I still consider myself a relative newbie to the blogging universe. For the first time in years I find myself in expressing my opinions in a well-written, well thought out way. As a result, I’ve begun commenting on blogs that I really like a regular basis. It’s fun to share experiences and gain insight from others. I have begun following a blog called The Cloth Diaper Whisperer. Overall, it’s been a fun experience. This week they had a post about nursing in public. Commenters were sharing their own experiences with nursing in public. I decided to chime in, mentioning that most of the negative comments I had gotten came from moms I knew who were insecure or sensitive about the fact that they couldn’t/didn’t breastfeed or women of an older generation who thought breastfeeding was “unnatural.” The examples I gave were of women in my own family, my sister-in-law and grandmother. Another commenter, who decided to post anonymously, accused me of trying to start a formula feeding vs. breastfeeding war. Wow! That was completely not what I intended. When I reread the post I could see why maybe she thought I was implying some kind of bias, but I think she must have inferred things based on her own emotions. I felt bad. I commented again, trying to explain myself. Hopefully my response will be posted soon.
A friend who used to blog rather seriously told me that to be a good blogger you must have a thick skin. There are critical people out there who are going to misunderstand and misconstrue. Even if you moderate your comments you will still have to see the hateful things people might say to you. You can’t let it get to you. I thought I understood this. But since most of my commenters have been positive and I’ve never had a negative response to my posts on other sites, I guess I didn’t realize how right she was until now. I found myself afraid that others would follow the link to my blog and continue the assault. I imagined myself having to start a new blog with a new identity just to get these people to leave me alone. Then I took a deep breath, remembered that my blog is only one of millions and doesn’t have nearly enough readers yet for this woman to ruin me. I also have to remember that this blog is just a tool. This is not my life. I will probably never meet this commenter, and she doesn’t really know me. She misunderstood one comment and decided to go on a mini-rant. All I can do is try to be more careful in the future and hope for the best. Lesson learned, moving on.
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