Rubbernecking the drive-bys?

When I first thought about starting this blog many months ago (and again when I finally starting posting this week), I wondered why I was so interested in the examples of such awful behavior. Was I just a rubbernecker wanting to get a better view of the crash?

I don't think so.

I do think part of the reason is that the few times I've been subjected to a drive-by [have I been "drive-byed"? "drive-by'd"?], they've felt like punches to the gut. And the two that stand out for me were from people I knew fairly well, so it was even more surprising, and I really couldn't understand how either could think what they had said was appropriate.

One aspect of my interest in these comments is in looking at communication and miscommunication. I've put my foot in my mouth enough times to understand that it happens, and I'm sure there are many other times when I stuck it in and didn't even know it was there. So I thought one value of sharing stories is to understand how messages might be perceived by the speaker and the recipient. That subject is certainly one I've been interested in for a while, particularly from reading Deborah Tannen's books You Just Don't Understand and I Only Say This Because I Love You. I haven't read her latest book--You're Wearing That?--but I know the other two books have helped me not only to understand the possibly meanings behind messages I receive but also to be aware of the meanings my own message might send. I know I still make mistakes--and spend way too long wondering how I could be so stupid--but it's definitely a subject I'm interested in.

Another reason I think I'm interested in these lovely exchanges, is that too often there actually isn't an exchange because the recipient is too stunned to reply. That's why, for me, I loved reading Cecily's response to her anonymous commenter. I only wish I could be that forceful and direct in person (and probably in writing, too, although I'd like to think I would have an easier time in writing.) But reading this post on The Biscuit Report gave me at least one possible response to a certain class of drive-bys . . .

The best response I have found to a mommy drive-by is this: "Show me the double-blind study." No such study of parenting exists, and none ever could. Raising kids is not a science. Science has something to say about it, no doubt (for example, regarding the wisdom of feeding your infant homemade vegan formula), but less than some people claim. We do not know what will become of our children, and we cannot know precisely what difference we'll make in what they will become. And who, after all, would bother to have kids if they knew in advance exactly how to do it, and how it would all turn out in the end? It's terrifying, of course, not to know, which is why I suspect we are all sometimes overcome with the certainty that we are doing it the 'right way'. But darlings, we have no idea.

And I think this quotation reflects yet another reason I'm interested in these exchanges--the desire to get parenting "right". I'm a historian, and one of the subjects I've both studied and taught is family history. Having looked at historical studies of parenting advice, I wonder how much of this "mommy drive-by" phenomenon is new, and how much is part of a longer pattern of experts and others telling mothers that they aren't raising their children the right way.

I guess this all to say that I don't want to celebrate the unpleasant "angels of our nature", but I would like to have a better understanding of why these exchanges happen.