As I woke up this morning and started my morning routine, making coffee, turning on the news; I grabbed my cell phone. While I impatiently waited for my coffee to brew, I began to peruse my Facebook (FB) feed, and came across a long time friend's post and started reading.
My friend's post read, “Surprise surprise, I had a page block me because I pointed out their own hypocrisy. Well done Scary Mommy!!! Nothing shows tolerance and acceptance of other people's opinions like blocking and deleting them!!!”
My friend had come to the defense of Lauren, a women who didn't agree with a post on the popular left-leaning Facebook page, Scary Mommy. Scary Mommy blocked Patricia, and deleted her comment. Patricia is known to be colorful and always speaks her mind.
Lauren did not agree with Scary Mommy post which endorsed UpWorthy’s video of a young boy's crossing dressing like Scarlett Johansson. "8 inspiring photos prove boys don't have to act like 'boys' to be boys" with Scary Mommy saying,"This is fantastic!". The follower's attacked Lauren calling her intolerant, and publicly ridiculing her. Lauren speaking up put herself in the crosshairs of their LGBT agenda. She is being called out as,"a horrible person." or "your comment is [expletive] peopleing." just to call out a few remarks.
The Facebook page, was originally a place where moms could voice their parenting faults, ideas, how-to’s. Scary Mommy was also a place where mothers could confess where they fell short as a parent. Lately, their posts have had an agenda. They have started to agree with organizations like the BLM, whose protests have famously blocked major roads touting "Kill cops!"
As parents, we are to be examples of how human beings should act to one another, especially when we disagree. Right now this page has proven if you don't agree with their agenda or style of parenting, you are quickly silenced.
Scary Mommy can do what they want with this page. It is, after all, their personal page, but once they start to block people that don't agree, this has the appearance that everyone agrees with them. Their behavior has also turned this page into a page preaching to hate people that disagree with you rather than accept different opinions.
In this instance Lauren simply said "Dressing your son up in women's clothes and hair accessories, then sharing the photos on the internet is just [expletive] parenting."
This "horrible" woman is stating something she wouldn't do, and a lot of moms would not do either. Posting pictures of their boys dressed as girls on the internet. Some even within the comments posted pictures of their boys with princess face paint too with quotes of, ”He asked me to post this.” If we did everything that our children asked us to do, we would be living in Lord of the Flies households.
On the flip side, is this okay to posting so many pictures of our children and sharing a private moment on the internet? Well if you asked Victoria Nash, acting director of the Oxford Internet Institute, no. She brings up a two things that parents should be careful about when sharing pictures of their children on social media.
“One is the amount of information that you give away, which might include things like date of birth, place of birth, the child’s full name, or tagging of any photographs with a geographical location – anything that could be used by somebody who wanted to steal your son’s identity.’
“The second issue is more around consent. What type of information would children want to see about themselves online at a later date?”
Now when these grown boys bring their girlfriends home to mom, these would have been the private, embarrassing pictures that the mom would have shown to a prospective girlfriend. These pictures are now on the internet forever.
You can do all the parenting that you want, and how ever you want. For the moment America is still a free country. Although you disagree with someone you might be able to learn something from the other side. Just remember this your baby boy will grow up one day. How are you protecting his privacy?