Friday, September 30, 2011

People Are Very Mad At Me (Except for Tina Fey)

I wasn't going to post about my latest shenanigans here, because I believed doing so would contaminate the innocence of this blog. But. Here I go. (LOOK AWAY, semipseudo, LOOK AWAY!)

Here at this blog, I'm nice. You're nice. Everyone's nice. And with the exception of the 'Farmer's Market' posting, I've pretty much stayed away from controversy.
Which is not without effort. I have a lot of opinions in my little brain, and they tend to manifest themselves in a very vent-y, hysterical, arm-waving way. That's why I mostly just lecture the world IN MY HEAD. And not IN PUBLIC. However, there was a little bitty line, and I sort-of-kind-of-a-tad-bit crossed it. By entering a blog contest, about pregnancy, on babycenter.com via a post on the topic of 'natural' childbirth.

Apparently, people do not respond well to aggressive honesty masked by humor. I would have added a bunch of disclaimers like "I support every woman's right to make her own independent choice when it comes to child birth" but they only gave me 350 words so I thought I should spend the majority of my word budget on, you know, inflammatory and somewhat interesting statements instead. Silly me. I have, from time to time, promised to write a post on Semipseudo about my aversion to 'natural' childbirth, but I knew it would be so involved and long winded that my lazy self just couldn't get around to it. So instead, a sub-par & abbreviated version of my argument is now on the world wide web, provoking an army of angry women who were not very impressed by what I had to say on the subject.

Let's take a peek at what some of them had to say:

"Your opening paragraph was perhaps meant to be snarky and funny but it was really annoying and offensive to me."

"If you aren’t interested in natural childbirth or feel it is not for you, then that is what it is. Good for you. But to assign words like “martyrdom” to an experience you don’t understand or share is simply ignorant."

"Is this article supposed to be funny? Or well-written? Huh."

"Can you imagine if someone turned it around and characterized medicated/c-section births as “Those too posh to push, lazy, druggy mums?” A Slice-n-Dice Delivery? No I guess we’re all too busy listening to Enya in our birthing pools to put words together. How about we all sit around and critisize each other’s births to make ourselves feel better about our own choices. Yeah, that’s a great idea."

"uh I really hope this person is not picked as the new blogger she sounds like a bit@h. I really dont get why people feel the need to be so snotty and self righteous about their choices who asked you?"

"And I’m terribly disappointed in BabyCenter for picking this as a good blog. It’s insulting, patronizing, one-sided, NOT amusing, condescending, and not particularly well-written. This is what is supposedly reflects blogging moms?"

"Do you honestly think this is witty, insightful or clever? Do you think this even makes any sense?"

"I did not find this blog funny or well written at all. Referring to women who make a different choice than you as martyrs is insulting and ignorant, no matter how much you try to sugar coat it or cove it up in a failed attempt at humor."

"Ignorant."

"There is a lot more to this than just Virgin Mary Martyrdom or whatever nonsense this author wants to call it. The medicalisation of birth is having a HUGE impact on the health and wellbeing of women, the rise and rise of PND and PTSD and the difficulty so many parents in first world countries are experiencing with bonding and conciously parenting their children. Ask yourself why we hear stories, in this day and age, of people leaving babies and toddlers unattended at home because they are worried about their careers or twisted stories of physical and sexual abuse and so on. So much rests on good beginnings, which will never be taken seriously while we have this rubbish focus on whether labour pains are warranted or not. Grow up Rebekkah Whittaker."

***

Wow. Well, first off: my name is spelled with one 'k' not two. So if you really want to slam me then why distract from your zinger with spelling errors? That just has novice written all over it.

There were also a lot of supportive, hilarious, love you forever(!) type comments. (No one actually said "I love you forever" but that was the spirit of their comments, in my opinion.) I won't quote all those women because I think the other side brought up a lot of good points. So I am giving them a forum here, on my blog, as my way of saying: "You are right. You have convinced me. Well said, people."

Actually, the reason I am quoting them here is because of a little advice my mom gave me. And moms always give the best advice right? MY MOM, who happens to be the smartest mom, told me that Tina Fey also has critics. Now, you should know that Tina Fey and I have A LOT in common. She's probably trying to call me right now. That's how almost close we are to being friends. Anyway, my incredibly brilliant mother said "Rebekah, Tina Fey does not respond to her critics. She prints their comments in her books. And then makes fun of them." (Or something like that, right mom?). I don't have a book deal yet. So I just have to print their comments in my blog that 14 of my closest friends and family read. Cause I'm poor like that.

