Volleying Back and Forth with Comments
BLOGGER BOUNDARIES
This past week I have been following Christine Coppa’s blog on Babble.com. Christine’s blog is one that I have “toasted” to in my Tuesday posts. One of her recent posts has stirred up a lot of her reader, me being one of them.
As you may know, I am a clinical social worker, a maternal child nurse and a blogger. I have worked with families and children for over 35 years. Since I began blogging, I have been reading many blogs written by moms, Christine’s blog being one of them.
Some of these moms write for Babble.com and other blog groups. They write from their perspective and many are personal. Some topics are of course more controversial than others and generate more interest and comments.
More than a week ago, Christine Coppa wrote a piece about whether parents should split the costs of a birthday party. What followed in the comments violated my idea of boundaries. Many of the comments were totally unrelated to the initial discussion. They were commenters’ personal feelings towards the father of Christine’s son, who for his own reasons chooses not to recognize his son. One commenter bashed Christine and her family in uncalled for ways.
For whatever reason, Babble’s editors chose to support Christine’s wish to keep these comments on her site even though they stated that their policy is to not publish hostile comments.
There were a handful of comments including my own that felt this line of commenting was not only unpleasant but that it could be potentially harmful to Christine’s 5 year old son in the future. It was said in several comments that this kind of back and forth “slinging” of angry words would be better kept private.
Needless to say for various reasons this was Christine Coppa’s most viewed Babble blog. I am not sure what that says, after reading most of the comments which had nothing to do with the original topic. To me it was an airing of dirty laundry, which generated the popularity of this post and at whose expense?
I have often thought about boundaries when it comes to airing one’s life on a blog and it seems that it gets even more complicated when you are getting paid to do so and it involves a young child.
I also do not find it appropriate when the blogger/writer gets hostile in her own comments. I lose respect for the writer at that point especially where a young child is concerned. The comments that were made with concern for JD and the effect this might have on him in the future were met with anger although I did see some acceptance of the comment from a lawyer who deals with families in conflict. One of my comments was not even published and I am not sure why.
I also sent a message to Babble via their Facebook page asking why they did not uphold their own policies in this case especially where a young child is involved. I have gotten no response so far.
Are numbers of readers so important to a blog that a child’s boundaries are all but ignored?
Do you think that boundaries are important for mom/dad bloggers who discuss personal family issues? Do you have concern for the possible long range effects of this type of blog on children?
I would be happy to hear your opinions?
NOTE:
I will continue to support Ms. Coppa’s blog even though I disagree wholeheartedly the way this comment section was handled. I am disappointed in the Babble editors decision.
8/20/2012
http://blogs.babble.com/kid-scoop/2012/08/09/should-parents-split-the-birthday-party-fee/
I visited the link above and the very hostile comments have been removed from this particular post at “Kid Scoop”. Without these comments, it will be difficult to fully appreciate what I wrote in the above post.
I am glad that the comments are no longer able to be viewed.