I don’t know. Why don’t we say it? You’re right, it should be okay to say ‘yeah, you screwed up there.’
The only thing I can think of is the ‘getting back on the horse’ syndrome.
To take your driving example – last year I crashed my motorbike through the front of a café. It was quite spectacular, broken glass everywhere, I came off the bike and slid across the floor until I’d hit enough chairs and tables to break my momentum. Once my friends had ascertained that I was okay (nobody else was in the place, thank god!) their general attitude was ‘what were you playing at, you ****ing noob?!’ So I was bruised, embarrassed and VERY aware that I’d just demonstrated the worst driving known to mankind. And their attitude was reinforcing it. Fair enough. But then we had to get home. And as everyone had their own bike, I was going to have to get straight back on that damn thing and carry on riding. So they picked me up, brushed me off and encouraged me, saying things like ‘don’t worry about it, I’ve had much worse crashes,’ or ‘you’ve been a really good driver up until now, this will only make you better.’ So I managed to get back on and keep driving. There was only one friend who kept pointing at one of the tables that I’d totalled and saying ‘what if there’d been a family of 4 sitting there, you really could’ve killed someone.’ Now that was true, but if everyone had been saying that, I think I would’ve never ridden again.
But with parenting, it’s not something you can give up, and I think if someone does something that’s clearly bad parenting, they’re probably aware of that and already feeling pretty guilty about it. And I’d guess if they post about it, they’re looking for a bit of reassurance that they’re not an irrevocably ‘bad parent,’ and they need some encouragement to get back on the horse.
Which could be why other people go to such lengths to reassure them, especially if they’re parents and have been there themselves?
But it’s equally possible that people (like me) who aren’t parents thing ‘Argh! Loaded topic!’ and aren’t comfortable enough to say what they really think (which is ZOMFG you did WHAT?!)
Maybe it comes down to that age-old argument – the softly, softly approach vs the tell-it-like-it-is approach.
I don’t know. These are just my thoughts.
|