Staying sane in an INsane world

I admit that I’m a total computer geek. I love my Internets. I make a living in social media. But there are some things that even I don’t understand.

If you know anything about the “Mom blogging” community then you probably heard about the recent death of a 2 year old who drowned in his family’s pool. There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding it due to several factors:

• The mom posted on Twitter less than an hour after her son was found at the bottom of the pool
• The mom was on Twitter again a few hours after her son died posting photos of him
• The mom was again on Twitter the next morning arguing with people who were questioning her
• Several people were asking how this could have happened and if the mom was too busy tweeting rather than watching her child
• One person in particular was demanding verification of the story before people started sending in donations
• The Mommy Blogger lynch mob attacked the people who were doubting the mother’s story or supporting the right to question it
• Several people were defending the right to question stories and pointing out previous Internet scams
• Those same people were also pointing out that questioning a story can be done quietly and with some tact

Since this is my blog and I can speak freely here, I’m going to share my own opinions on the whole fiasco. Now keep in mind, these are MY opinions on MY blog. I can only say how I would handle things and it’s not meant to be a criticism of how other people have gone about it.

First of all, a few things really jump out at me. The first is this report from Florida Today.  According to the article, the boy was found at the bottom of the pool, the child was out of the mother’s sight, and a police lieutenant would not say what the mother was doing or how long the child was out of her sight.

Well, you can tell by her Twitter timeline what she was doing. She was posting pictures and tweeting about chickens and roosters. And he was, according to this report, found at the bottom of the pool. Not seen falling into it. Found at the bottom. To me, this disqualifies it as being one of those “it only takes a split second” scenarios. If you turn your back for a second and a child falls or jumps into a pool, you hear it or you see it the second you turn back around. You don’t find them at the bottom. Not only that but why wonder around in a backyard with a toddler near a pool with no fence or gate to begin with? I’m not saying the mother is to blame. I am saying it could have been prevented.

Me? I wouldn’t be tweeting about my child’s death just hours after it happened. I would be so sedated and knocked out on tranquilizers, you’d find me walking the streets babbling like an idiot wearing nothing but a t-shirt and snow boots before you’d see me on Twitter. I do have an online “life” but at a moment like this, I think my family would be the ones I would turn to first. Yes, I know she just moved and her husband was gone. I don’t have any family nearby, I don’t have a husband, but I still can’t see myself hopping online to tweet about it and argue with strangers over it. I love my friends that live in my computer dearly but, unless I have your phone number and I can contact you directly, you’re not going to be very high on my priority list when my child dies.

This brings me to the next issue. While I may have these thoughts and feelings, I would never, ever think of sharing those thoughts with the mother, especially directing them at her publicly like some people have done on Twitter. I can’t imagine the pain she’s going through right now and the last thing she needs is a bunch of strangers piling blame and guilt on her. It’s none of my business. The circumstances surrounding her child’s death is a private matter between her, her family, and the local police. The way some people went about attacking her, especially at one of the worst moments in her life, is just completely inhuman.

But then there’s another point…it should have been a private matter but because the mother is very active on Twitter, she made a choice to live her life publicly. I understand having an online community, I understand having friends and supporters on the Internet. And I understand reaching out to those friends and that community in a time of need. But you have to accept that there are consequences to that. If you choose to share information publicly where anyone can read it, then you open it up for anyone to comment on it. Not just your own circle of friends, not just your own community. I have online friends and I probably would reach out to them if I needed their thoughts, prayers, whatever. In fact, I have done that before. But I limited it just to those friends. I’ve contacted them directly, I’ve shared information on the forums where I usually communicate with them. I haven’t shared it publicly on Twitter where I have no control over who sees it.

If that’s how one person reaches out for support and if posting pictures of her child a few hours after his death is her way of coping and grieving, I can understand that. I am not judging her or criticizing her. I am just saying I can’t identify with that. And I’m also saying that I can understand why people would want to confirm the story before sending in money, although I don’t agree with the way one person in particular went about doing that. It wasn’t necessary to demand the information directly from the mother nor was it necessary to give everyone a play by play of who she had contacted and what the result was.

But here’s another issue I’ve had with it and it’s not a new one. I’ve blogged about it before, here and on Bad Mommy Blogger. It’s the mob mentality of the Mom blogging community. Many of them fail to see the hypocrisy of their own words and actions. I have seen more vulgar language, more name calling, more vile hatred spewed out of them than I have ever seen anywhere else. How DARE you question or criticize one of their own! Do it and you will face the wrath of them all, armed with keyboards and iPhones! They will contact Twitter and demand that your account be removed! They will take to their blogs and publicly “out” you, posting your IP addresses and demanding that their flock block you! No matter if your questions or statements have some validity or truth to them, you will conform to their methods of blind support and DO AS THEY SAY or you will be SHUNNED!

Yet they call this other person a “bully”.

Hmph.

Maybe those people really need to take a step back and look at the role Twitter and blogging is playing in their lives. But, see, it’s easier to coddle each other and make excuses for the amount of time they spend on all of it than it is to face the truth. And what IS the truth? The truth is you need to get the fuck off the computer and spend some time with your family.

By the way, if I get any nasty comments, I DO have the right to delete them and you do have the right to call me names for it. But it’s my blog and I’ll shut it down before I’ll let other people tell me what I should or shouldn’t write on it.