I just wanted to point these out, because after many days the comments and discussion are apperantly still going strong.
Rebecca made one innocent comment about starting to send Gideon to day care part time, and then all hell seemed to break loose in the comment threads on her blog. See these posts and the comments on them:
OK Blogger is Really Pissing Me Off
Legitimate Mothering (or Vote for Reb)
I’m Putting Harrlynn’s Comment Top Level
I checked last night, then just checked again a few minutes ago and there are many new comments. I’ll go read them all shortly, but I’ve just been called to lunch.
Good stuff. I’ve missed a lot of the comments since Rebecca went Blogger-only for comments. Reading comments without getting to make my piddly contributions can get pretty frustrating.
It might be fun to register just to be a troll, though.
Oh my. I don’t tend to frequest Rebecca’s blog in a large part because I just don’t spend so much time online these days, and I am all for a good juicy argument…conflict can be great fun. And I guess sometimes I can be pretty rigid in my beliefs. But I gotta say, someone must be sitting behind a desk somewhere laughing their butt off. Because that’s what conflict like that is all about, isn’t it? Getting a rise out of the readers? Becauseif not – if it’s real, it’s a warning.
I don’t know much about my right-wing librarian pal from Jersey, except he/she is a total asshole in comment fields on other blogs.
And nothing like having your ex-boyfriend (who really does agree with you!) come to the comment-field rescue and defend your attacker’s right to attack.
Sorry about the no anon comment fields — I changed it in January after a rash of nasty anon comments, but as you can see, its not that difficult to create a virtually anonymous profile and go to town.
I’ve encountered similar sentiments from a number of people — albeit in much less concentrated and vile ways. Everybody has an opinion — sure — me too. If I went up to every stranger and told them what I thought about their parenting, let’s just say my face wouldn’t be nearly as pretty.
I think I have a blogger account only so I can comment at the Jackal, even though I don’t do so all that often. :-)
A warning for what? I thought she was just a troll at first, but as it went on it seemed she was quite serious. Rebecca decided she’d had enough and shut it all down now though.
As a busy mom, it was too exhausting to keep up with all the comments. Maybe if I had more childcare.
Warning?
People are entitled to their own opinions. And that’s all good. However, I think there may be a direct correlation between narrow-minded extreme self-righteous parenting. Not that I would take all of my ideas about human nature from fictional media, but hello – Psycho?
And crazy Joe goes around raping, chopping up and scalping pretty girls because his mom locked him in a closet when he was a toddler and would wet the bed…
And I have never met a preacher’s kid who is “normal” in any sense. Fighting the system and bucking expectations and all.
Some would argue it, but parents do have a direct influence on their children in most cases. Yes, sometimes no matter what you do the kid just comes out wrong, or right. Sometimes I hear myself talking and start to think – Oh lord, I am becoming my mother (and that’s scary). Everyone is different. While there are standard “acceptable norms”, people react in different ways to different things. So different outlets become necessary in order to ensure the “sanity” of the parents and the “healthy environment” of the child. Thus there are a multitude of “acceptable” decisions in raising a child. Subjecting your child to a sensory deprived environment like the “Learning Room” for days on end is not however one of them. In fact it’s one of those thing that should probably lead to a call to Child Protective Services. People who have very rigid idea of right and wrong parenting and force those ideas on to other people are probably also forcing those things on their children as well, mentally locking them into dark rooms because that conditioning isn’t natural and not always easy. And that is a sure way to make a dysfunctional person. Abuse makes abusers and so on. There’s no guarantee that a well adjusted parent will make a well adjusted child but it’s more likely. And if that means putting the kid in daycare while you have some time to yourself, then so be it. And if it means putting the kid in daycare so that you can hook on the street corner and do crack, or cook up some meth in the kitchen in privacy, it’s still better than doing it in front of the kid. I miss having Amy in daycare. Me time is nice. Amy has been in daycare since she was 6 weeks old. Amy’s not really a good example though cause she’s a little unstable. But then maybe she is a good example because I’M a little unstable too and so she is a mini me…Ugh.
The whole area of interest for me is the extreme cases…the major nutters. Why and how and what switch got thrown in their brains to make them so crazy. Some are just nutters. Born that way. Some are MADE that way. How? What is the line that devides sane from not so much? I want to know who, why and if they can ultimately be fixed. Are there just short circuits or was there somehow and organic re-wiring happening? Can dead places re-awaken? Does the consciousness lie physically within the brain or the soul? Where does the soul, what makes every one of us who we are live? What causes people who undergo extremely invasive surgeries like bypasses to undergo complete personality changes? Is each person alotted one personality or a series of them that are completely self contained? Is that what makes someone a “different person” when they’re angry? Because they actually are? Is it like shuffling a deck of cards? Flip through until you find the right one? What’s right by way of logic?
I like to think I am on the right side of the fence, rather than the side that should probably require a strait-jacket. Though I am sure I sometimes make people question that…
There were definitely a decent number of non-polite comments there. :-)
More childcare would definitely solve it!
So, warning in the sense of watch out, Harrlynn is going to start stalking Rebecca?
If you want “nice” go to some fiction writer’s blog. Poets are hardcore.
Oh, and still deciding which side of the fence you belong on.
I deserve to be tied to the fence and beaten by both sides.
Laughing the whole time?
Who — me or them? :)
I was thinking you.