With the internet comes a lot of wonderful things.  People who wouldn’t ever think that there is another person like them in the whole world, find that they are not alone at all.  I have found, that I am not the only single parent homeschooling, which I was sure that I was when I first started.  Now, I have 4 email lists that are filled with other single moms who homeschool.  We’re a small fraction of the homeschooling community, but we’re still growing too.  In fact, I just found out yesterday that a local friend had wanted to continue homeschooling when she got divorced, but didn’t know how, and didn’t know there was anyone who was doing it, so felt she couldn’t continue.  Although I live in a City of over 2 million people, we still found each other, and via the internet!

Finding others of like mind is just one of the more wonderful aspects of the internet.  There are so many more, that my whole day could be filled with just writing about them.  That’s not what this post is about though.  This post is about when social media and really society as a whole, over reacts and things that should have been private or no one else’s business becomes a Mommy Drama episode on twitter.  I’m writing it here, because as a homeschool parent, I know how scary it is to think about the cops or CPS coming to your house and how easily they can take your kids away for no reason.

One mother, being frustrated with her daughter not going quietly to bed (we’ve all been there), sent out a tweet that some people got offended by.  She said ” if I smother my 3 year old, who will NOT GO TO **BleeP** SLEEP, is it REALLY a crime?”  I’ve personally said something similar about my teenagers, and more than likely said something very close to this when my sons were very young.  I’ve said things like “Now I understand why some animals eat their young”, and many other sarcastic, maybe morbid, but totally harmless things.  I personally saw this tweet for what it was, a frustrated mothers release.  However, some people were not only offended, they decided to be vigilante’s of sorts and found a way to get the cops called on this poor mother.

This offended person (herein known as Mrs X) decided that this was a horrible offense and the mother should be contacted by authorities.  Of course she got half of the twitterverse to get on the band wagon of over reaction.  She contacted Twitter.com, and then hilarity insanity mind boggling hysteria ensued.  I can only guess that twitter contacted her ISP and then her ISP contacted the police in her area (maybe someone else called the police, it is unverified who actually called the police), then the police kindly visited her house and checked on her children.  According to the mother, they were very kind and understanding of her frustration… which any reasonable person would be.  However, when a mob gets together, even a virtual mob, they have a tendency to completely over react, hyperventilate, burst into hysterical tears and cry out “Won’t anyone please think of the children”.  Even when it’s obvious there’s nothing going on.

This type of stuff happens in the real world as well as the online world.  But why?  Why do people feel the need to but their noses into places where they don’t belong?  Why do  neighbors decide that a child is being abused or neglected because they are being homeschooled?  Why do perfect strangers decide that you can’t swat your child on the butt for trying to pull something off a shelf, and if you didn’t do something, that same stranger would complain about your unruly child?

There was NO evidence of anything happening other than a mother venting her frustration, so why did this person feel the need to get involved?  Excuses were made, that a teenager had commited suicide on his webcam and people watched and didn’t do anything.  However, that was a TOTALLY different situation!  This teenager was talking about commiting suicide, was doing it right in front of people, this took hours… it wasn’t one single 140 character tweet out of frustration.  There’s a huge difference, and those people who can’t see the difference should really stay away from the internet, television, and people in general, because they probably also can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.  If a child is being hit in front of you, you do something about it.  If a mom is on a webcam, talking about how she’s thinking of killing her child, crying and talking for hours about it, THEN get involved.  One single, solitary tweet is not enough, even if you did think it was serious, it’s still not enough to get all worked up about!

With as easy as it is to have the CPS come into your home and take away your children, I think people need to think about their actions long and hard before they start contacting the authorities.  Whether it’s online or off, society as a whole needs to mind their own business!  But that’s just my opinion, what’s yours?  How would YOU have reacted if you were Mrs X?  Would you have called the cops on this mother?  What would you have done if you were this mother, getting a visit from the police at 11pm asking about your children?

I always tell my sons to think about how they would feel if they were in the other persons shoes.  I know how I would hvae felt as the mother, I’d be pissed, and wanting some heads to roll!  I’d find out how the cops got a hold of the information, and start back tracking to find out who exactly decided to get the authorities involved.  Then I’d talk to the local and national news about it!  But I don’t like people messing with my family.

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