Arwen responds to a troll, and I respond to her

Arwen asked for an Amen to her response to a troll. I didn’t see the trollish commentary, but apparently a faceless coward used the supposed anonymity of the internet to call her a bad mother.

Her response is a sound one, although in theory I’m not sure it does any good to respond to a troll, even if you’re well-reasoned, articulate, and willing to learn from the experience.

But something caught my attention. Arwen says the troll would have hurt her if it had actually hit on one of her weak points. Whereas in my experience, nastiness about actual weak points doesn’t hurt. It just gets acknowledged and moved on.

For me, “You’re a cruddy housekeeper” gets replied to with “Yes, I am” or else with “Yeah; I’m going to make some changes about that now!” and my life is actually improved by the attack. But not hurt, because I will acknowledge the truth of the statement.

By the same token, if someone tells me I’m a cruddy writer, I’ll laugh. That’s nice you have an opinion; we’re in America and brave men have died so you can hold that opinion. Nothing more to see here: move along.

The criticism that hurts worst — in fact, the only attack I think can hurt at all — is the issue where you’re only slightly unsure. You think you’re doing a good job, but there’s no metric by which to grade it.

Gradeable offenses are different: if I snap at someone, “You waste all your money!” then that person can presumably look at his or her bank statements and measure my perception of reality against reality itself. Either there’s money there, or there isn’t. Whereas if I say, “You’ll never save enough money for retirement at this rate!” the person is going to be less certain, since it’s not truly possible to know how much money is “enough.”

Now look at parenting. Specifically mothering. We won’t know until our grandkids come along and we witness our own children as parents if we’ve done a good job. That was the hardest adjustment to parenthood when I had Kiddo#1: I felt like I was doing a crappy job, but I couldn’t figure out where. The child was fed, clothed, clean, and growing. He was a high-need child, but I was able to meet most of those needs. And yet, I never knew for certain that I was doing okay.

People assured me I was a good mother, but I knew my momentary lapses and my times of not wanting to keep doing this. There were things I hated, things I missed about my pre-child days, and other parts where I was just lukewarm. I felt at times trapped, and at other times traumatized.

In those days, I was highly vulnerable to attacks about my parenting because although I knew I was doing everything okay, I always thought there might be a better way. A way to do it perfectly.

And I did get attacked. I got attacked by other mothers whom I realize now were probably lashing out due to their own little uncertanties.

It took losing one baby and having two more for me to realize, one day, I really am a competent mother. I’m doing well. I’m not perfect, but I’m good-enough. And my children are tough little humans: they’ll thrive with “good enough.”

Right now, an attack like Arwen experienced wouldn’t harm me either. But it’s taken nine years to banish that little uncertainty.