Don’t do it!
So I need a nanny for my daughter. I put an add on a great web site I found … I keep it light hearted, a bit funny, add a picture of me and my daughter … and I get lots of great responses. But then, I also got this one:
You sound like a very special young man to have taken this on. I am going to put you on my prayer list. I check this site for jobs and currently I am not available, but…I wish I were, because I would love to mother the both of you. Bless you, darling, and may the Lord bring to the both of you that very special someone you are looking for.
Most sincerely,
C M
I don’t know about you, but this made me want to puke. I copy it to several of my friends to see what they say. I don’t put any comment in with it.
Within minutes my phone rings … it is a close female friend who is a single mom of a disabled son.
Don’t do it!
Do what?
I know you are going to write back something sarcastic to that poor woman, don’t do it! As you always say to me, in her mind she was being very nice.
Okay, so I don’t write back. But boy do I want to. So, here is my response, out to the anonymous blogging world, not to C.M.
Note that I am able to see this woman’s profile and see that she is 54 years old, four years older than me.
Dear C.M.
>You sound like a very special young man
I am four years younger than you, neither of us are young.
>to have taken this on.
“taken this on”!! Are you crazy lady? G-d dumped this on me. He gave me two severely disabled kids and then my wife left. I did not take anything on, I got shit upon.
>I am going to put you on my prayer list.
Well, that will surely help. Just don’t pray to G-d, that will get us nowhere. By the way, what number on the list do I make?
>I check this site for jobs and currently I am not available,
Well I do have something to be thankful for …
>but…I wish I were, because I would love to mother the both of you.
Hey, my mother would be really really really pissed by that.
> Bless you, darling,
I didn’t sneeze, sweetheart
>and may the Lord bring to the both of you that very special
>someone you are looking for.
Umm, the same Lord who messed up my daughter? He will send someone to clean up His mess? Or the Lord that messed up my son? Or the Lord that gave me a wife and them a mother who couldn’t deal? No, I don’t need a very special someone, nor do I need your prayers, just a competent nanny would work.
Thank you for your prayers,
SingleDad
It makes my husband absolutely nuts when people try to pray over/for him, or tell him how brave and strong he is (he has cerebral palsy). Almost as much as when they “touch the cripple.”
This made me laugh out loud. I understand.
When I first told a friend about my child’s autism diagnosis, her reaction was: Oh My G*. What are you going to do?
(What was she expecting me to say? That I was going to keel over and die?)
Your blog is amazing for all its honesty. Keep writing!
Patronising.
It irritates me too.
I was minding my own business at the christening of a friends baby girl not so long ago, when out of the blue, some woman comes up to me, asks me whats wrong with my daughter Abigail, and then pleads with me to take her to Lourdes to seek a miracle cure.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I was in a Church, that woman would have swallowed a fistful of choice expletives
New to your blog – my latest reading addiction. Though not your intention when writing I am sure to be incontinent before I get through these posts. I’m not a stalker (unless you want one) but this is definitely love at first site. Enjoying some of your loquacious commenters from more recent posts also.