Sometimes well intentioned people (… and I’m going to be generous in assuming they are all well intentioned for I suspect some are not) make stupid mistakes.
One of the biggest of these mistakes is believing that the best way to help someone win at something they normally lose at is to let them play by a different set of rules.
Now if you’re a 6 year old playing football against your dad, the idea of being able to kick your dad in the shins, or hang off his neck whilst he runs, or being able to pick up the ball whenever your dad gets close, might all seem reasonable ways to beat him. And we can all empathise with how utterly demoralising it must be to be that child whose dad always plays to the best of his ability and makes no concessions, thrashing his son 36-nil.
But imagine if that child grew up thinking he could play by those rules for the rest of his life, that whenever someone beat him at anything then this was inherently “unfair” and he should therefore have rules that made things more favourable to him? Even most egocentric 6 year olds can see the shortcomings in that. Even most 6 year olds relish the accomplishment of scoring a genuine goal against their dad without any assistance from bent rules or a fake attempted save!
Yet that is what some (well intentioned) people advocate. Read on to discover why the idea of perpetually infantilising people based on the colour of their skin or their sex or their [insert perceived disadvantage here – everyone has one] is such a terrible idea for everyone.
What do you think?
