In 1999, I joined an online community. I was 24 then, and my (now) husband and I had been together for a year. Like so many who are young and in love we had started talking about getting married so I was looking for information. It was a relatively short-lived fantasy and our for-real wedding planning didn’t happen for another few years, but I got hooked on this online community and hung around.
It was my first foray into an online social environment. The community was large and all the things that are true to online communities to this day were present there: sharing of stories, tips and frustrations. Joy expressed at good news and good deals, sympathy for monster mothers-in-law and relationship roadblocks.
Oh, and ruthless backstabbing.
What is it about sitting behind a computer screen that makes it okay to take other people down?
In this particular case, there were the usual cliques, including the cool kids and the tacky girls. The tacky girls posted about cash bars, cheap alcohol offerings and money dances – all the things that are totally de rigeur in some regions but unabashedly tacky in others – and the cool girls mocked them for it. Relentlessly.
One brash bride would share her disdain, and others would chime in. A few brave souls would stand up for the original poster who, in posting about white Zinfandel, was only exploring her options.
You know how it goes. We’ve all been there. But if you think brides are bad, mothers are worse.
A wedding is a one-time event. When it’s over, it’s over, and others’ opinions cease to matter. Parenting practices are, apparently, everyone’s business. Especially when you blog about it.
My blog is a mere two months old. I’m barely past being a newborn as a blogger, but I’ve been a reader for many years. I’ve seen moms express moments of joy only to be shot down by the insignificance of their children’s so-called accomplishments. I’ve seen moms – sleep-deprived, scared new moms – reveal their struggles and ask for help only to be told they’re ruining their child’s life through crying it out/nursing to sleep/sending to daycare/whatever.
It’s all crap. And I don’t play that game.
I’ve had my own troubles and lord knows I’ve made some wrong choices in my 2 1/2 years as a mom. Some of those things I did because I was at my wit’s end and just needed to survive another hour. Some because I didn’t know any better.
The thing is, as much as I like to think I’ve got it figured out and the next time will be better and easier, I don’t. And it probably won’t. Not entirely anyway. Being a mom is hard and every kid is different. We’re all figuring it out as we go along and doing the best we can.
What I have figured out is that community matters. The bullying on that original wedding planning board eventually broke it. The creator, who was just trying to run a business helping brides-to-be, gave up. She re-launched later, in a different format, but in the interim the two communities split up.
Those of us who had had enough of the bullying let the cool kids leave to play in their own playground and we created a community of our own. 12 years later, we’re still there. I’ve met only two of these women in person, and only briefly, and yet I consider them fast friends. I have called on them when I need help and they’ve been there. When someone else was calling out, I’ve sent love and hugs and gifts and money. We came together because we shared values – a desire for healthy dialogue, respect and the acknowledgment that each of us is finding her own way through the world and gets by with a little help from her friends.
That’s why I’ve taken The Mom Pledge. We call out for an end to bullying in our children’s school, sports fields and online spaces, but bullying each other isn’t okay either, and it needs to stop.
Because it matters.