The evening we had this discussion, it was late, but after I dropped my mother off and put my son to bed, I couldn't stop thinking about what she said.  I logged onto my computer and googled the words "Tina Fey makes fun of natural childbirth" ON A WHIM. And you know what came up? YOU KNOW WHAT CAME UP, PEOPLE? This:

SNL Skit: "Birthing Class"
I kid you not, Portland is mentioned in this clip. (Click above to see the video)

I don't know if Tina, in real life, had an epi or not. But, Tina, if you are listening, I want you to vote for me so I can win this friggin' contest because now I'm all: bring it. Bring. It. On.

Click here to vote for me or to leave an educational comment. I love you all forever.

7 comments:

  1. You know, Mom totally got it right- you are a lot like Tina Fey. Weird, I never noticed. You go girl - when my Grants Pass raised co-worker wants a drink of your tea, you know you wrote it well!

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  2. Rebekah - I have never actually "blog stalked" someone before, but your post and video over at BabyCenter had me laughing so hard that I had to come & check out your personal blog. Hope you don't feel to creeped out!

    Oh my holy heck! That SNL clip made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants, and also throw up in my mouth a little bit. But it's SO Pacific Northwest! I have always loved Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph, but now I think I may actually have a little crush on them both. SO funny! Thanks for sharing!

    I'll keep my fingers crossed that you earn a regular slot on BabyCenter. :)

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  3. Katie,

    First of all -- I am a true believer in blog stalking. I do it all the time, and I even go a step further and pretend the bloggers are my friends. But they never respond to my comments because they are very important and stuff.

    THANK YOU FOR VOTING FOR ME!Your responses cheered me up after I was all "boo hoo, none of these readers like me" Although, I stopped feeling sorry for myself after seeing what poor Lisa had to deal with. That was intense. I'm glad baby center pulled the troll comments. I mean, at least I was asking for it!

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  4. This was an interesting read this sunny Saturday morning.

    If we are to live life fully, and write authentically, I stand by my own adage that we do not look for ourselves in others' approval as they are a fickle lot.

    Keep dong what you do - whether I happen to agree with you - or not. My very best, HMSx

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  5. Oh, I'm so glad I didn't freak you out. ;) If we happened to know each other in real life, I'm convinced we'd be BFFs, except for the fact that you're a lot more fashion-forward than I am. My middle school students are always teasing me about how "uncool" I am!

    I definitely hear you on the craziness about Lisa. I feel awful for her. My husband was in the Navy for the first 2 years of our marriage, and we did know some girls who got preggo while their husbands were deployed - it was incredibly sad to watch families disintegrate. But there's NO WAY a woman gets pregnant by someone else and then goes out of her way to publicize the pregnancy; that would just be too narcissistic! I agree - BabyCenter definitely did the right thing in editing all that mess. I just hope she & her husband aren't too traumatized by it all.

    Anyway, thanks for letting me stalk your blog! Do you mind if I ask what you do for a living? I understand if you don't want to talk about it online. I was just curious. :)

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  6. Katie --

    I have to tell you something about those 'fashion' shots on my blog. Another blogger hosted 'fall fashion week' so I decided to participate because I USED TO really love fashion (before career and mommyhood took over every second of my life).

    But now, I never have time to get ready in the morning since I am always running late and getting my son off to daycare before work, etc. So, all of those pictures of my 'outfits' were taken at like 8pm after I got home and changed into something moderately 'fashion forward' so that I could snap some pics and upload them. Then I just changed into sweats and called it good.

    Anyway, I work at a Union. Which would be a whole other controversy among the baby center crowd I'm sure! I never talk about my work online because I don't like to mix my little mommy blog hobby with work life.

    I am trying to work on new post but I only write like once a month on here so who knows when something will actually be up! I'm very flaky that way so it's probably good that I didn't win the blog contest -- I think they want the bloggers to post like twice a week!

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  7. Another blog stalker here via BabyCenter.
    I hadn't heard who the winner of the contest was and I wanted to see how you did and found my way here.
    I LOVE your sense of humor, but I understand that it is difficult to get through to everyone in written word. I got it, and I thought your subtle jokes were hilarious.
    When I saw that you were from Portland, I was also super excited. I just moved back to Oregon from Southern California and it is such a relief to be back, but it also taking some adjusting to the culture.

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