Do you ever say the wrong thing??

There's quite a bit to unpack there, and the whole situation is rather ambiguous. By local faith groups, to whom are you referring? Are the children in question already being raised within the religion of these groups? Where do your friends fit into this situation? Are the parents of the children aware of this idea?

Obviously I can't ask who you are in this situation due to anonymity rules, but as it's unclear what your position may be in regards to these local faith groups, it's hard to say how appropriate your idea is. It sounds like there's something in there that your friends find objectionable. Could you tell us what they expressed to you about it?

Without knowing more, it's hard to really assess the situation to know what to say about it.

Thanks for your reply. I wanted to pay for communities to write booklets for kids to have and also swap and share that celebrate the best and good bits about it their faith, and challenged stereotypes and herald historical heroes and living members of the community who have shown universally acknowledged virtues (humiiity, charity, love, compassion, patience, temperance, diligence, forgiveness etc). I met and spoke to an imam who was realy excited at the idea and also went to a synagogue to see if they’d be interested (who were also really keen!

When I told a friend who is a teacher she said it was really offensive for me to do this as I am a white middle class secular woman. I couldn’t understand why -I thought I saw a gap for a local initiative that could promote unity of different faiths and backgrounds but she felt I was being prejudicial and bigoted and islamophobic. My husband then agreed.

I can, and have accepted I have got this wrong. I don’t want to hurt or offend anyone-quite the reverse. But I can’t claim to understand it. 

I find social situations so incredibly difficult to navigate and feel despondent and can’t see the point in trying any more. Why has society made this so complicated - so complicated and so lacking in faith and trust in peoples ability to be well meaninged? The hypersensitivity to causing potential offence I myself find upsetting and offensive.

how can I ever advise my autistic daughter how to navigate the world when someone seeing an unkindness, deciding the pay a lot of money towards helping parties involved fix that unkindness is apparently offensive!? When the parties themselves seemed keen and thought it was a good intitiative!? How can life be so complicated!?  

I so often feel conspicuous that I don’t say or act in the right way. These sorts of things just make me want to hide away forever and never meet anyone or go anywhere or do anything as this makes me feel hurt, untrusted, scared, and stupid. 

I know this isn’t a sensible solution. But I suppose I just need to vent and would appreciate knowing if I’m not the only one to find adult life so im possible. I feel I fail at every turn at the moment. I keep offending people when I am trying to be as kind as I can, and honest at the same time.

please, if you have any experience of putting your foot in it, or doing the wrong thing, please let me know I’m not alone.

If the local imam likes and supports the idea, then the idea isn't islamophobic. It could be that because your friend has a duty of care to her students, she's looking at your idea as pressuring your own beliefs onto her students. But if she's specifically accusing you of discriminating against muslims, despite the local prayer leader supporting the idea, then it sounds like she could be getting offended on other peoples' behalf, which is all too common these days. Lets assume the former for now though.

If you still want to go forward with this idea, you should probably communicate with the imam and other relevant religious members of the community. Maybe ask them to speak to local parents, or simply to allow you to put a flyer up on the community noticeboard for them to invite parents to look at. Make a Facebook group that people who support the idea can join, and if you can get a nice number of relevant people involved, even if only joining the group to add their names to the list, then you'd have something to take to the headteacher, to show them the idea is supported by these individuals.

That aside, you've taken a blow to your confidence, and I do know what that's like. More than once I've chosen my words poorly and upset someone I didn't mean to. One of the hard lessons in life is sometimes you have to let the matter lie and give feelings a chance to cool off on both sides, or accept that the misunderstanding can't be easily resolved. Acknowledge your intensions, acknowledge how your words or actions were recieved, accept that situation for what it is. Then you can start to analyse and understand what you should have said, and what you should do next, if anything. Stress for autists can cause a feedback loop, so it's extra important to give yourself time to process.

If the local imam likes and supports the idea, then the idea isn't islamophobic. It could be that because your friend has a duty of care to her students, she's looking at your idea as pressuring your own beliefs onto her students. But if she's specifically accusing you of discriminating against muslims, despite the local prayer leader supporting the idea, then it sounds like she could be getting offended on other peoples' behalf, which is all too common these days. Lets assume the former for now though.

If you still want to go forward with this idea, you should probably communicate with the imam and other relevant religious members of the community. Maybe ask them to speak to local parents, or simply to allow you to put a flyer up on the community noticeboard for them to invite parents to look at. Make a Facebook group that people who support the idea can join, and if you can get a nice number of relevant people involved, even if only joining the group to add their names to the list, then you'd have something to take to the headteacher, to show them the idea is supported by these individuals.

That aside, you've taken a blow to your confidence, and I do know what that's like. More than once I've chosen my words poorly and upset someone I didn't mean to. One of the hard lessons in life is sometimes you have to let the matter lie and give feelings a chance to cool off on both sides, or accept that the misunderstanding can't be easily resolved. Acknowledge your intensions, acknowledge how your words or actions were recieved, accept that situation for what it is. Then you can start to analyse and understand what you should have said, and what you should do next, if anything. Stress for autists can cause a feedback loop, so it's extra important to give yourself time to process.