AUTISM CATBOY TIME BABEY!!!

“State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.” Example: It is dangerous to play in the street. ​​​​​​

“Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe.

“Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, “Ask your parents where it is safe to play.”

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate all elements that could be considered prescriptive, directive, or instructive.” In the example, that’d mean getting rid of “ask”: Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase any element that suggests certainty.” That’d be “will”: Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate any element that may not apply to all children.” Not all children know their parents, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Add a simple motivational idea that gives preschoolers a reason to follow your advice.” Perhaps: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them.

“Rephrase your new statement, repeating the first step.” “Good” represents a value judgment, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.

“Rephrase your idea a final time, relating it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand.” Maybe: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.

In working on the show, Rogers interacted extensively with academic researchers. Daniel R. Anderson, a psychologist formerly at the University of Massachusetts who worked as an advisor for the show, remembered a speaking trip to Germany at which some members of an academic audience raised questions about Rogers’s direct approach on television. They were concerned that it could lead to false expectations from children of personal support from a televised figure. Anderson was impressed with the depth of Rogers’s reaction, and with the fact that he went back to production carefully screening scripts for any hint of language that could confuse children in that way.

In fact, Freddish and Rogers’s philosophy of child development is actually derived from some of the leading 20th-century scholars of the subject. In the 1950s, Rogers, already well known for a previous children’s TV program, was pursuing a graduate degree at The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary when a teacher there recommended he also study under the child-development expert Margaret McFarland at the University of Pittsburgh. There he was exposed to the theories of legendary faculty, including McFarland, Benjamin Spock, Erik Erikson, and T. Berry Brazelton. Rogers learned the highest standards in this emerging academic field, and he applied them to his program for almost half a century.

as someone who spent a lot of time in hard reduction oriented communities for substance use, one thing you notice real quick: a lot of people with a substance problem have that problem because they were denied or never given access to medical care for a whatever problem the drugs are compensating for (esp common for women, queer people, disabled people, poc, and ofc the poor/uninsured)

and it makes a lot of sense if you think on it for 5 seconds. i'll give two examples off the top of my head.

person A has severe ADHD and/or narcolepsy. they cannot maintain a job without medication, but either cannot afford to jump through diagnostic hoops, or did so and were denied medication anyway. they could say "aw damn" and risk losing their home, families, etc to their untreated illness, or they could go to the black market.

now, these prices are around 5 years old (but i doubt it's gotten cheaper), but lemme break down the logistics:

adderall can be cheap if you live near a college campus or tech city, but on e-markets it'll run you anywhere from .25-$1 per mg in pill form, which could be around $5-30 per dose. long acting stuff like vyvanse is more expensive, and we're boldly assuming the pills are real and correctly dosed.

speed paste availability varies by country but outside of europe it's not common or cheap, and it's not gonna be as potent as pharmacy grade amphetamine

meth, however, is cheap (anywhere from 20-50 per gram), widely available, long lasting, and potent enough to dose as low as 5mg. thats like 15 cents a dose. the drawback? meth is a lot more compulsive, addictive, and neurotoxic than the stuff you'd get at the pharmacy, is often cut or poorly synthesised, has nasty side effects, and is probably a lot stronger than most people need (desoxyn exists, but is rarely prescribed)

easy to see how someone just trying to self medicate could end up with a problem, yeah?

a similar issue crops up with theoretical person b. person b has chronic pain, but either had their medication taken from them due to DEA browbeating their doctor, or was never given anything stronger than tylenol because they were assumed to be faking. if it's a choice between suffering and breaking some laws, the choice is clear. so you go looking for pain meds.

pills advertised as being real (which are often pressed anyway) will often run you at LEAST $1 per mg, often more if it's something like morphine or diluadid (codeine is also weirdly expensive bc it's a meme drug), that could be $100s per day if you need multiple doses.

heroins a little cheaper and stronger, around $100 per gram, which is cheaper than pills

then there's fentanyl. strong, cheap, long lasting, wildly available, and significantly more clear headed and less "high" than most opiates. you can get fentanyl presses for $5 a piece that will last most people a day or more. cheaper in bulk. powder varies wildly. but fentanyl is strong, difficult to accurately dose at home, and builds tolerance/dependence quickly. and once you have physical dependence, missing a dose means flu like symptoms or worse for a week or more.

