Breastfeeding? Circumcision? Religion? Brett Ortler says it’s none of his business—and his family’s choices are none of yours, either.
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Whether it takes place via a passive-aggressive comment, a hushed whisper, or an outright confrontation, parents always judge other parents. Unfortunately, when it comes to civility and decorum, the advent of the Internet has led to a golden age of bad behavior, and nowhere is the vitriol more intense than among parents online.
To be sure, online discussions about even the most commonplace parenting choices—circumcision, for instance—quickly become a kangaroo court. Once a controversial topic is broached, then manners, compassion, empathy, and even basic decency are swept away thanks to the camouflage of anonymity and the cover of distance.
In this respect, parenting flame wars are similar to those found following political articles (see also, Yahoo!), but when it comes to mommy/daddy blogging, invective becomes much more personal because it deals with something that we all take very seriously: being good parents. It is easy to shrug off being called “a libtard” or a commie; it is hard not to take being called a bad parent personally.
Perversely, I think this is why some commenters are so vitriolic. Not only are they pretentious enough to think that their parenting style is “correct,” they also know how much it hurts to be called a bad parent. (This is just a hunch, but I’m guessing that this digital sadism probably gives some of them a rush.)
Ironically, online “discussions” often become the most debased when parenting choices that don’t actually affect others are discussed. To wit, what other parents choose regarding circumcision, breastfeeding, dietary choices, homeschooling, and matters of faith have precisely zero bearing on my child¹. While I have very strong feelings on many of these issues, those are my personal convictions and how my wife and I choose to raise our kid. While I may grouse about issues (the gluten-free fad, for instance), I’m certainly not going to tell you whether you should raise your child in your faith or whether you should eat organic or conventional food products. Similarly, you have exactly zero say in the decisions my wife and I make. That’s how it should be.
Even if the subject were up for debate, vitriolic attacks are wholly unconvincing. The first rule of argument is simple: If you want to convince someone of something, consider your audience and treat them accordingly. It should be noted that yelling and insults are rather ineffective argument techniques. They are also wildly unethical. If you treat people poorly online (or in person), you are being a bad person, and you are doing what you probably tell your children not to do when dealing with others.
Next time: Have some compassion. Even the parents you disagree with the most are going through the same (often literal) shit that you are.
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¹I get feisty about an issue if it directly affects my child. I therefore take public health issues seriously, especially vaccination and consuming unpasteurized foods, as they can affect my kid. Unvaccinated kids act as carriers and can transmit a disease (like whooping cough, for example) to my kid, even though he is vaccinated. After all, vaccines are aren’t perfect, which makes this “herd immunity” even more important. Similarly, if you are serving unpasteurized ice cream at your kid’s birthday party, you are forcing your choice upon me—and a dangerous one at that.
Image: Flickr/uklanor
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wah! your facts hurt my feelings.
intactivists are “uncivilized” since they don’t respect my decision to do barbaric horrors to children.
the “vitriol!”
What about The hindu practice that a girl must be married at the age of 12?
Is that a familys decision?
PLEASE.
I’ve read accounts of African women telling anti-FGM campaigners, “You must think we are monsters.”
Digital Sadism… I don’t think you understand. Parents are upset and being angry because they feel kids are being hurt.
You are cutting off a large peace of a infants sex organ. Yah that kinda makes you a monster in my book.
Brett: If you have been cut, the removal of fine touch nerve endings objectively DOES apply to you. You cannot have your foreskin removed but leave those nerve endings behind; they come away with it. You may be unaware of what you’re missing, but those nerve endings are indeed gone.
Your objection to FGM seems to centre around its ‘dangers’. What are your thoughts on the minor forms, such as a ritual nick or clitoral hood slit? Both of these procedures are far more minor than a typical male circumcision but both are of course illegal in the US.
Hi Brett, Female Genital Mutilation is a whole spectrum of procedures incorporating procedures which are far more severe than a typical male circumcision (such as clitorodectomy and infibulation) as well as procedures far less severe than a typical male circumcision (such as a ritual nick or clitoral hood slit). ALL forms of FGM, no matter how minor, are (quite rightly) illegal in the US – a baby girl’s genitals belong to her and her alone. You say circumcision has no lasting negative effect in the vast majority of cases, but I would say the removal of up to 20,000 fine… Read more »
Fiona: As someone who has actually undergone the procedure, I can tell you that v. little of the above applies to me. So your “best case scenario” is clearly hyperbolic at best, and at worst, scare tactics meant to conflate the (very real) dangers of genital cutting in females with the (nearly nonexistent) dangers of circumcision.
