

Methinks she calls her daughter her "adult child" because she want to convey the idea that her daughter is still a child to her, despite of how grown up she looks. "Adult child with autism". Not, "my daughter is autistic".

I suspect Mrs Cottrell is more autistic than I am.

Re: daughter

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

It's actually one of the letter-writers who uses that phrase in this linked item. Probably taken from the article, which was, my guess is, the reporter's wording (I can't remember off the top of my head if that was a direct quote from Cottrell).

My mother is always talking about how proud she is of her *children* or her daughters-- she uses them interchangeably, and I can assure you that she doesn't think we're immature in any way. It's just a word that identifies a relationship.

Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=child)'s definition includes "a son or daughter: an offspring." I wouldn't normally quote this, generally agreeing that a literal dictionary definition doesn't win an argument. However, when you're talking about phrasing in a newspaper that you don't like, it's important to understand that the reporter and editor have to use two basic guides for determining if a word or phrase is appropriate-- one is the dictionary, and the other is the newspaper's style guide. Chances are, there's a note in the style guide that says to use "adult child" when talking about someone's offspring instead of "adult daughter" because "child" is gender-neutral.

I doubt you'd have a problem with "Mrs. Cottrell was tremendously proud last year when her grown child received a medical degree from Harvard Medical School." The phrase adding the negative connotation is "with autism." Perhaps it doesn't or shouldn't matter that her daughter has autism, but it seems relevant to the piece, so the reporter put it in.

I guess I'm just trying to make the opposite point, here. "Adult child" with or without autism does not have a connotation of immaturity to me. It's just a description of a particular relationship, one that's almost certainly written into the style guide as preferable to other descriptions of that relationship. If it really bugs you, write to the editors of Chicago Manual of Style and present your case for how you feel it carries a pejorative connotation. If they accept the change, within a couple of years, "adult child" will have died out in journalism.

Re: daughter

[maelorin]

I just find the construction clumsy. I guess it may just be that here in Australia we simply don't talk like that, 'tis all :)