Political Correctness

In a world where Santa can no longer say Ho Ho Ho and the lollies and bikkies we ate as children have vastly different names (Fads instead of Fags, Scalliwags instead of Golliwogs), this mother is struggling to keep up with being politically correct and is barely hanging on.

I mean, how are we supposed to school our children in the acceptable vernacular (and the connotation) when we don’t even know or understand why half of it exists in the first place?

When did it become unconscionable to say short instead of vertically challenged; or to call a footstool a pouffe and more importantly, when did men stop opening doors and paying for dinner?

I mean, what is the world coming to? Political correctness has taken over and in the process, a decidedly unpleasant environment has resulted.

No longer is protecting people’s feelings and sensibilities the result of jargon change, it has now taken on extreme proportions and like most people I feel that political correctness is so ridiculously incorrect I can hardly speak.

When my little pumpkin told me how much he liked his new brown friend at school I rushed to hush him, explaining that she is indigenous, not brown.

When he asked a man in a wheel chair in line at the bank, why he had an ‘inside car’, I explained that it was rude to invade people’s privacy with such questions. When he asked me why the blind girl at school was called ‘visually impaired’, I had to tell him that I actually had no idea- TINA SHAW

“When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream.”

- John Lennon