Mean Girls

I just read a very interesting blog post written by Jen (Jennsylvania, Bitter is the New Black) over at MamaPop.com. The post starts off by recounting the story of April Branum, the 400 lb California woman who gave birth to a healthy baby boy two days after she found out she was pregnant.

But Jen's post was less about the woman and more about the mean, hateful comments made on the OC Register's Web site following the posting of the story there. So she asked the question, does anonymity make people mean? Or meaner? And if so, why?

I mean, who cares that the woman didn't know she was pregnant? Seriously, if you weighed 400 lbs, it's quite possible you wouldn't feel a baby kicking....that's a lot of padding! And if you hadn't had your period in more than two years, you'd probably think a stomach ache was just that and not necessarily the onset of LABOR.

But let's say you're a skeptic, an asshole or just downright stupid and you have a hard time accepting her story - does that give you the right to be mean and vicious?

The answer, of course, is no. Absolutely, positively not. (And yes, I get the irony that this post is coming from me, the woman who often quotes Olympia Dukakis in Steel Magnolias, "if you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me.")

Still, I don't care who you are or how snarky you can get sometimes, there is no need to wish someone ill or to assume (in print) that a 400 lb woman cannot properly care for a newborn.