Comments on: Mother Drive-By’s

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Without vicious intersororal strife, civilization would have no purpose.

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Speaking to suffering is a skill born in empathy, and it’s not easily learned. Odin gave up an eye for wisdom.
Thanks for this post.

By: todd.

todd. — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

From the other end of the motherly spectrum, there as a good deal of discussion on my blog about what to make of this ‘PostSecret’.

The internets: it takes all kinds.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’m halfway through the drive-by anecdotes thread. It’s very educational; I think everyone should read it.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Oh, I also wanted to mention (and to ask others what they think of it) that the unrestrained and often vicious judgmentalism of mom drive-bys seems very reminiscent to me of that often seen in relation to the decision itself to have children or not have children. People that normally are very tolerant for some reason feel perfectly at ease making very condemnatory statements about the choice to have children, or the choice not to have children. What it is about this topic in general that provides an excuse for normally tolerant people to indulge themselves in intolerance?

By: john

john — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Keith Ellis,

Good point. I think the start of an answer is reframing the question: not why people feel free to ask such questions, but why they’re driven to do it.

By: gordon

gordon — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

References to “gas” and “nickel” on the parent site indicate that the “drive-bys” quoted in the post are from America. Are there any Australian examples?

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

So whatever happened to a slap in the face? The mother-in-law at the funeral, for starters. The tsking stranger, probably as well. And probably the acquaintance with the “real kid” comment, too.

I realize there’s that stunned half-second when you can’t believe someone has SAID THAT, but if someone told me I should have aborted my kid, I think I’d pop them one right quick.

Maybe that’s why dads don’t get the drive-by treatment very often…

By: Bill Gardner

Bill Gardner — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

When my daughter was a few months old, I took her to the grocery store. I started playing games with her in the cart—peekaboo, etc.—and this woman comes up to me and says in this imperative tone, “You’re overstimulating her.” I thought it was just that women don’t trust a man with a baby. But maybe my gender had nothing to do with it.

By: Bill Gardner

Bill Gardner — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

This is one aspect of the Internet that always puzzles me; this whole world of horrific nasty people who say horrid things to complete strangers. Often doing so in the form of convenient feed-lines to allow you to make a remark that is both witty and underlines your own sterling moral character.

I just don’t understand it because it’s never happened to me or anyone I know. It’s like email death threats; a phenomenon which is apparently widespread but has passed me by completely.

I’m not saying that every single one of these anecdotes needs affidavits from three independent witnesses saying “yes it happened exactly that way and no relevant details have been ommitted”, but I’m sure that a lot of them have improved in the telling. The fact that a very high percentage of them involve family members reconfirms me in this view; in general, for any important family event , you find that there will be at least two sets of family members who remember things in ways which are simply physically incompatible with each other.

By: LizardBreath

LizardBreath — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I think the tendency to which you will have unfortunate interactions with strangers is highly determined by your personality as expressed in body language. I hear these stories as well, and they never happen to me either. I assume that it’s because my natural, unthoughtout reaction to being addressed by a stranger for a reason that is not immediately apparent, is to stare blankly at them in the manner of Queen Victoria being asked to examine a dead toad. Generally, strangers don’t speak to me—I assume the reaction they will get is apparent. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a similar demeanor in this respect.

People I know who have bizarre things said to them tend to be sweet, friendly, open-faced people who invite interaction—while they do make more friends, the tradeoff is that they have to listen to the weirdos.

By: biscuit

biscuit — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I made a comment here a couple of hours ago (and yes, accidentally posted it twice, your servers are screwing up) and now it’s gone (both copies). I thought it was relevant and not comment spam, and said some things I would like to remember, even if you don’t want it here. So if you deleted it because you didn’t like it, could you at least email me a copy of said post?

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I think that lizardbreath answered D2’s question. Some people are stronger than dirt, but moms usually aren’t. People tend not to fuck with me either.

My parents were strongly of the satisficing school of parenting, as was I, and I did get hate stares from moms occasionally, most noticibly when I took my son out on a cold day without cute little booties on his feet.

By: anna

anna — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Very weird. I have a very hard time imagining any of those anecdotes actually taking place. I’m not even used to strangers say anything at all, nevermind giving you lectures out of the blue on personal matters like that.

Is this an American thing? Does it really happen so often over there?