I really feel like this in the last week or so with all the celebrity deaths we’ve seen and all the fighting I’ve seen across the blogs I frequent. Here are my issues:
1. Respect the dead. I mean, seriously, your Michael Jackson jokes aren’t funny any more. My mother taught me to respect the dead even if you don’t like them. I’ve heard some Farah and Billy Mays ones too. Come on people. These people have families, friends, and they just deserve better. And the people doing searches on farrah fawcett funeral photos and Michael Jackson autopsy photos, well that’s just sick. Maybe if people wouldn’t look at this crap, the paparazzi wouldn’t have a job, and these people could live a normal life. And leave poor Michael’s kids alone.
2. You can disagree and be civil about it. I do it all the time. For example, I disagreed with this post about working moms. I wrote my own post (now, granted I did say bite me). However, the author of the post and I had an awesome email conversation in which we agreed to disagree. We didn’t take it out on twitter or other social media means. We handled it and were nice about it. I still read her blog. Why can’t more people do that? (Though maybe we should have staged a takedown fight, can you imagine the traffic? LOL)
3. Be respectful of moms who lost their kids. Do I even need to say this? I mean seriously if you have nothing nice to say, please don’t comment on their blogs and mine either for that matter. My heart goes out to Shana and Heather every single day due to their loss. I couldn’t imagine losing a child. But some of these comments they get on their blogs when they are pouring their souls out make me want to vomit. I couldn’t imagine how it feels to have a some one leave a comment telling me to get over it (and yes, they both get comments like that).
4. Be respectful of moms who have sick kids. Really, they didn’t ask for it. They would happily trade in their traffic and popularity to have a healthy child. How do I know this? I am a mom, and that’s all I want for my kids. I’ve seen horrible things written about McKMama and how she exploits her kids. I guess I exploit my kids too since I talk about them on my blog, and heaven forbid, post pictures of them! I know she’d give it all up for Stellan to have a healthy heart and would happily blog about home contents insurance instead.
5. Be respectful of one another. PhD in Parenting‘s blog is a great example of this. I almost always disagree with her opinion (sorry but I do), but man do her commenters go after one another. Somewhere they forget that this is her blog, her opinion.
I’ll be honest that #3 and #4 get me the most upset. That’s probably the mother in me coming out, but come on people. I would like to think that we are building society to be better than this. Mom, this for you. Can we just be respectable to one another and treat each other with the respect that we all would like to be treated with? Is that asking for too much?
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AMEN, Lisa!
This post should be required reading before anyone starts a blog. No. 5 particularly resonates with me. I used to moderate a high-traffic multi-blog site and the way people would go after each other and fling poo day in, day out was disgusting. And THEN both sides would complain to me about how the other was mean, ugly and out of line.
I used to regularly write "attack the message but not the messenger" posts on that site, but it never helped. People just amaze me sometimes.
And on No. 1, that's an AMEN plus a HALLALUJAH! You're absolutely right. If people didn't read that garbage, there wouldn't be any market for it. And it's amazing how many normal people – folks who wouldn't be caught dead with a copy of a tabloid – fall into it at times like this.
AMEN, Lisa!