I know one minority group that is treated by far way worse than adult babies.
The reason I know is that I am part of this minority. I happen to have Classic Autism (and also comorbid ADHD). Autistic people are treated in some ways worse than criminals in the free world. I regularly see, and certainly on YouTube videos, much more positive comments on adult babies than on Autistic people.
And to really be clear about this : People are usually afraid of things they don't understand or that they have no experience of.
People and society are afraid of the unknown. Autism may be something that is a little more well known now in the past 15 years, but no one knew what that was in the 1980s. People like me weren't given much help or special education back in those days.
Often kids who were more severely Autistic didn't get even get help in those days and basically fell through the cracks of the educational system. I'm in my mid 40s now residing in my childhood bedroom without much a future, still living with my aging 70 something year old parents. Sure, I have a bachelor degree in Geography, and it was so hard for me to get a degree, but that doesn't help me get a job. The unemployment rate for Autistic people is 85%, even for those with a college education or degree.
No minority has an unemployment rate THAT high - not even the worst criminals. The highest unemployment rate not only among disabilities (Down Syndrome, comparatively, has a 21% unemployment rate), but among ANY minority. I don't have any adult rights almost at all, but I don't have children's rights either. This is worse than being a preschooler, because while preschoolers are under the "control" of their parents like I still am myself, they still have more rights than me, and sometimes in some cases, more money to be able to spend on buying things. There is a bit of a silver lining in being a child. Of course, it's temporary, and I'm not exactly envious, as they will eventually grow up and have to act like an adult. But I would give anything in the world to be able to have much more of a variety of children's / kiddie rides I could ride on and being limited to only 3 amusement parks to ride them (the nearest being 2 hours away from me) and the next nearest being a Disney park 6 1/2 hours away, and the remaining one an entire day's plane ride away [Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee]). Do you think I wouldn't want to sit my mom's lap and get cuddled, or ride on a ride on toy like Power Wheels or just any no motorized ride on toy? You don't think I would love to have a piggyback ride? Do you think I don't want to stop getting bullied because I am Autistic? If I was little, no one would care that I was Autistic if I looked like a precious little boy....they wouldn't bully me. I love long-alls and T strap shoes and yet have the most difficult time finding them in my size. I don't drive a car even as my attention span is so bad I can't concentrate for over 20-25 minutes. I've tried, but it just doesn't work. You could go into a first grade classroom or perhaps even kindergarten to observe children if you took a class in child development, and the 5 and 6 year old little boys and girls you would see would have far better concentration spans than me. I have had a driver's license for 25 years and it is worth virtually nothing to me, like a sneer at what I've become. I feel like I just went 360 degrees and came back to where I started from - back in my bedroom, after all that hard work in university. Most Autistic people (and even those with Asperger Syndrome) come back home.
This isn't even being a boomerang child....I never had a chance from the beginning to start with. I could have stayed in preschool all my life, never grew up physically, been a proportionate pituitary dwarf that looks like a little kid, and I could have come to the same conclusion. I really think I would have better off being 3 feet 4 inches tall and 40 pounds rather than 5 feet 11 inches and 180 pounds. If Santa Claus could just help me ..... I'm not the only one with Autism who wishes that they were little. Some parents of Autistic adult children have even said to psychiatrists and psychologists of their child that they wish too that their adult child was the size of a child because society would be more understanding of them and set aside their expectations of them and accept them for who they were based on how their developmental age was. It's very sad hearing a parent say that.
Most of you are able to act like an adult when you want to or wish to, and revert to being like a child willingly under your control and hold down a job, but I don't even have that. I act like a child 99% of the time without even knowing I am.
Being Autistic, even when I was in university, most of the entire college residence apartment students called me the R word. That includes a lot of people from society. I probably would be a millionaire by now if I got $1 every time someone called me the R word. I've been called much worse names too, even implying that I must be a criminal. I even got rocks thrown at me (in college) by some moron who thought it would be fun to bully me along with his 4 stupid cronies, who should all have been arrested for harassment, but campus police didn't catch them.
