A Revised Rant
Today would be one of those hormonal days.
I wrote a whole rant to post here and then had to delete it. It was too clear that I was being the biggest hypocrite ever because I am just as guilty of what I was ranting about.
In a nutshell, it had to do with how sick I am of reading Facebook posts where someone is complaining about someone else's parenting decisions or skills. Inevitably, someone will comment on some behavior that they consider selfish or unwise or rude on the part of a kid (or a parent) and it will actually apply to me. I'm human-- I bristle at that kind of stuff. Who wants to know that someone you consider a friend thinks that you are selfish or rude or incompetent? (Guess what? Even if you don't think you are saying something critical about a friend, if you make a public comment condemning how a stranger has dressed her baby, you may have a friend who does the same thing. And they are going to assume you think that way about them too.)
We are all different. We have a wide range of strengths and weaknesses when it comes to parenting. It is not an easy job. None of us are experts (though we've all learned a helpful thing or two from experience). And generally, it is not an area where we can easily change our approach or opinions or behaviors (since so much of how we act as parents comes from how our own parents acted). Since we live a fishbowl life in the social media world, a little less public judgment about other parents would be nice. Yes, I understand the need to rave sometimes. I really do. But I suggest that we should keep these tirades private. Words left unsaid don't hurt anybody. Yet we can do significant damage to our relationships with others without even realizing it, when we post criticism for all the world to see.
I need to do better about this myself. Relationships mean more than proving that I am better than that misguided mother who does things differently than me.
I'm still tempted to post about how irritating it is when teenagers pepper their posts with the F-bomb. But perhaps instead of public ranting, I should just send a private message to the teenager in question and let him know that his language frequently offends me. But that's a slightly different topic, for a different day. (See, I told you I'm a hypocrite!)
I wrote a whole rant to post here and then had to delete it. It was too clear that I was being the biggest hypocrite ever because I am just as guilty of what I was ranting about.
In a nutshell, it had to do with how sick I am of reading Facebook posts where someone is complaining about someone else's parenting decisions or skills. Inevitably, someone will comment on some behavior that they consider selfish or unwise or rude on the part of a kid (or a parent) and it will actually apply to me. I'm human-- I bristle at that kind of stuff. Who wants to know that someone you consider a friend thinks that you are selfish or rude or incompetent? (Guess what? Even if you don't think you are saying something critical about a friend, if you make a public comment condemning how a stranger has dressed her baby, you may have a friend who does the same thing. And they are going to assume you think that way about them too.)
We are all different. We have a wide range of strengths and weaknesses when it comes to parenting. It is not an easy job. None of us are experts (though we've all learned a helpful thing or two from experience). And generally, it is not an area where we can easily change our approach or opinions or behaviors (since so much of how we act as parents comes from how our own parents acted). Since we live a fishbowl life in the social media world, a little less public judgment about other parents would be nice. Yes, I understand the need to rave sometimes. I really do. But I suggest that we should keep these tirades private. Words left unsaid don't hurt anybody. Yet we can do significant damage to our relationships with others without even realizing it, when we post criticism for all the world to see.
I need to do better about this myself. Relationships mean more than proving that I am better than that misguided mother who does things differently than me.
I'm still tempted to post about how irritating it is when teenagers pepper their posts with the F-bomb. But perhaps instead of public ranting, I should just send a private message to the teenager in question and let him know that his language frequently offends me. But that's a slightly different topic, for a different day. (See, I told you I'm a hypocrite!)
Comments