again, you see how this would fast track someone to addiction?

and i know what you're thinking: what about people doing drugs for fun for real?

well, being honest: most people don't develop addictions from occasional recreational usage, and the ones that do are often self medicating for depression or anxiety or trauma or existential dread. there are some drugs that are significantly MORE recreational if you happen to have anxiety. even if there's a guy out there who really just loves doing drugs and is 100% well adjusted and is just addicted for the lulz: i don't care. that guy still deserves access to safe, accurately dosed, transparently labelled drugs. (this isn't even getting into queer drug culture either bc this is long enough but you'd be surprised how many drugs were banned bc they were popular in queer clubs)

"but why would society continue doing something that very obviously is creating the problem it claims to be fighting?"

simple! many governments (namely the US) want disabled, poor, queer, and brown people to spend their lives working in private prisons or drop dead! denying them access to safe medical/recreational drugs, fast tracking addiction (by creating a situation in which the most accessible options are the most high risk, stigmatised, and heavily criminalised substances on the market), and then dehumanising addicts/drug users to the point even self proclaimed leftists often have no sympathy for them is a quick and convenient way to accomplish exactly that.

And you have your staff play with their kids while you hold them in the tiny restroom as they come completely undone because they just found out that their golden boy husband is having an affair with the someone he's been doing residency with for the past three years.

He confessed that he'd rather be with the other woman but she's of a different faith and it's more important to have kids than to be happy. And no. No he will not grant her a divorce. And he will not stop seeing the other woman - because he's a man. It's his right.

TRUE story.

Also - She was NOT THE ONLY ONE to fall to pieces in our store for similar reasons.

I loath the ideology of "tradwives". It is a false doctrine preach by Patriarchy not a divine being.

It is the nature of evil to hide this way.

Married out of college, 4 kids, he spent 15 years building up his career while she took care of the house and the kids. When he was earning $600k a year suddenly he started to pull away - she wasn't as pretty anymore, the kids were loud, the house was a mess... She wasn't good enough anymore. He got himself a flat. He got her me and my precedessors to help with the kids. No, they can't divorce, that would make him pay her money for the kids and he didn't like that. Every once in a while a bill would be unpaid. My weekly checks would bounce. We lived in a $1,5mil house around DC and our gas or water was turned off more than once.

Somehow he was always out of money.

By accident she learned from a friend of a friend that he was actually seeing a young lady lawyer for a few years now. It wasn't her, it wasn't lost interest. He was just a piece of shit.

Thankfully, she had family that took no shit and they stood behind her and borrowed her money for lawyers to force the divorce now that she had proof of him cheating. She's spent tens of thousands to get there while he was resisting every step of the way - because without divorce he wouldn't have to pay her alimony, he could just throw scraps whenever he wanted and still pretend to be a good dad.

She's spent tens of thousands and two years to free herself from this man, and when she could finally go to work (thank fuck she finished college) she was earning $25k a year.

She only managed to get away with the support of her parents and family. Through the au-pair grapevine I've known other families like that. Too many. Lady down the street tried to commit suicide when same happened to her - she was from Taiwan and had no support to get free. And people around scorned her for being "dramatic" - women who held on to their places with their fingertips talked shit about her, because their own husbands would never...! Right?

This? Is why conservatives want to take away no-fault divorce--because if some dude says no to a divorce and you don't have any (IRON-TIGHT) evidence of cheating? Then you're stuck in that situation and he doesn't have to pay a drop toward you and your kids. He can go get a flat, fuck his mistress, and you will starve with your kids until you can get some kind of proof of him cheating and a judge who likes you.

Now imagine all of this horror movie shit, AND you can't open a bank account without this piece of shit opening it with you. That was what women dealt with until about the 70s when we were finally allowed to open bank accounts with a man's signature.

That is what conservatives and fundies want to take you back to. When this shit was just the fucking norm.

There are old white guys still alive who remember who damn nice it was when a woman couldn't open a bank account without a man's signature and his dad could go live a double life with a mistress with zero repercussions and oh how they slather and drool for those times. And how they have waxed poetic about these halcyon days to their desperate daddy-issues sons now eager to please and without the social skills or emotional maturity to understand the fucked up nature of it all.

But we look back everyday- rechecking emails, making sure a friend is still behind you, checking to see if you remebered to pick up your keys. It's second nature, a habit of care.