Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman
Authors: Ayelet Waldman
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me.
No, I was no neophyte to insult. I had been treated to plenty of rage and sanctimony—I live in
Berkeley
after all. But there is something special, having nothing to do with me in particular, about the kind of abuse people hurl at one another over the ether. It’s ubiquitous, from the political Web sites where people attack even the most neutral of comments, to the vacuous echo chamber that is Gawker (and I say this even though they honored Michael and me with the title of third-most-annoying literary couple). It is a truism to point out that it is because of its anonymity that the Web has become a snark-filled cesspit. If the person who called me a freak had not been permitted the cloak of anonymity, I bet he would have figured out another way to state his objection. The folks who hawk phlegm in letters columns are always too cowardly to sign their real names.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Web. I revel in its breadth and depth of information. In the past twenty-four hours alone I have used the Web to look up the following pieces of information: the maximum speed of a classic single-hulled wooden schooner; current presidential polling figures for Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Minnesota; how incomplete grades are awarded at Harvard College; who on my street gave the maximum donations to which presidential candidate; the hours of low tide in Blue Hill, Maine, on July 4 of last year; the square footage of the average boxing ring; the hours of operation of the Two Bird Café in San Geronimo; what percentage of Americans are idiotic enough to believe Barack Obama is a Muslim; the cost of custom-designed Vans; the winner of last year’s National Book Award; the cost of a set of sails for the above-referenced schooner; which of Paganini’s capriccios is more challenging to play, no. 5 or no. 24; the names of string quartets; the starting time of the movie
The Incredible Hulk
at my local cineplex; the relative merits of local Ethiopian restaurants; GoldenGloves rules regarding the composition of boxing gloves; the average weight of five-year-old American boys and the correlation of emaciation with delayed cognitive development; the efficacy of Cetaphil as a remedy for lice infestation; whether frequent lice reinfestation has ever been used as a justifiable defense in a case of assault; the cost of a flight between Oakland, California, and New York City; the cost of a flight between New York City and Bangor, Maine; nutritional information on agave nectar; and the average number of puppies in a litter of dachshunds. (I fear that list may be incomplete.)
I have been involved in a myriad of Listservs and online communities—one for owners of Bernese mountain dogs, another for devotees of raw-meat dog food (I know, I know), a whole host of sites dealing with various aspects of the 2008 presidential elections. I have lurked on sites offering information on the treatment and care of children with ADHD, on up-to-the-minute information and photographs of women’s high-heeled shoes, on the side effects of psychotropic medications, on writing, and skin care, and the proper treatment of plantar fasciitis. All of these get ugly, some with more regularity than others. But with the exception of the political Web sites, the vitriol is worst when the subject is motherhood. And even on political Web sites, the targets of the most venomous cyber-assaults are, I believe, more often women than men.
Periodically over the course of human history we come upon an intersection of technology and some long-dormant trait of human or animal behavior, some characteristic we would never have suspected without the arrival of an invention that unexpectedly reveals it. Dogs offer a perfect example. Humans worked to domesticate the descendants of wolves, creating over millennia a canine companion that can hunt, herd sheep, protect its human and his home, and guide the blind. Then, in 1903, the first Model A’srolled off Henry Ford’s assembly line, and
No, I was no neophyte to insult. I had been treated to plenty of rage and sanctimony—I live in
Berkeley
after all. But there is something special, having nothing to do with me in particular, about the kind of abuse people hurl at one another over the ether. It’s ubiquitous, from the political Web sites where people attack even the most neutral of comments, to the vacuous echo chamber that is Gawker (and I say this even though they honored Michael and me with the title of third-most-annoying literary couple). It is a truism to point out that it is because of its anonymity that the Web has become a snark-filled cesspit. If the person who called me a freak had not been permitted the cloak of anonymity, I bet he would have figured out another way to state his objection. The folks who hawk phlegm in letters columns are always too cowardly to sign their real names.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Web. I revel in its breadth and depth of information. In the past twenty-four hours alone I have used the Web to look up the following pieces of information: the maximum speed of a classic single-hulled wooden schooner; current presidential polling figures for Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Minnesota; how incomplete grades are awarded at Harvard College; who on my street gave the maximum donations to which presidential candidate; the hours of low tide in Blue Hill, Maine, on July 4 of last year; the square footage of the average boxing ring; the hours of operation of the Two Bird Café in San Geronimo; what percentage of Americans are idiotic enough to believe Barack Obama is a Muslim; the cost of custom-designed Vans; the winner of last year’s National Book Award; the cost of a set of sails for the above-referenced schooner; which of Paganini’s capriccios is more challenging to play, no. 5 or no. 24; the names of string quartets; the starting time of the movie
The Incredible Hulk
at my local cineplex; the relative merits of local Ethiopian restaurants; GoldenGloves rules regarding the composition of boxing gloves; the average weight of five-year-old American boys and the correlation of emaciation with delayed cognitive development; the efficacy of Cetaphil as a remedy for lice infestation; whether frequent lice reinfestation has ever been used as a justifiable defense in a case of assault; the cost of a flight between Oakland, California, and New York City; the cost of a flight between New York City and Bangor, Maine; nutritional information on agave nectar; and the average number of puppies in a litter of dachshunds. (I fear that list may be incomplete.)
I have been involved in a myriad of Listservs and online communities—one for owners of Bernese mountain dogs, another for devotees of raw-meat dog food (I know, I know), a whole host of sites dealing with various aspects of the 2008 presidential elections. I have lurked on sites offering information on the treatment and care of children with ADHD, on up-to-the-minute information and photographs of women’s high-heeled shoes, on the side effects of psychotropic medications, on writing, and skin care, and the proper treatment of plantar fasciitis. All of these get ugly, some with more regularity than others. But with the exception of the political Web sites, the vitriol is worst when the subject is motherhood. And even on political Web sites, the targets of the most venomous cyber-assaults are, I believe, more often women than men.
Periodically over the course of human history we come upon an intersection of technology and some long-dormant trait of human or animal behavior, some characteristic we would never have suspected without the arrival of an invention that unexpectedly reveals it. Dogs offer a perfect example. Humans worked to domesticate the descendants of wolves, creating over millennia a canine companion that can hunt, herd sheep, protect its human and his home, and guide the blind. Then, in 1903, the first Model A’srolled off Henry Ford’s assembly line, and
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