Monday, January 19, 2009

Kinda Crazy

The recent flutter of internet activity around the return of French Justice Minister Rachida Dati to work 5 days after giving birth to her daughter via c-section tweaked my interest. Honestly, what interested me was the whole c-section thing since my son was born via the same method. My own experience was wonderful. A week after my child was born, I had lost a considerable amount of my baby weight & felt really great. So, I was interested in seeing how well another woman recovered from a rather traumatic and invasive surgery.

However, what quickly caught my eye was the comments that were tacked on to the end of the story.

There seemed to be 3 camps:

Camp #1 sounded out, "She’s a horrible, evil, selfish excuse for a mother and her daughter will need therapy for the rest of her life to make up for her childhood. And anyone who wouldn’t give up their career for their child obviously doesn’t love their little angel and is a terrible, no good person."

The 2nd camp replied, "You are so judgmental, I went back to work very soon after the birth of my child and my little darling is well-rounded and balanced. You are a narrow minded shrew who has nothing in their life but day time TV and passing judgement as a hobby!"

Oh, my golly heavens….

The absolute venom with which (unfortunately, mostly) women struck back and forth across the issue shocked the socks off of me. It was insane! I couldn’t stop reading. These women started off attacking a woman they didn’t know & (truly) knew nothing about & they it escalated to viscous mud slinging back and forth between one another.

I was ashamed that members of my gender could and would seem to have no problem in behaving to cruelty. The words that were exchanged were truly horrific. They attacked one another, their spouses, their children; nothing was off limits.

Lest you think that all the people who posted were heartless, there was one final group of people.
This camp tried to reason with all, "You know what, we don’t know what’s going on in her life. She’s a single mom, let’s not be quick to judge here."

I have to say, I’m that final camp & let me add; Let’s remember that no one falls into a simple set of labels & that most people are trying their best. Let us also remember that we can disagree with others without being disagreeable & completely horrid to one another. It is possible to dialog with others without insisting that they agree with and conform to every single thing we agree with.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

I tend to subscribe to the "Dr Laura" philosophy that children need their mommies home with them and no one can love, nurture, care for, etc. your child better than you can......BUT, as you well know, regretably.... I really didn't have that opportunity. So,I did the next best thing I could do under the circumstances. Too bad the chatter has to become so ugly. Real conversation becomes impossible!