Over the summer or around the time I went back to school in August I started going to thebump.com, a pregnancy and baby website, quite frequently. The Bump has many message boards, anything from trying to conceive to toddlers and just about everything in between and around those topics as well. As a newbie to message boards, I didn't quite understand the hype about them at first. I had originally started out on the local message boards for pregnancy questions and information, and there just weren't all that many people on the local boards (I went on the Cleveland and Akron boards). After some messing around on the site, I then discovered the different trimester boards. At this time I was already in my third trimester, so I felt a bit behind as many of the other posters had been on these trimester message boards since their first (and some probably even when they were trying to conceive), but I quickly got sucked in. I enjoyed the playful banter of the (mostly) women who posted questions about their pregnancies and even some other questions and information that was not related to pregnancy at all. I even found myself laughing out loud at some of the posts and comments that were made from time to time. This was pretty embarrassing when it happened in my classroom, but luckily it happened when there weren't students in my room (duh...did you think I went on to The Bump when I was supposed to be teaching? Nah...just during planning period and before and after school). ; ) There was a group of about 6 or 7 women who had obviously gotten to know one another quite well during their time on The Bump, and they formed a sort of "mean girls" type clique where they pretty much took over and ran the third trimester board around September/October of 2010. I found that I was very interested in their posts, not necessarily for the information that they were providing, but for the ways that they would sometimes gang up on and criticize other posters. Sometimes it was inappropriate, sometimes hilarious. In case you were wondering, yes, it is possible to share WAY too much information on a message board site (oh, the stories I could tell about that one) and this particular group of ladies definitely let people know when they had let too much information slip. This group of ladies also must have had some significant time on their hands while wating for their LOs (loved ones) to come into the world, as some of them would go and "lurk" on other message boards and place links to these other message boards on the third trimester board and then go and totally bash these posters from the other message boards. They also would create their own "siggie pics" and have "siggie challenges" according to whatever month we were currently in, further leading to the mean girls mentality that they were "cooler" than other posters on the board. Once the beginning and middle of October hit, many of these women in the "mean girls" clique had their LOs and moved on to the 0-3 month board. I do have to admit (since I wasn't due until almost the end of November) that after these "mean girls" left the third trimester board it was a bit dry. Not as much snark, sarcasm, and drama. It was nice in a way though to not have the board run by a small group of people.
Finally I had McKenna on November 20 and after awhile when we got used to having a baby in the house I was able to go back on The Bump while she napped and check out the latest postings on the 0-3 boards. Of course, the "mean girls" were back in full force on these boards, and at first I didn't have any issues with it or with them. The sarcasm and snark were still entertaining. After a few weeks of having a newborn myself though, I often would think to myself, "What do these people do all day and what do their kids do all day that they can just sit and post and comment on basically EVERYTHING on this 0-3 month board?" I would generally have a half hour or an hour here or there to just look at things, make the occasional post, and then McKenna would be up and needing to be fed and changed. These ladies apparently had the feeding and changing down pat, in addition to having their laptops or desktop computers constantly attached to themselves (or their iPhones or Blackberries in some cases).
Then came the day when I finally got fed up with the snark. Someone on the 0-3 month board had posted a question about how long can your infant stay in a bouncy seat or swing before they started to fuss. I thought this was a perfectly logical inquiry, as I had been wondering the same thing about McKenna. At the time she was going through a phase where she liked to be held a lot and would maybe spend 5-10 minutes max in either of those places. I opened up the post to read the responses, and was greeted by the following reply (not word for word, but pretty close): "Ours stays in there for 2-3 days. We are trying to get them to stay in there for a week." This response greatly irked me. The OP (original poster) had asked what I thought was a totally honest question and was looking for honest responses from people, not the snarky reply that was given by this poster. Yes, in case you were wondering, it was one of the mean girls. For some reason this totally annoyed me and since that time I have found myself staying away from The Bump. I felt as if I had learned better information from the third trimester board than I had been learning from the 0-3 month board. I also felt as if I had in some respects outgrown the snarkiness of the "mean girls" and just didn't want to be in a place where I had to see their nasty, inappropriate comments and posts. That isn't to say that I never go on The Bump any more, I just spend significantly less time there. Instead of logging on at least once every day, I might log on once every 5 to 7 days instead. Sometimes I just look at the titles of the posts and who posted them and don't even open them up. Overall, my experience on The Bump message boards was positive, but I just felt that I outgrew the childish, immature behaviors of the "mean girls" on the boards.
If you've never tried posting on message boards, you should try it. I'll warn you, it is addicting and you never know...you might come across your own group of "mean girls" that you'll have to deal with.
Another thrilling post coming your way later today or tomorrow. Until then, I remain,
Jenuinely Yours
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