I call my cane my stick.

The nurse was probably just trying to make conversation with your kid, telling her she liked her cane/stick as a way to reinforce that it isn't something to be ashamed or embarrassed about.

>but then again she is treating my daughter as a blind 4 year old instead of just a kid

Not to be an ass, but your kid was there because of her eyesight, so it would make sense to treat her as such.

We call it the blind stick at my house. It's just a word. Don't get ruffled over something so inconsequential.

Pull back your claws tiger mom. No one called her a name, tried to bully her or hurt her in any way. This issue is all yours and you have to own it.

Your daughter is 4, don't protect her to death!

Yeah, she is blind... but she is still a kid and needs to have a kid life. If you treat her like an invalid, she will become one.

Let her have interactions with other people like she is a any other child.

The finer points of political correctness and the ADA, don't mean shit to any 4 year old. The nurse was trying to be friendly and had no idea that you were raising the ADA police.

Your kid is a visually impaired person, i.e. colloquially a blind four-year-old. Nothing bad about it, nothing good about it. It's how it is. You should get used to the idea, and more importantly, she should too. It is beyond reasonable to expect the average person to know the nuances between and including perfect sight and total and utter blindness and in a casual interaction the stick or the cane, whatever, will be something the average person is going to draw their attention to. Thus, accept it as a part of how things are and learn yourself and teach her how to react to it in a casual way. In that particular case a simple thank you, I think, would work. Should anyone approach her with arrogance or disrespect, depending on the situation, let them know that it is not okay and to be respectful or if someone is demeaning enough, just tell them to fuck off.

"You don't see too well?", "are you blind?", "can you see anything?", "what's that
\[cane\] for?" and similar questions are asked when people just don't know, and that's fine. People are that way, they don't know everything, and when in need of information, it is okay to ask. However laughing, helping WITHOUT ASKING, behaving as the visually impaired person is mentally challenged or any other demeaning thing to do is very much not ok and anyone doing that should be made aware of that VIGOROUSLY.

Getting offended too easily for something that really doesn't warrant getting offended for is the worst thing one can do as a visually impaired person. Surrogately getting offended FOR a visually impaired person is much, much worse. It deprives human dignity from them.

I am legally blind man in my late twenties

I’m Dutch and we don’t differentiate between a stick and a cane, all just the same word. There is however the thing where people call it a “blind” cane instead of a white cane or a “feeling” cane as we call it. I totally get that this bugged you, especially when it comes from a professional who should definitely know the right terms

The very odd thing is that not five minutes after I read this, my eye doctor's nurse called it a stick. Then moved it. I hate it when people move my cane.

I would say don't let it bother you. We so often are bothered over other people's word choices in today's society, which is counter-productive. Not only that, but it is a slippery slope. One of the greatest gifts I got from my parents - my dad especially - was access to every opportunity, and the option to try things. That, combined with their wanting me to be independent has always served me well. Because, since the age of 12, I had been cooking, cleaning up after myself, and doing my own laundry plus other household chores. I am now 33, and I look back and can appreciate what that did for me. I see it as a slippery slope, because parents tend towards overprotecting blind children, and while I cannot claim this for myself, or claim experience in this, stories told to me through others have seemed like borderline abuse to me, just based on how sheltered they made their child.

​

OK, so my grandmother still will call it a walking stick, which it is technically not. When I go hiking in the woods, I will forgo use of the cane instead, finding a stout stick, because if I break that, I can find another one. I don't see the point in risking breaking the cane because of exposing the joints to impacts from all sides by running it over logs and stumps and the like, so I use a stick I can gather from the ground, and it works nice. That is a walking stick. Still, it does me little good to make that point over and over, so I accept it. I think you'd certainly be within your right to correct the nurse, telling them we generally refer to it as a cane, but to take it any further, I'm not sure it's warranted.

It’s not a stick, we’re not barbarians!

Well, let's see.

First of all, I think it's a great idea getting her used to a cane. It will give her independence when moving around and she won't grow up thinking there has to be someone with her all the time for her to walk around.

However, the white cane is used by completely blind people. Your daughter has some functional residual vision so I would reccomend a green cane. People using green canes are recognized worldwide as people with low vision and reduced ability to navigate. I have a green cane myself.

About you thinking that the nurse didn't treat her as a kid but as a blind kid. Well,your child is blind, indeed, and sometimes people will notice it and do something about it, and that's not always bad. People may notice she's in need of some help and be more prone to help her due to she's being blind. She also uses a cane, which is not something everyone uses, and she'll get noticed by it. In this case someone just acknowledged she uses a cane and was nice by telling her that they like it.

Make no mistake, your daughter knows she's blind, and she knows other people know she's blind. Trying to make people act like they do not know it will do her no good and it may even harm her because she'll think being blind and using a cane is something to be ashamed about it, since you don't like someone nicely acknowledging it.

Finally, I guess she said "stick" because most 4 y/o know what a stick is, but not many know what a "cane" is.

I can see you are trying to avoid that your daughter is mistreated because she's blind, but in this particular situation you're overreacting. Being blind is okay, don't teach the kid otherwise with your behaviour.

Yo, I am 27 and totally blind, I still have this happen with people even good friends and my dad from time to time had called my cane a stick and it bothers me slightly every time.

People have called my cane a stick all the time. I know it's not really a very big deal but it annoys me to no end.

I’ve had my cane be called a stick by cab drivers so many times and my nan too.

it doesn’t bother me at all.

I sort of get where you're coming from, but by the same token I think it's really important to have a sense of humour about it, or at least be able to brush things off.

I call my cane the peasant pusher. xD

Hi. I refer to my cane as a stick most of the time. I don't feel it to be disrespectful to call it that.
When my 4 year old tells kids on the playground that her dad uses a stick to feel the ground because he can't see, I just laugh and go on.
Really I feel like calling it a cane around non-blind people can seem offputting.
Your child will grow up and be fine. I have LCA and am living pretty well.
Best of luck.

It's not a big deal. Overthinking these things accomplishes nothing. I'm sure there are bigger problems that need attended to than the mislabeling of a cane.

As an O&M specialist, people saying “stick” is a pet peeve of mine. I totally understand how your child trying to become accustomed to using a cane (which is a GREAT idea, good job mom) and people making ignorant comments can be frustrating. You are right that the nurse was probably just trying to have a conversation with your daughter. However, you have every right to be annoyed by the comment. Usually when the child is new to using a cane, they don’t want to be seen as “different” or “other.” I think a good idea would be to educate your daughter on it being a cane and NOT a stick; like maybe practice a nice response for when others misuse the term. Something like “actually it’s called a white cane and it helps me to find things in front of me!” Or turn up the sass, I would. That way the person won’t make the mistake again, because the precious 4 y/o educated her.