Name the elephants in the room?

[kpete]

Nurse Kelley Sez: Name the elephants in the room
by KelleyRN2
Sat Mar 06, 2010 at 08:36:18 AM PST

.................

When I was a child - during the Bronze Age - even married couples didn't acknowledge having sex. Ozzie and Harriet slept in twin beds, remember? Girls who "got in trouble" disappeared from their communities for a few months and put their babies up for adoption or, sometimes, disappeared for good when their families threw them out.

Racism wasn't even a common term back then. It took Dr. King to make me look around at the churches in the various communities we lived in and see that there was an unspoken rule: "Love thy neighbor as thyself ... but keep the blacks out of our churches."

Bodily functions were never discussed, either. When Archie Bunker flushed a toilet on national TV, people were shocked. The first TV commercial that used the word diarrhea embarrassed my father so much he wrote the network a stern letter. (The man almost went to an early grave when commercials for tampons and douches came out.) It was news when the ladies of The View recently discussed incontinence.

Children who were born other than heterosexual, like my brother, either hid their sexual orientation and suffered in silent shame, or faced lives of shunning, taunting, even killing.

Rape was so shameful for the victim that many women committed suicide.

....................

I'm sure there are many other once-hidden topics you can add to my list. My question for you today is this: What are we still not talking about? What are the elephants in the room?

Talk to Nurse Kelley.♥

more:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/6/843548/-Nurse-Kelley-Sez:Name-the-elephants-in-the-room

[Robb]

1. Poverty.

[kpete]

2. yes

a giant elephant

[lunatica]

3. Mental illness was considered shameful

Children with Down's Syndrome were put away and kept out of sight. The handicapped stayed home because they simply couldn't get around in a world built for people who walked. If they needed a wheelchair it was sometimes impossible to even leave the house.

[nightrain]

4. knr. Disparity of wealth.

[gristy]

5. Overpopulation, overconsumption, and the carrying capacity of the planet

[Subdivisions]

6. And their nasty cousin resource depetion, especially crude oil. n/t

[bigtree]

7. I was born into an adoption home

Hats . . . dad and mom wore hats until it went out of fashion. Dad would come home from work and take off his suit and tie and put on another suit and tie to go to the store. That all changed rapidly for them in the mid-'70's, along with most other sacred mores.

[OutNow]

8. Debt

No one likes to talk about the debt burden they face. Young people, 20 to 30, often keep on spending more than they earn because that's the way it's always been in their lives. I was really shocked recently when my niece let it slip that she owes $70,000 in student loans. I think it was a good investment, but stil...... That's a lot of debt!