Tuesday, April 7, 2009

A Safe Place

Dear Readers,

When I created this blog, I wanted to create a safe place where mothers could come together to bring ideas, support, and be a help to one another as we raise our children. Over education week, comments became increasingly argumentative and politically driven. By the last education post, comments ended up getting deleted because their content was not in keeping with the purpose of this blog and were harmful in some ways. Some may consider this censorship, but that was not the intent.

As the founder of this blog I want to restate, that this should be a safe place for everyone to share ideas. They don't have to agree, but they should never be attacked. Please, please share your ideas, opinions, and experiences. That is what this blog is all about. But...While you are visiting this blog, attacking another mom's ideas is not okay and is harmful... which can qualify it to be deleted (see the right side of the blog). When we try to catch others in their words and use them against them we make this place unsafe. I am not trying to stifle anyone's right to free speech. Just like I would ask you to not speak a certain way in my home, I would also ask you to use the same restraint on my blog. There are blogs that are appropriate forums for political discussion and even heated debate. This blog does not belong in that category.

Now, I recognize that I was party to a little bit of this "heated debate" over education. From this point forward I would ask everyone to make it our goal to strive to respect everyone and be tolerant of everyone. We can learn so much from each other. Let us put all of this behind us. Let us show our children what it means to forgive, to put aside our pride, and what it means to be tolerant of others who may think differently than we do. Let all our differences teach us and give us perspective. That is all I ask.

Thank you...every one of you... for your participation in this blog. It has been a pleasure to learn from all of you.



Please read the excellent post below on time-outs if you haven't already. There is more to come later this week. Stay tuned.

3 comments:

Laura said...

Thanks for posting this, Delia. I followed the education discussions very closely, but I avoided commenting because I could tell the comments weren't completely friendly. I noticed that my opinions seem to vary greatly from the general consensus, and I didn't want to start anything unpleasant.

I really, really like this blog, and I'm glad you started it!

Heather said...

I also appreciate this blog. I apologize if my opinions on public education were too argumentative. I do have such strong feelings in that particular area. I haven't commented much on this blog, but I love getting the ideas of other moms. It's nice to be validated with what I'm doing as well as come away with a new game plan when mine is just not working.

Heather said...

I did also want to point out that I feel, given the spirit of a "safe place for moms to talk," personal attacks can and should be avoided. We all feel strongly one way or another on just about every parenting issue--education to potty training. We wouldn't care to check this blog if we didn't. Sometimes, I think the comments are so quick and easy to make that we forget to take a step back and think about how what we say can be interpreted by someone else. My husband is constantly reminding me that he can't read my mind. It's just too easy to misinterpret what is being said. Now we can learn from our mistakes and become a stronger parenting community.

BTW, I was wondering if you were willing to do a post about preparing a toddler for a new baby coming. I'm plenty nervous about my daughter's reaction and would love some good advice from those who've been there (or those who just stayed in a Holiday Inn Express and feel like they've got good advice to give. :))