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Good manners: Apparently we should just "quietly deal with diabetes"

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randomange

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Has anyone seen this news story that's making the rounds?

Mother-in-law's guide to manners...

A girl was sent an email from her future mother-in-law after spending a weekend at the family home, explaining that she had no manners and containing a list of rules she should follow in future. She sent it to some friends, who sent it to some other friends etc, and it went viral and ended up on the news.

The entire email is pretty shocking IMO, but I was sitting reading it when I cam across this section:

"It is tragic that you have diabetes. However, you aren't the only young person in the world who is a diabetic.

I know quite a few young people who have this condition, one of whom is getting married in June. I have never heard her discuss her condition.

She quietly gets on with it. She doesn't like being diabetic. Who would? You do not need to regale everyone with the details of your condition or use it as an excuse to draw attention to yourself. It is vulgar.

As a diabetic of long standing you must be acutely aware of the need to prepare yourself for extraordinary eventualities, the walk to Mothecombe beach being an example.

You are experienced enough to have prepared yourself appropriately."

At which point I went 😱 😡 and felt the need to share!

So apparently we all have terrible manners! 😛
 
I had heard a few of the excerpts on the tv this morning, but not this one! 😱 There would be a considerable rift between me and my MIL (if I had one) if she said/wrote something like this to me! Personally, I think it's important that family and friends are aware of it - what was the theme of this year's Diabetes Wekk? Talking about it! Of course people shouldn't bore everyone with the details, but you should feel free and comfortable taking about it when it has relevance to whatever situation you find yourself in.

Silly mare! 😡 🙄
 
My blood is starting to boil. How completely unsympathetic. How can you prepare for something that is extraordinary, the word means it is very very unusual. I wonder how the the MIL would copesif she had a chronic illness?
 
Was this email addressed to Heidi Withers, I seen this in my local metro paper today, but no mention of diabetes...........
 
OMG this is unbelievable - if someone, anyone, wrote or said that to me about diabetes I would either completely and utterly tell them what I thought - whoever they were, or give them the complete silent treatment until they apologised. Unbelievable!!! No wonder people are too scared to discuss their diabetes.
 
Angie, where did you read the bit about diabetes? I can't find it in the copies I've seen - is it someone winding you up by any chance? This is the text as I have seen it in a few places, no mention of diabetes:

Subject: Your lack of manners

Here are a few examples of your lack of manners:

When you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat, unless you are positively allergic to something

You do not remark that you do not have enough food

You do not start before everyone else

You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host

When a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early; you fall in line with house norms

You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter

You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why

No one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity-style behaviour


I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the years for their daughters' marriages.) If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.

One could be accused of thinking that Heidi Withers must be patting herself on the back for having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie
 
I saw your version Alan, on the Yahoo front page in the 'news'.

I think it's a wind-up in its entirety meself from start to finish. But if your chap had a mother like that then she absolutely deserves to be ridiculed. Are we having a meet up in her vicinity, could we lynch her, get her in a set of stocks and pelt her with discarded pen cartridges and the plastic things the needles come in? - even if she hasn't said anything about diabetes .... actually she deserves worse. I understand she has a cut-flower nursery, perhaps she'd like a stem inserted where the sun don't shine? (a long stem rose might be ideal for this purpose ....... )
 
I had heard a few of the excerpts on the tv this morning, but not this one! 😱 There would be a considerable rift between me and my MIL (if I had one) if she said/wrote something like this to me! Personally, I think it's important that family and friends are aware of it - what was the theme of this year's Diabetes Wekk? Talking about it! Of course people shouldn't bore everyone with the details, but you should feel free and comfortable taking about it when it has relevance to whatever situation you find yourself in.

Silly mare! 😡 🙄

I wonder what Les Dawson would of said of this old trout 😉 and HER bad manners Sheena
 
I saw your version Alan, on the Yahoo front page in the 'news'.

I think it's a wind-up in its entirety meself from start to finish. But if your chap had a mother like that then she absolutely deserves to be ridiculed. Are we having a meet up in her vicinity, could we lynch her, get her in a set of stocks and pelt her with discarded pen cartridges and the plastic things the needles come in? - even if she hasn't said anything about diabetes .... actually she deserves worse. I understand she has a cut-flower nursery, perhaps she'd like a stem inserted where the sun don't shine? (a long stem rose might be ideal for this purpose ....... )

Or a daffodil, from one of the Carry On Films with Wilfred Hyde White as a patient 😛 Sheena
 
Angie, where did you read the bit about diabetes? I can't find it in the copies I've seen - is it someone winding you up by any chance? This is the text as I have seen it in a few places, no mention of diabetes:

There's an abbreviated version of it in most news stories, but the Sky news site (here: Sky news version) has the entire email if you scroll down :D
 
I think you will find it's a spoof email to wind people up.
It's obviously succeded :(
 
Hi Randomange,

I doubt the diabetes reference is true - just a troll probably. I am not sure if the first one is true or not - but they all sound fairly rude anyway and wouldnt want to be a part of that family.:(🙂Bev
 
This is a wide up its been during the rounds for a while now and has several different minor varactions.
 
There's an abbreviated version of it in most news stories, but the Sky news site (here: Sky news version) has the entire email if you scroll down :D

Thanks Ange, I wonder where they sourced it from. It does ring true with the rest of the email so I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. I suppose that, if it is the case that the young lady has diabetes then it's not a bad thing that practically everyone reading it will think the same of these statements as all the others i.e. that it is shockingly snobbish, better-than-thou and completely insensitive and self-congratulatory.

I hope that she observes the correct etiquette in response to being 'outed' in this way, and proceeds to the nearest wood to stick her head up a dead bear's bum. If she doesn't, I'll want to know why! 😉
 
Thanks Ange, I wonder where they sourced it from. It does ring true with the rest of the email so I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. I suppose that, if it is the case that the young lady has diabetes then it's not a bad thing that practically everyone reading it will think the same of these statements as all the others i.e. that it is shockingly snobbish, better-than-thou and completely insensitive and self-congratulatory.

I hope that she observes the correct etiquette in response to being 'outed' in this way, and proceeds to the nearest wood to stick her head up a dead bear's bum. If she doesn't, I'll want to know why! 😉

Aaaaaawwwww Alan, that's cruelty to animals, deceased or not!😉Sheena
 
Telling someone not to talk about their condition is one of the worst things you can say to a person with Diabetes, in my opinion. So potentially damaging.
 
Telling someone not to talk about their condition is one of the worst things you can say to a person with Diabetes, in my opinion. So potentially damaging.

Agreed, thankfully one doubts that the DIL will let it worry her 🙂

Nice to see you again katie, where have you been hiding? 🙂
 
A Daily Mail reader summed up by her own hand I believe.
I am one to shut up and get on with diabetes, I don't choose to speak about it to my family as most of them don't have a clue and I'd rather be left to get on with it. My Mum doesn't even ask about it.
Call me disgustingly posh but I believe there are certain standards that need to be met (Daddy owning the Home Counties and going to Marlborough College are certainly not them) being polite and mimicking your hosts in terms of rising are most but some of them. In essence I am a grumpy person haha!
 
Agreed, thankfully one doubts that the DIL will let it worry her 🙂

Nice to see you again katie, where have you been hiding? 🙂

Mainly on Twitter 😉 When I have some money I'm looking forward to coming to one of the future meets 🙂 See you sooon.
 
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