Did you know women are demolition experts?

February 27, 2006 at 10:25 am (Misc. Ramblings)

Okay, so I know I should be packing everyone’s stuff for our impending departure (4.5 hours and counting and still nothing is packed), but I MUST take a moment to reflect on the recent implosion of one of my primary support groups.

See, as I mentioned previously, I belong to a few online parenting forums. This past week, one of them fell completely apart. Unfortunately, this was also my favorite. It was a smaller than then other, with all the moms having kids within a few weeks of Owen’s birthday. I even knew a few of them personally. We have regular playdates. We talk on the phone. We attend each other’s birthday parties. You get the drift. This particular group has always prided itself on avoiding the drama that plagues so many online communities. Particularly when parenting is involved, people get very opinionated. When those opinions are questioned, they get defensive. And so imagine my surprise, when after nearly 2 years of peaceful co-existence on the World Wide Web, our little group erupted into conflict. It started with a simple difference of opinions. Although I agreed strongly with one of the parties involved, I tried to keep my comments to myself. The party with whom I agreed made her point in a less-than-tactful way, thereby offending the other party involved. Insults were exchanged, sides were taken. Within 2 days, this tight-knit community had fallen to pieces so irreparably, that the board was closed. The.end.

Wow.

I knew women could get pretty nasty when they fight, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Luckily, the rest of us who were not part of this whole fiasco, have rejoined, and so it’s not a total loss, but still it’s weird to think about how quickly it all came crashing down.