Posted on 06/17/2013 5:42:11 PM PDT by grundle
What is wrong with this picture?
It's one of those things that you don't get, until you get it. Unless you are eternally empathetic, you look at this photo and don't see much wrong at all.
To Anne Belanger, mother of Miles, the photo is unbearable to look at.
When the class portrait for her son's Grade 2 class came home, she opened it excitedly, and immediately shoved it back in the envelope. She couldn't look at it. It broke her heart.
Anne's son, Miles, has Spinal Muscular Atrophy. At the age of 13 months, his parents were told that Miles would never walk, he has spent his life in a wheelchair.
Miles knows he's different than the rest of the kids, but he still tries to fit in. So there he is, on the far side of the image, neck craning as far as he can to stretch into the frame with the rest of his friends. He's beaming. It's school picture day and he's thrilled.
But the photo still broke Anne's heart. The photo was a clear example of how set apart her son is from society. Instead of a big group hug photo with Miles at the center, and classmates and teachers all around, a fully inclusive image, he was stuffed off to the side, some 3 feet away. An after thought, it seems.
(Excerpt) Read more at shine.yahoo.com ...
Yep. Some people have a “better off dead” mentality. I wonder why they would want to hang out at a conservative site.
Is there a bleedingheart.com forum on the Internet where cheap sentiments can be freely expressed and crocodile tears poured?
I think the point he has is that not everyone has gotten the memo that you don’t have to be a complete asshole to be a conservative.
” Instead of a big group hug photo with Miles at the center, and classmates and teachers all around...”
Why do I think this is an only child?
I guess this acceptable for a mom to think.
He needs a dad to balance his life. He grows up thinking he should be in the center of everything because he is in a wheelchair, he will be a jerk by Jr high.
Even at 2nd grade I think a big group HUG would not be a good thing.
Picture looks fine.
The kid is in the damned picture. WTF is the damned problem??
I think we need a federal law regulating how class pictures are taken for students who are otherly configured. Fines need to be levied if ANY child feels the picture causes them any discomfort of any kind. /S
Obama’s people are working up a 15,000 document entitled “The Miles Belanger Class Photo Act of 2013 (MBCPA).” He will invite Miles to the WH and give him his own copy of the new Executive Order. Obama will sit in a custom-made $500,000 Mercedes-built Presidential Wheel Chair with attached windmills, bio-diesel standby generator, and solar panels, one from each of his failed companies. But since they never managed to make any, the panels will be imported from China. He will say to Miles, “Hey, it’s really fun to be in a wheelchair, isn’t it?”
I think the point he has is that not everyone has gotten the memo that you don’t have to be a complete asshole to be a conservative.
There is not one child and one story in that photo. There are many. And they are all of equal value. This isn’t a shot from a feel good movie about the little crippled kid that wins the heart of everyone as the special class mascot that is the main subject of all events/photos.
The kid is smiling. That is a good thing. If you want a great shot, hire a professional and some models and hit a park somewhere. This is a class photo. It is about the most plain and generic thing you can request.
I have no problem with this picture - for any of the kids in it.
Yes, mom, that's sad, but at the same time he looks happy to be there.
A more 'sensitive' grouping might have had him in the middle and the others gathered around him, but it doesn't look like the bleachers they used would allow that.
So, mom, sad as it may be for you, be happy that he can even be there, be with the other kids, be in school. He seems to be, judging from the smile. Be happy for him.
You can't insist on other people being 'sensitive' to your feelings. If that doesn't come from within, it will be resented. Don't do that to your kid.
There are benches but the photographer could have had the kids sit toward the end of the bench nearer the wheelchair and had the teacher stand on the other side of the wheelchair and everyone would have fit in just right.
There is nothing wrong with the photo.
Hug?
and if a parent is offended that a teacher would lay a finger on their kid in that manner?
then what?
What looks like a rather young teacher with 23 excited 2nd graders, trying to keep them under control, making sure Miles is ok, could no way be concerned with the staging of the photo.
Some mothers ought to stop feeling sorry for themselves. This has more to do with the mom than it does with Miles.
I REALLY hope this was supposed to be sarcasm. If not, you need to be over at DU with the rest of your personal injury lawyer buddies.
It wasn’t meant to be Sarcasm and If Being against that kind of behavior means I should be at DU,So be It.
Being conservative doesn’t mean Hiding your brains in a closet and supporting poor treatment of those Less fortunate than yourself.
Sometimes it takes a Law suit to make that plain as day to our government officials.
There is no evidence of “poor treatment” here
That is the key. A few schools hire professionals with real talent, but most schools hire the hack who charges the least. That rookie knows that some parents will buy the class picture, no matter what, and others won't - again no matter what. Why bother working to get a good shot or accommodating differences such as the kid in the wheel chair, when you make the same money for a mindless point-and-click, not to mention that he probably doesn't have the talent to do better?
It's not insensitivity to disabilities, just insensitivity to everyone and everything, an unprofessional attitude.
No you wouldn’t cause that may have put him at risk for serious injury.
The teacher doesn’t determine the staging. Each class comes in, they line up, photographer takes his/her shot, and off they go as the next class comes along.
The most this kvetching mother will achieve is that the school won’t take class pictures any more. That should make her feel better.
Well, it is a sad photo. I even caught that immediately. They could have just put the poor kid in the middle of the picture. Instead, he’s straining to his left to try to be sure he is included. Sad.
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