What? Two posts in one day? Be careful, lady, you run the risk of maintaining a blog like a responsible blog-maintainer (technical term, FYI).  What’s that you say? This isn’t a real post, just another self-promoting link? OK, well then I think you’re safe.

Here is my Social Media Rules For New Parents piece, which has had a long and tortured path to publication.  I wrote it over a year ago for The Awl, who wanted it, sat on it, then finally changed their collective Awl minds and dumped it. Poor, sad, dumped piece. But then came Babble, and they pay (do not ask how much; that might temper the happy ending aspect).  And here it is, in slideshow form!

This one seems to have gotten some traffic, and some hilariously indignant, sic-heavy comments. It’s amazing how much easier it is to dismiss critics when they cannot spell or assemble correct sentences.  This one was my favorite:

“first off for all of you who are bashing new mothers for posting about there babies GOD gave them to us to brag about and our families like to see new pics. and if i want my profile picture to be of my son and you dont like it dont look at it. and if you dont like my profile picture because you cant find me because it isnt a picture of me you probably arent that important to me. i personally think that if you dont like us befriend us and you are probably just jealous that you dont have a sweet baby to brag about ]”

NAILED IT.

Wow, the internet and I are in such a huge fight! A piece I wrote for The Hairpin, something I thought would be read as satire and summarily ignored, has ignited a war in the comments section.  The last time I checked it had garnered 186 comments (I stopped reading them for the sake of my will to live), which makes it the most commented piece on the site right now, ahead of the truly astounding “Ask an Abortion Provider.” That’s just absurd, especially since over half the people have logged on only to say how much they hate it, me, the kind of mom they think I am, the kind of piece it is, and the very fact that it was published.  I’m not going to dwell on the irony of internet traffic here: that by getting up in arms about how much you hate something you are only driving up its popularity. Instead, despite the part of me that thinks I shouldn’t have to explain myself, I wanted to just write about my intentions with the piece.

I honestly intended the piece as satire. Here’s a pretty good working definition, which also sums up some of with the problems I ran into:

“In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement.  Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon…A common feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm—”in satire, irony is militant”… This “militant” irony or sarcasm often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to attack.…Because satire often combines anger and humour it can be profoundly disturbing – because it is essentially ironic or sarcastic, it is often misunderstood.…Common uncomprehending responses to satire include revulsion (accusations of poor taste, or that “it’s just not funny” for instance), to the idea that the satirist actually does support the ideas, policies, or people he is attacking.”

My intent in writing the piece was to satirize both the outsized scorn a small but vocal pocket of priviliged urbanites express towards those who choose to have children, in addition to the self-righteous, harried mommy-warrior types of those same enclaves.  The point was to show the absurdity of both poles, to exaggerate the voice in order to illustrate the ridiculousness of these stereotypes, and to adopt a militant irony in the tone.  I understand that it is really annoying to encounter new agey mother-goddess types who seem to think their pregnancy makes them just a smidge less holy than the Virgin Mary, just as it is incomprehensible that some people get seriously angry when they see a woman walking with a stroller through their own neighborhood, as though she and her baby were criminal yuppie interlopers.

And yes, like all satire, it hews sharp, and mean, and reads as though it might be real.  In that way it was a success, I think.  And it’s (obviously) completely valid to think it’s not funny, or to think it missed the mark. I don’t understand how people don’t get that it was satire (the Editor definitely got it, as did many readers), but it’s not for me to guess at the hows here.

What I find really shocking is the amount of vitriol in the comments.  As a writer, it is completely bizarre to have a persona you created for the sake of a satire be completely mistaken for your own and summarily attacked by strangers who feel compelled to make sweeping judgements about your whole being.  This is not a pity party, and I’m not going to get into how completely needlessly cruel it is to log on to a website in order to write awful things you would never say to people in real life (unless you are a horrible monster), but God, the internet is nasty (OK, that was a little bit of a pity party).

But here, because I am trying to not let the bastards get me down, I will end on a positive note.  Along with all the misreading, insult hurling, and personal mean-messaging (I had one lady sign up for twitter JUST TO CALL ME A HORRIBLE HYPOCRITE! That’s dedication/an anger problem!), I have also heard from all sorts of people who got it and liked it, including some tremendously talented moms who write in a very real and far more sensitive way on the subjects I was joking about (like this one!).  I really hope that this doesn’t leave a sour taste in Edith’s mouth about bringing a parenting perspective onto the site; there are so many voices out there that I would love to see get more attention (and not just those of moms).  In the end, all those nasty Do Not Want comments actually succeeded in getting me more traffic, thicker skin, and a trial by internet fire.  My son also contributed to this– what kind of role model would I be if I let strangers and critics keep me from doing what I love? I want to be courageous for him, and  if that means drinking the haterade every so often, so be it.

this is insaaaane:
“Once upon a time, infants were quietly removed from orphanages and delivered to the home economics programs at elite U.S. colleges, where young women were eager to learn the science of mothering. These infants became “practice babies,” living in “practice apartments,” where a gaggle of young “practice mothers” took turns caring for them. After a year or two of such rearing, the babies would be returned to orphanages, where they apparently were in great demand; adoptive parents were eager to take home an infant that had been cared for with the latest “scientific methods…

“Cornell’s program ran from 1919 to 1969…At Cornell, eight female students at a time spent a full semester living in a fully-kitted out practice apartment. The women were there to learn the entire spectrum of homemaking skills, and, the exhibit says, “an early proponent of the program, believed that babies were essential to replicate the full domestic experience. Albert Mann, Dean of the College of Agriculture, called the apartments ‘essential laboratory practice for women students.”

http://blogs.plos.org/wonderland/2011/01/04/real-live-practice-babies/

Dear woman at daycare who wanted to let me know that when you were born you weighed only 2.5 pounds and had to be dressed in socks with armhole cutouts for months: please will you please be quiet before i punch you in the boob with brutal force, please?
my son was not premature, and when you asked me that with that terrible patronizing nose wrinkle, i answered you clearly. i told you that he was not, he was just small for his age, and it would have been a good time for you to stop talking about how little he is. and yet you continued with your sock monologue, attempting, i think, to identify with my “he’s just sooo tiny” son through your brave story? again, be quiet.
yes, i am very very sensitive about this subject. i would like it if people did not feel the need to share their completely banal, thoughtless comments on my son’s size with me. yes, i know he is small, i am his mother. no, he was not premature, nor are there any “issues”. i feed him, a lot. he is perfectly healthy, and developmentally, he is a little star. do i say your baby is morbidly obese? no. do i say, oh man, he is soooo big, did he break your vagina when he came out? no, again, i do not, that would be awful.
so please, just please stop. there are plenty of fantastic adjectives for babies without resorting to comments of size, so break out the baby thesaurus if you must. and if you really must comment on my baby’s size; if his stature somehow demands some on-the-record opinion from you, noted daycare mom, then please, dr. sears, please feel free to offer it to me in exchange for a very clear rundown of my opinions on: you, your mothering, your child, your pea-sized brain, your stunning lack of sensitivity, and how much better your face would look if i straightened out that nose wrinkle with my fist.
see you at the next potluck! xoxo