Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman Page A
Authors: Ayelet Waldman
Ads: Link
it suddenly became clear that the entire fifteen-thousand-year effort had served to create a creature perfectly suited to one activity: sticking its snout out the window of a car traveling down the interstate at sixty-five miles per hour.
It’s the same with mothers and the Internet. When the ARPANET first came online, nobody in the Department of Defense had any idea that they were creating the most critical piece of the mommy war * puzzle. There have always been plenty of forums in which to make mothers feel insecure, but we have, with the creation of the Web and the proliferation of motherhood-related Web sites, reached some kind of nexus, a con junction of maternal anxiety, misogyny, guilt, leisure, and tech no logy that has been, on balance, a big bummer for contemporary mothers.
In 2006 the University of Maryland published a study that showed that women are twenty-five times more likely to be the targets of malicious online attacks than men. The Web doesn’t just bring out the worst in all of us, it brings out the most misogyny, and the most self-loathing. Women have always been nasty to one another, but the Internet has widened the reach of each individual’s venom. Where once you actually had to know someone to make her miserable (or at least know someone who knew someone), now you can spew bile on tens of thousands of strangers with a single click of the mouse. And it’s not just the breadth of the effect; it is its depth, too. Because so much of the traffic on the Web is anonymous, we allow ourselves to sink to a level that wouldsicken us if we heard ourselves speaking out loud. Remember that Bad Mother police force? How many of those cops might have opted for early retirement if they were not able to sit around in their nightgowns in the middle of the night, slapping virtual cuffs on each other and sentencing strangers to the chair?
I am by no means ready to give up on the Web. I’m not going to go off and join a Luddite community of Wi-Fi-phobes deep in the Arizona desert. (Did you know that there are people who claim to be
allergic
to Wi-Fi?) I am not even ready to give up on joining online affinity groups of mothers. I made it through the bleak months of trying to get Abie to nurse in part because of the wisdom and support of the women of PumpMoms, who not only taught me how to get three letdowns in a single pumping session but also refrained from criticizing me when I decided that, with my nipples the size and shape of elderly ballpark franks and my baby thinking of me as merely that lady strapped to the bright yellow pumping machine on the other side of the room, it was time for me to quit.
I think the time is past when we can hope for a civil society to prevail on the Web. That genie is out of the bottle. The only thing we can do is try to remember that the Internet can be a pastry laced with poison, especially for mothers, and as we enjoy its many benefits, we must remind ourselves to take small bites. We can protect our kids with cyber-bullying statutes, but as far as their mothers are concerned, I fear we have no choice but
caveat prolaptor
. Let the surfer * beware.
* As if finding out your baby’s gender is any less of a surprise at three months than at birth.
* There were a few mothers who were there to agree with me, and an expert on fatherhood, too, but somehow they paled in comparison to the woman who lunged across the stage screaming, “Let me at ’er!”
* Yes, I know, I hate the term, too. It’s usually used by people like Dr. Phil, because the image of professional women and stay-at-home mothers tearing out each other’s throats spikes ratings, but I’m not using it like that. I’m just talking here about all the ways we mothers make one another feel like shit.
* Technically, slip-and-slider, but it was as close as I could get.
6. Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle
A number of years ago, Michael’s cousin David was killed in an accident. He was commuting to work on his bicycle when
It’s the same with mothers and the Internet. When the ARPANET first came online, nobody in the Department of Defense had any idea that they were creating the most critical piece of the mommy war * puzzle. There have always been plenty of forums in which to make mothers feel insecure, but we have, with the creation of the Web and the proliferation of motherhood-related Web sites, reached some kind of nexus, a con junction of maternal anxiety, misogyny, guilt, leisure, and tech no logy that has been, on balance, a big bummer for contemporary mothers.
In 2006 the University of Maryland published a study that showed that women are twenty-five times more likely to be the targets of malicious online attacks than men. The Web doesn’t just bring out the worst in all of us, it brings out the most misogyny, and the most self-loathing. Women have always been nasty to one another, but the Internet has widened the reach of each individual’s venom. Where once you actually had to know someone to make her miserable (or at least know someone who knew someone), now you can spew bile on tens of thousands of strangers with a single click of the mouse. And it’s not just the breadth of the effect; it is its depth, too. Because so much of the traffic on the Web is anonymous, we allow ourselves to sink to a level that wouldsicken us if we heard ourselves speaking out loud. Remember that Bad Mother police force? How many of those cops might have opted for early retirement if they were not able to sit around in their nightgowns in the middle of the night, slapping virtual cuffs on each other and sentencing strangers to the chair?
I am by no means ready to give up on the Web. I’m not going to go off and join a Luddite community of Wi-Fi-phobes deep in the Arizona desert. (Did you know that there are people who claim to be
allergic
to Wi-Fi?) I am not even ready to give up on joining online affinity groups of mothers. I made it through the bleak months of trying to get Abie to nurse in part because of the wisdom and support of the women of PumpMoms, who not only taught me how to get three letdowns in a single pumping session but also refrained from criticizing me when I decided that, with my nipples the size and shape of elderly ballpark franks and my baby thinking of me as merely that lady strapped to the bright yellow pumping machine on the other side of the room, it was time for me to quit.
I think the time is past when we can hope for a civil society to prevail on the Web. That genie is out of the bottle. The only thing we can do is try to remember that the Internet can be a pastry laced with poison, especially for mothers, and as we enjoy its many benefits, we must remind ourselves to take small bites. We can protect our kids with cyber-bullying statutes, but as far as their mothers are concerned, I fear we have no choice but
caveat prolaptor
. Let the surfer * beware.
* As if finding out your baby’s gender is any less of a surprise at three months than at birth.
* There were a few mothers who were there to agree with me, and an expert on fatherhood, too, but somehow they paled in comparison to the woman who lunged across the stage screaming, “Let me at ’er!”
* Yes, I know, I hate the term, too. It’s usually used by people like Dr. Phil, because the image of professional women and stay-at-home mothers tearing out each other’s throats spikes ratings, but I’m not using it like that. I’m just talking here about all the ways we mothers make one another feel like shit.
* Technically, slip-and-slider, but it was as close as I could get.
6. Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle
A number of years ago, Michael’s cousin David was killed in an accident. He was commuting to work on his bicycle when
Similar Books
