Say What You Want

I've noticed myself refusing to take a stance lately: lots of toys, blow-out birthdays, who really cares?  I begin to realize that I do not.  But I cannot claim that I've been won over to moderation or relativity by any plea for a truce in blog-driven Mommy Wars, because ... well, I rather enjoy in-your-face confrontational blogs.

When I first started this blog, I expected to fill my post list with lots of snarky comments about the various idiocies in the Triplet Connection.  Freed from the constraints of politeness imperative for the good working of forums, I imagined that blog-writing would allow me to say what I really felt, without worrying about offending anyone.  Turns out, I cannot write without my visitors, and especially my commentators, at the forefront of my mind.  It's almost impossible for me to seize upon some heated parenting issue and speak my mind bluntly, even on my own blog.  I crave approval too much.

But you know, stating your opinion on your blog, no matter how offensively, isn't a Mommy drive-by.  Harrassing some parent buying formula in the supermarket aisle is a Mommy drive-by.  Making sneering comments to someone about their child's snack or clothes or favorite toys, those are all Mommy drive-bys.  Saying off-handedly in conversation that you're staying home "to be a full-time Mom," when no one ever refers to working fathers as part-time Dads, might be an [accidental? careless?] Mommy drive-by targeted at the working moms offering you their wine and chips.

Criticizing public breastfeeding on your blog?  Laughing at the gullibility of granola-crunchy parents who buy only US-made wooden toys for their toddlers on your blog?  Sneering at the brain-dead imbecility of stay-at-home parents on your blog?  Those are not Mommy drive-bys.  Those are your opinions, on your blog, and you should go at it.  Of course, I might stop reading your blog -- I have a nervous disorder when it comes to niceness, it's a Minnesota thing -- but I won't think you violated any rules of motherhood or of blog writing.  I'll admire your bluntness, in fact.  At least I know what you believe.

Public blogs are not front porches.  We can't watch to see who's stopping by and retreat indoors if we don't like the looks of their faces.  We can't ask a stranger to wipe their feet before pulling up a chair.  We can't talk about the weather until we know the new arrivals a little better.  Public blogs are boxes on Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, and all of us are trying to capture the attention of the crowds passing by.  Some of us are shouting, some of us are whispering (they're both very good means of getting attention), but all of us are asking for people to listen to what we say.  We're standing on boxes, waiting for people to shout hello up there.  We simply cannot act surprised -- let alone offended -- when the shouts turn ugly.  That's what happens on Speaker's Corner.  That's why we hauled out our box and set up shop.

What about comment banning, you say?  Well, even on Speaker's Corner, the obnoxious guy who won't shut up eventually gets shouted down by the rest of the crowd.  The gal up on the box can studiously ignore him, or ask him -- politely or ribaldly -- to go away.  Very few people spend the night on Speaker's Corner -- most of them go home, ending conversation for the day.  No analogy is perfect.

Respectfulness is nice.  Manners make the world go round.  Some of us (meaning me) have an overwhelming desire to be liked.  But at the end of the day, we all make choices.  We feel passionately about our choices.  We shouldn't be afraid to explain those choices on our own blogs, in whatever terms we want to use.  If people don't like what they're reading, they can turn away.

Comments

[Rayne of Terror]

I like your blog and you very much. Big fan, even if I haven't got time to check for updates everyday anymore. Being a part-time mom really cuts into my blog reading time. Which is probably a good thing - I went to parties were I couldn't relate to people because my social interactions were all on blogs.

[Phantom Scribbler]

True, true, true. And how's that prospectus going?

(You realize that I'm trying to live vicariously through your academic successes. So you should tell me to cut it out when it ceases to be funny.)

[Arial]

I agree with you. I read a particular blog because I want to know what the writer has to say.

I have turned away from blogs when I stop liking what I'm reading. I've quit reading blogs where the writer is so offended by one commenter that they attack her and sic the other readers on her. I just can't stop thinking about how easy it would be for me to be that one stupid commenter.

[Sarah]

Like a rubbernecker on the freeway, I find myself considering looking through the comments to figure out what prompted this post. But I am trying to drive away speedily.

Best of luck.

[Madeleine]

Is there something toxic in the birthday party comments? It keeps crashing my Firefox window!

[Moxie]

So is this your new manifesto? Are you going to take the gloves off? Because I think you'e at your best when you're slightly evil, or at least moderately pissed off.

[Jenny]

I too "When I first started this blog, I expected to fill my post list with lots of snarky comments about the various idiocies..." and I swear I'm trying to get back to it - it was way more fun.

[mamacate]

You know, as my kids get older and my choices get more complicated, I stop having as many opinions. I don't know. Maybe it was having my part-time, frequent-bfing visits, WOH decision being compared to spanking when I tried to become a LLLL. Maybe it was the fact that by the time the kids were 3 years old I was so burnt out that I didn't know what to do with myself and going to work seemed like an amazing relief (except for the panic-inducing thing about having significant financial responsibility). Maybe it was that, while I realized that my choices really *were* right for me, that I knew plenty of people who made the same choices and were, in my opinion, really screwing things up, and that many people I knew who made different, even opposite ones, were doing great and so were their kids. And that in the end it wasn't really about the choices in isolation, but truly, as people say, making decisions that are right for the family: for the particular kids and the particular parents and where everyone is in life and what they want to accomplish right then and what resources are available to them. Maybe it's just that I want to leave that part of my life behind and just stop worrying about what other basically well-intentioned, amply-resourced people are doing, and maybe redirect that energy into helping moms who are struggling with issues of survival (though for some reason contributing to medecins sans frontieres seems less concrete than playing mommy wars on MDC or blogs, although of course quite the opposite is true).

For me, at least, dropping out of the mommy war issues, even the ones I feel strongly about, is growth. I do leave the whole thing feeling slightly traumatized. But that might just be the fact that I just spent the last four years APing twins while working...

[courtney]

I like what I'm reading! I love all the big, thoughtful posts you've done this week. Hope all is well with you.

[Julie]

If people don't like what they're reading, they can turn away.

Thing is, many of 'em don't. And I tend to think that's a good thing, lest each blog become its own echo chamber.

[Tulip]

Well, since you've left me basically all alone at Triplet Connection, the one lone voice drowning in a sea of anti-AP parenting advice, the very least you can do is let loose here so I can have a place to point people to. Or at least a place I can come to and say, "Oh yeah! I'm NOT the only one!"

Dang, things have been really bad there lately, My Friend. It just seems like no one wants to hold their babies any more or let their babies reach "sleeping all night" on their own biological time clock. There are several parents there with "NICU traumatic syndrome", you could sure be helpful to them...

You have a lot to say on many subjects, and I'm baffled why you care what anyone thinks about it. After all, that's why you got this blog, right? That's what you told me, that you wanted a place where you could honestly say how you feel. The truth sometimes hurts to hear, but sometimes it needs to be heard.

[chris]

Um, I think I missed this. Which is probably a good thing.