As time went by I really had no patience anymore for the forums and I pretty much never went back seeking advice until recently. I had a question that I thought would warrant some heartfelt advice. I needed a larger audience's opinion as I was pretty sure that my concern was quite valid and I just needed it to be justified by other parents that might have been in a similar situation. Oh dear god how wrong was I. The brutality was astounding. I was shocked to the core at how mean, nasty and direct some of the commenter's were and how some of them totally misconstrued what I was saying and made my every last word about them, their problems and nothing entirely about what my original concern was. I had even started to wonder whether these people commenting were actually genuine parents. They were so jaded by the world that it didn't seem they could possibly be the compassionate types that bore children. Just like the sign that says 'Wet Paint' don't touch I needed to touch the paint, to try the forums again and I've learnt my lesson the hard way. I won't be going back again, that paint's really hard to wash off!
It started to make me think a little more about what happens to a person that they need to be so staunchly proud of their parenting ideals that they would offend, belittle and put off other people in the process of defending them? I had read comments to the effect of "are you stupid?", "come on people, are we really still that dumb?" "you're a moron, no one does that with their children", "what sort of person would poison their child with formula". I wondered whether these people would be happy hearing their children speak like that so I wondered what gave them the right to do something to another person that they probably wouldn't want to have said or done to them?
Then came the Times magazine cover with Jamie Lynne Grummet breastfeeding her 3 year old with the title below "Are you Mom enough."
Was this stirring the pot too? Was this just going to make those trigger happy types even more crazy?
And then came a stream of facebook groups and pages that I had liked over the years doing the same thing. They posted controversial questions that almost seemed to insight anger amongst the ranks and boy did it get them going again. I'd seen some discussions get so heated that the moderators had to stand in and calm everyone down reminding everyone of the rules of no swearing, no attacking and no harassment.
So why do people get so heated over particular parenting issues? First of all, my belief is that parents should do what is right for their children. If you're breastfeeding a 5 year old for your own personal reasons then perhaps you might want to take at look at those reasons and whether doing so is beneficial for the child and how you might explain it to them in say 20 years time. If you can justify it, it's working for your child, you and your family then cool, go for it but when you get all nasty and have all this hatred flaming is it because perhaps you're not entirely cool with what you're doing? I don't get it and I'm still confused. If it's something you won't have a problem explaining to say, your son when he is 25 then keep going. But if we are talking about co-sleeping, having an 8 month old forward or rear facing in the car or whether starting solids at 4 months is too early and the semantics of baby led weaning over purees then is it really something that we need to degrade and belittle each other over. Again, it comes back to my original question- what has happened to people that they have become so angry?
I'm not going to sit here and pretend to want to try and change the world, that by merely writing this here I will miraculously quell the nasty discussions and get everyone to sit and happily sip tea together, that won't happen but I wonder if more of us acknowledged how hurtful and angry some people are, those that conduct themselves that way will stop, think twice about what they write and consider whether it is really that important to fight tooth and nail over something you can't change and with someone that you don't even know? Yes, Mrs Non-Confrontational over here does have a hard time with things like that so instead of trying to stop those toddler type fights I wrote a letter to the support and administration department of a well know parenting website. I wanted to let them know that I had read many posts both past and present that reeked of cyber bullying and harassment, that I felt a small few were using their forums as a means to engage in largely antisocial behaviour which greatly convened both their rules of use and objects 2h. of the Telecommunications Act. I acknowledged that they had a number of forums that were dedicated to helping and assisting parents that were experiencing issues such as trouble conceiving, behavioural issues in children, disease and death and that they were conducted well with largely supportive members but that there were equally as many with polar opposite behaviour going on. Their response echoed my concerns, they too were just as troubled by some peoples behaviour and assured me that their moderators were working to prevent more people turning away having a bad taste left in their mouth by repeat negative experiences.
Lets face it, you can be anyone you want to be online but just because you can't see someone and they don't know you doesn't mean you have the right to offend them. As more and more of our everyday lives is conducted via the Internet we need to become more savvy in ways in which we deal with people via the written word, more careful about how our words might affect others in absence of body language, facial expressions, the rise and fall in tone, touch etc and we need to let everyone have an opinion and be respectful of that opinion. Is your life really going to crumble to sticks because you don't agree with someone on whether Heinz or Rafferty's is better? I doubt it.
Happy typing and be nice to one another kids.
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