The removal of up to 20,000 fine touch nerve endings from the genitals of an unconsenting person hardly sounds like nonexistent damage. As someone who did not get his penis cut as a helpless infant… I can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose so much of my sex organ for a needless barbaric act with roots in trying to stop men from masturbating.
It’s not just about you, it’s not just about severity and it’s not just about boys. Male circumcision not only originated as a misogynistic ‘status symbol’ but is also the origin of female circumcision – and where FGM is being banned in Africa, the witch doctors are now using pro-circumcision propaganda to profit from cutting boys under the same conditions where they used to cut girls. The witch doctors take Western arguments in favor of circumcision and carry them to the craziest possible extreme, telling boys that it makes AIDS impossible. This is killing boys by the hundreds and putting… Read more »
Brett until 1997 female genital mutilation was one of these ‘legal parental choices’ that you feel should be immune to criticism. Just because something is legal does not mean it must not be questioned, and some countries in the world are already beginning to bring their male genital cutting laws in line with their female ones.
I absolutely agree with you that things like formula feeding, organic food, schooling, etc. are legitimate parental decisions and nobody should be attacked for them. I do not however put forced genital cutting into that category.
Fiona: I’d argue that female genital mutilation is quite, quite different than circumcision. First, it inflicts a traumatic injury upon an unwilling girl, and one that continues to harm her throughout her life. It has no medical usefulness and seems to be a manifestation of patriarchy. Clearly, it’s barbaric. Circumcision, by comparison, is incredibly minor, has no lasting negative effect in the vast, vast majority of cases, (case in point: I am not writing this while shrieking in agony) and it has documented health benefits. It’s also an important religious rite for a major world religion. Given that, should parents… Read more »
There are many types of female genital mutilation. Some have positive health benefits, has no lasting negative effects, it is also part of a cultural tradition…. given that should it be allowed?
My daughter is 35 now, but one thing I thought we did well was neither sought nor gave parenting advice from or to others. This allowed us to stay somewhat relaxed. Oh, and we saw the film Parenthood when it came out.
Hey! Thanks for your comment! For the most part, I totally agree with you. I’m going to touch on a different area of the ‘Parenting Wars’ than my friend Cass did, bullying- because from for the most part I see it starting from parents (either being assholes to each other and kids learning that as correct behavior or encouraging the mean kid syndrome) along with yes the whole “I’m so concerned, but really I wanna judge you thing”. It’s out of place. And, as a woman we are real bitches to each other at times. I can be. As for… Read more »
Note the irony here. “If you treat people poorly online (or in person), you are being a bad person.”
“Poorly” is a purely subjective word. Why is it that you are authorized to decide what treating someone “well” and treating someone “poorly” looks like, and then judge others as “bad” accordingly? But I do not have the same rights to notice when someone is or has been treating their children “poorly” and call them them out on that “bad” behaviour?
Bex: The difference is, all of those other activities (circumcision, using formula, etc) are entirely legal, and they are simply a matter of personal choice. (When it comes to actual crimes–child abuse, neglect–then of course one should both judge that parent, and more importantly, alert the authorities for the sake of the child.) Nonetheless, treating entirely legal parental choices as crimes–and the parents as criminals–simply because one personally considers such practices unsavory, is, in my definition, treating someone poorly. At the least, it’s rude, and at its most extreme, it’s borderline threatening. When parenting trolls do this, they force their… Read more »
Absolutely right, Brett.
While I understand what you’re saying here, I think that there are often things which while legal, are still harmful, and people who do these harmful things don’t get a free pass with “it’s personal”. No, it isn’t. Things you do to YOUR OWN BODY are personal. Things you do to other people’s bodies are not. This includes genital mutilation. It isn’t about “parenting styles” or personal opinions. It is about culturally accepted forms of abuse. If a person infers that I am calling them a “bad parent” because I tell them that the choice they made is tantamount to… Read more »
Truth. I’ve written posts that echo so much of what you say — that it doesn’t affect me one bit how you co-sleep or not with your child, that the complete lack of compassion and vitriol stems perversely from the anecdotal evidence we all use to demonstrate how much we know about parenting and parenthood. Enough already! Good post.
I call what you’re talking about “the mommy wars”, but I can see that it should be “the parent wars.” (Sorry for previously discluding Daddies.) I agree with this 100 percent–how I feed my child is none of your business (though just FYI, I have used formula with two kids and exclusively breastfed another.) Having done both, I feel that gives me the right to tell you—ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. 😉