Throwing rocks at someone is not okay and never will be. It wouldn't be okay to throw rocks at the worst murderers like Ted Bundy. I should not have to be treated worse than a murderer because I have Autism. Autistic people have some of the highest suicide ideation and attempt rates among any minorities, and it is well documented in many research studied.
I never have attempted suicide, thankfully, but I know Autistic people who have. We even get denied for heart transplants if we need them. It's actually worse than even having Down Syndrome. People are usually more tolerant towards even DS because they are "cute" and look like they are disabled. I got bullied all the time from 5th to 10th grade too, and obviously as I didn't collect children's clothing or T strap shoes back then, that wasn't the reason I was being bullied. Kids just bullied me for the way I talked or walked, or for being Autistic in itself. Those things are not even things you can change.
Hiding the fact I want to wear long-alls is one thing, but I can't hide all the character traits of my being born Autistic. I was never an aggressive child. On the contrary, I never bullied anyone at all. I think 100% of my friends in kindergarten through the end of high school would say that I was a sweet and kind child. I'm pretty sure that even 99% of my bullies would even say in retrospect that I was a sweet and kind little boy. I never fought back or retailiated, either. One of my classmates in high school said recently that I treated everyone with respect and kindness and love, but I wasn't always shown that, that's for sure.
Also remember again, as well, people and society are usually intolerant of things they don't know of.
Autism is still a very mysterious disorder, even though it is more known these days. I'm not technically an adult baby as I don't wear diapers, but I do have many childlike leanings, which actually isn't uncommon with Autism although that might be partly a result of being brutalized. Society generally is more understanding of things they know more about too. For instance, an actual 3, 4, or 5 year old boy in the West Coast may or may not get teased or made fun of for wearing jon jons or longalls with kneesocks and T strap shoes (T strap Mary Jane shoes), but in the Deep South, like Alabama or South Carolina, most people, including other children of the same age upon seeing an ostensible peer, would say "You're so adorable" and coo at him.
But those types of clothes are much more known in the Deep South. In fact, it's extremely rare to see a little boy wearing longalls / jon jons or T strap shoes nowadays north of the Mason-Dixon line. It is almost unheard of in the Pacific Northwest and West Coast. A very large amount of parents on the West Coast or in the North (the vast majority) who even have little boys have no clue what a longall is and would never even think about their little boys wearing T strap shoes. Except maybe in England where the royal family's children do. Maybe in some pockets of wealthier areas in New Jersey, or places like Norwalk, Connecticut. But generally, it's definitely a Southern culture thing for sure. I have a friend with Autism in Illinois who collects books on storms and tornadoes. She's actually quite sweet, but she seems to be asexual and is not interested in relationships. Any way, my point is even though she collects those things which to me seem not as unusual as what I collect, she still gets bullied.
Definitely online in the very least. And sometimes she gets bullied by higher functioning Autistic people. I don't know why there is a social hierarchy even among Autistic people. There shouldn't be a pecking order or social strata, but there is. Those who are 17 years olds emotionally and socially regularly seem to pick on the ones "less mature than them", like Autistic people who are emotionally and socially like 12 year olds (like my friend) or like a 5 year old (me). Reminds me of the 18 year old seniors in high school picking on the 14 year old freshmen in 9th grade at PE. If a psychiatrist is going to call an 18 year old that does that more "mature" than the 14 year old who is bullied, or someone is emotionally and socially that age bullying someone who is emotionally and socially like a 4 or 5 year old, if that's called "maturity", I hope to heck I never grow up ever emotionally and socially. Who wants that type of "maturity"?? It would be better off if I wore long-alls and T strap shoes and wore a diaper (I don't wear diapers, but I'm just saying) and slept in a crib than "mature" and become a big bully like that. Society is really messed up.
Take care,
longallsboy
