I am not necessarily a stranger to message boards on the internet. By the same token the ones I have frequented in the past were usually topic specific, i.e.; immigration and pregnancy and parenting. From time to time I'll visit a few photography boards but nothing with any regularity. Gareth and I were both active members of one specific immigration resource message board whose name I won't bother to mention.
We eventually moved on from our own immigration journey and
also became tired of the drama which seems to the norm for that place.
Part of that I think was due to the stress that the immigration process places
on those going through it. It was probably one of the most stressful
times of our early marriage. Looking back, my feeling is that if you
can manage to make it through the hoops that USCIS sets up for you and then
assimilate to life here in the states, you can pretty much get through
anything. But I think the entire ordeal makes people stupid
sometimes, especially those who wanted to use the immigration board as a place
to not only vent, but belittle and antagonize others.
When I found out I was pregnant with Gaby I joined another message board
with individual due-date clubs and other forums tailored to things like
breastfeeding support, attachment parenting information and support, cloth
diapering and so on and so forth. I think that board, Pregnancy
Weekly, has now morphed into a huge message board community with
subsets upon subsets of forums. It covers pretty much the gamut of
pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. It's also got other useful resources
for expecting parents. It's topic-heavy but if you're looking for a
specific forum for information, chances are Pregnancy Weekly has a group
tailored to that need. Don't mistake this as an ad for PW...it's
not. There was a reason I left the board as did pretty much the entire
January 2006 birth club. Downtime was a huge issue, over moderation,
lack of certain freedoms we'd previously enjoyed and when they retooled the
site it became very antiseptic and cold. So most of us (from my due date
club) moved on to another board.
It goes without saying, you get a bunch of pregnant, hormonal women together
and it's inevitable that there are going to be flare ups, personality clashes
and the occasional cat-fight. I was by no means immune but I'd like to
think I maintained some semblance of maturity and level-headedness.
Although I'm sure there are some who would disagree, probably reading this
right now. By all means, please feel free to leave me an anonymous
comment if you disagree. Just be prepared to be able to backup whatever
you say. I'm open to intelligent debate that's supported with reason and
logic, not to mention integrity.
Much like life, cliques develop and you bond with certain women and not others. And this "clique" thing isn't just specific to pregnancy and child raising boards. We saw it on the immigration board as well. The funny thing is, I think "clique" is the wrong word. Much the same in the everyday non-virtual world you are going to get along better with certain people over others. There's nothing wrong with that, it just happens that way. You find commonalities and shared philosophies. Some people though take it personally that you don't get on with them at the same level as you do others and for some reason sees fit to make all sorts of personal attacks and say things that I'm sure they wouldn't be caught dead saying to someone in the real world.
Take for instance the very heated topic of CIO....Crying It Out. There are variations on the topic but for the most part (and even this is going to be a very broad generalization that doesn't really capture all the nuances of the subject, and there are many!) it's leaving an infant to cry itself to sleep. Now see, right there with my poor description you're probably saying to yourself; "oh my gosh, that sounds awful! How could you do that to a little baby?!?" Dr. Ferber, who is actually the man behind CIO never intended for CIO to be categorized as leaving an infant to cry. Alone. In the dark. No comfort or solace. Dr. Ferber advocates teaching a child to soothe itself to sleep. There are gray areas and my point isn't to get into them. Personally we've used The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley and it's worked wonders for us. I just wanted to use CIO as an illustration that tends to make women leave their big girl panties wadded in a pile at home!
So anyhow you get a group of women together (on a message board), some with very passionate parenting philosophies and the first time someone mentions either ‘Ferberizing’ their little one or using CIO all hell breaks loose...literally!
