Can't We All Just Get Along?

I saw this article online today and felt compelled to tap the keyboards tonight.

In reading this article, it is sad to say that I knew and was aware of exactly what the author was discussing. In the world of social media, online relationships are the 'now'. To be honest, I didn't really understand it a few years ago. I barely used email, except for work purposes. I felt that calling a person took more effort and felt the need to stay in touch on a more intimate level with friends. However, as the years passed, I became increasingly aware that I either join the world of social media, i.e. facebook, email, instant message, blogging, or I would very easily lose touch with many friends and family. It was by far the easiest way to tell of that new promotion, or the new house that you were thinking of buying. It was so easy to keep bridesmaids and guests up to date on the details of your upcoming wedding. It made everything a little easier.

With ease, always comes consequences, though. Those consequences seem to be the rise of online bullying. There will be bullies throughout life. Whether you find them in a playground, on a ball field- possible even the office next to you at work. Because if insecurities are present, then bullying is not that far behind. So, in a sense, the presence of online bullies is not all that surprising. What is surprising is how violent and hurtful some people can be with a stroke of a keyboard.

Now, before anyone contacts me and asks who they need to go give a piece of their mind, I will be honest and say that I've never been the victim of an online bully...yet. I think the reason being, is that I'm still not all that active online and never post controversial topics on the blog. I'm not popular online. And that is just fine by me. Just like in real life, with popularity, there is always judgement and jealousy. With judgement and jealousy, you will always find bullies not far behind.

I have said it before; people have no qualms about giving you advice or saying what's on their mind when you are pregnant or when you have children. It's like people suddenly lose their filter and feel the need to tell you everything that you are doing wrong. Put them behind the protection of a computer and they will say ANYTHING. I've read blog post comments of people that say the most hurtful words to someone that they've never even met. It's the same on some online message boards that I read for ideas, etc. There are women, grown women that are online all day long for the sole purpose, I think sometimes, to make fun of other women and beat them down for comments that they say.

Women are notorious for being competitive and hateful to other women- how many girl talk conversations have you had in the last few months that did not contain an snide or snarky comment about someone you know?! I know I'm guilty at times. And why do we do this? Does it make us feel any better to put another person down and have giggles at the faults and follies of a fellow mom? Does it help us be a better mother for constantly reminding and ridiculing someone else's parenting style? Do we sleep better at night because of that one line zinger we typed to a person that is 1000 miles away that we've never even met?

No.

In fact, I think these actions make us less of person because we lose the one thing that makes humanity so wonderful- compassion. So what if that woman formula feeds instead of breast feeding. Did we ever consider the fact that maybe her milk supply never arrived? Or maybe her child has a horrible milk allergy and needs a special formula? Or maybe, just maybe, it's a personal choice and she just didn't feel comfortable breast feeding. Likewise, do you really care if a mother continues to breast feed her child after 1 year? Does it impact your daily life in the negative in any way?

No, of course not.

Parenting is one of the hardest journeys we can go on in life. No one really knows the right way or what is the absolute best way of doing things. You listen to your intuition and you do what feels best for your family. Among the obvious wrongs, like abuse, addiction, etc.- these are the types of decisions that we should have a strong reaction to when we see or hear of such. Feeding your baby non organic, store bought food is not. Will it make your child any smarter? Probably not.

The ironic part of this all is that it is usually women attacking women; friends attacking friends; mothers attacking mothers. Women should have the utmost compassion and understanding because we know how hard parenting can be. We understand how frustrating it is when you really do not know what you are doing. We should be laughing with each other and relating funny stories. Not belittling one another's choices.

So my question of the day is- why can't we just open a bottle of wine, laugh and complain about the people who really deserve our snarkiness- supermodels! *wink* *wink*