There are a lot of mothers who think CIO is akin to child
abuse and call it that. They make no hesitation in letting a mother know
they are abusing their child for letting them Cry It Out. That's a pretty
weighty accusation to make against someone, with consequences that I'm sure no
one wants. What gets me though is the more passionate topics such as this
tend to bring out the absolute worst in people rather than their compassionate
maternal side. I've used this analogy a lot recently but I can't think of
a better one - but certain women I've come across on these boards are like rabid
dogs with a bone. I've seen allegations made, threats tossed around like
they were baseballs and all sorts of nastiness when it comes to the CIO topic
alone.
Now tell me something...if this weren't all happening on a message board, and
you were sitting around with your mommy friends would you seriously accuse them
of child abuse if they happened to mention they were using the CIO method?
Would you lose all sense of maturity and composure and tell them that they were
neglecting the basic needs of their baby by letting the child soothe itself to
sleep? Would you get in their face?
It's the same with the breastfeeding topic, a subject very near and dear to my
heart, after all, I am still breastfeeding my almost-20-month old. I have come across women whom I love and
respect and hold in the highest esteem but they think that by giving an infant
formula, you are poisoning them and that formula should only be available
via prescription as a last resort. Yes, I am the first one to say
BREAST IS BEST and it really kinda makes me sick that some women just don't want
to do it. The science is there to back it up. You can’t replicate in a
can, what comes from the breast. Children are healthier in the long run, as
is mom. Plus, formula comes in boring
cans, and breastmilk containers are pretty attractive! But I suppose as
long as society views the breast as a sexual object, rather than what it was
intended for, nourishing our offspring, then little will change. However
sometimes, especially in the breastfeeding topic, the passion is overweighed by
zealousness that I think turns other women off, especially those on the fence
about the issue.
Again, I ask you, if you were in a room with a group of women and the topic was
breastfeeding, would you antagonize them by alleging that formula is akin to
poisoning their baby and that they don't have their infant's best interests in
mind if they choose not to breastfeed, or let societal views on the issue
prevent them from doing so? Would you get in their face and say mean
things and act superior?
I think not.
So what makes it ok to act like that on a message board?
I'll tell you what I think makes others feel they can act
without the fear of having to be accountable. It's the fact that someone
isn't going to punch them in the face for acting like a jerk! Believe me,
this phenomenon is not solely in the realm of parenting and immigration
boards. I'm sure it's everywhere. You're behind a computer
screen, thousands of miles away from the person you're battling it out with and
there is no fear of recrimination from anyone. You can say whatever you
want (well unless you violate certain site TOS, but even then, you still have
said it, so it doesn't matter, you'll probably just get banned from the site)
and you don’t have to answer to anyone. Besides, you're anonymous...who
knows it's really YOU?
I know there are probably some mom's from the message board I frequent, some
who daresay do not like me, think I ramble on (I do, get over it!) and think
I'm a pompous hag. But I guarantee you, everything I say there I'd
say to your face.
I look at this way. I am accountable to several
people. God, myself, my husband and my children. I wouldn't
want my kids to read anything I'd write somewhere and be alarmed, surprised, or
ashamed. I'd want them to take pride in the fact that their
mother has integrity and stands behind every single thing she writes and won't
say something online that she wouldn't say in person.
I'm sure there are times I go overboard and I know I've hurt some feelings, for
which is almost never intentional and I always apologize. I don't mince
words though and if I think you are disingenuous, or full of it, I'll tell
you. I'd do the same if you were standing in front of me.
So as I sit here and type all this out I'm sure there is a little meek and mild
June Cleaver of a housewife sitting there who gets some sort of puffed up
over-inflated ego because she's behind a computer screen who will let me have
it with both barrels. And this is exactly what I'm talking about.
Our little June Cleaver would never dare say anything like that in real life.
I think the internet is, for the most part, a good thing. But I also
think we've lost some of the civility that we have when we deal with passionate issues
via the computer rather than face to face.
Kinda makes me wonder though if joining a message board that deals with Square
Foot Gardening, like I've been thinking about doing, is such a good idea.
I'll probably piss someone off enough to make them threaten me with a pair of
gardening shears!!!
