It seems like my feeds are filled with moms momming each other about the way we conduct conversations. I don’t mind the occasional “Things You Should Stop Telling Me About My Autistic Son/Puppy/Laundry Habits/Personal Hygiene blog posts,” but this is getting out of hand.  Lately it’s about crap like “Stop Telling Me Bless You” when I sneeze, and “Stop Telling Me to Sleep When the Baby Sleeps.”

Almost without exception, a stop-it post is a meaningless, click-bait, Garbage-Pail-Kid of a fluffy troll post. It’s drowning so deeply in its own hypocrisy that, as an editor and a reader both, I need hip waders and those shoulder-length gloves vets use when they have to give an elephant an enema.

“Stop being rude!” (Oh, the irony). “Don’t be judgmental!” (I’m dying over here)! “Stop telling me to have a good day!” What? Really? 

I want to shave myself bald and yell “Stop the insanity!” Oh, right, that was Susan Powter complaining about crappy food and the diet industry taking advantage of people who wanted to lose weight. She had a decent stop-it argument going… not a random, petty rant.

People appear to have run out of important and meaningful things to write about, and ranty hate about trivial stuff is such an easy target. That everyone finds it so easy (lazy) to jump that bandwagon just encourages bad writers to go out and find some more things to be mock-offended over.

There are two types of “stop-it” lists that really get my righteous Canadian goat. The first is stop-it lists trying to masquerade as feminist revolt: ie. “Stop telling me to smile!” There are times to rage against the man, and then there are times that it’s not worth the effort. Guess which one this is. It’s more than likely that nothing was actually meant by it, and you’re digging for reasons to be offended. Come on, ladies. Were they really trying to be female-oppressing jerkwads? Or was it a little old man who saw you scowling in the waiting line at the bank? Did he try to brighten your day in an awkward way and give you some troll fodder?

What an A-hole, eh? 

Stop proving that you’re exactly the kind of airhead you’re trying to convince others that you’re not by getting monumentally femin-offended over some guy telling you he thinks you’re beautiful. Are there some guys who are being sexist and demeaning? Likely. Can you shut 99.9% of those actual dicks down with your best disapproving frown? Yes. Can you please save the stabby behaviour for the grown-up problems and fix those first? There’s reproductive rights, wage parity, portrayal of women in mass media, division of domestic labour, the glass ceiling, adequate female representation in government and politics, social inequality around the globe, jury and legal issues for victims of rape, and domestic and sexual violence statistics.

Take your pick, because taking a selfie while holding up a sign saying “Stop telling me to smile!” isn’t going to stop some politician who is infringing on womens’ rights to obtain birth control. It won’t make some magazine stop using impossibly-shaped anemic and photoshopped topless women as the standard for beauty. It won’t earn you a pay raise. And it won’t stop female genital mutilation in Africa, stonings in Muslim countries, sex trade all over the damn place, or even make women less likely to be raped in America.

Likes on Facebook don’t cure cancer, stop genocide, or do any damned thing to change the world.

I am coining this word, femin-offended by the way. You heard it here first.

Stop-it gripes about people getting offended or annoyed by others who clearly were just trying for small conversation: “Stop telling me that the next year of my baby’s life will be even better and more fun!” “Stop assuming my boy is a girl when I dress him in pink!” “Don’t ask me if I’m choosing to get an epidural!” 

I deeply apologize on behalf of whichever human being tried to initiate a conversation with you that inspired you to post your stop it piece. Perhaps you can title your next piece “Stop Talking to Me!” and get a matching tattoo on your forehead. Maybe that new mother in the neighborhood only committed the heinous crime of wanting to actually be your friend, and she is trying to find an excuse to talk with you so you can form some common ground together. Small talk is a dying art form these days. People aren’t even making eye contact with strangers anymore, much less conversation. And when people do try to do the proverbial “reach out and touch someone,” everyone knows that “So, how about the weather and that local sports team?” earns only a grunt.

Passive-aggressive click-bait list rants just make honest people cagey and defensive because the ones who need to read them the most are the ones who are least likely to click the gods-be-damned links. Do you think someone ever clicks a link like that saying, “Gee I’d better read this and make sure I’m not being an offensive jack douche to anyone”?

No. They. Don’t.

Stop writing the meaningless stop-it posts.

Clearly, we’re all getting really badly out of practice in the finer arts of conversation, and this sort of shit just makes everyone even less likely to engage with one another. So give the benefit of a doubt, take the high ground, and then educate real offenders amicably. 

After all, it’s only the polite thing to do, eh?

Author

Anne usually speaks in memes and SAT words, and she frequently attempts to explain the laws of physics and high school chemistry according to the kitchen via her home blog FoodRetro. If you want to know why ice melts or pretzels turn brown, and you want to make food that you never imagined could be made from scratch in the process, she's your blogger. Her friends describe her as "hilarious when you get to know her," but it could be that they are just amused by the way she gets riled up when reading the paper. She can also be found playing the part of community editor and grammar nazi here on BLUNTmoms.

4 Comments

  1. I was in the middle of formulating a very similar post about this in my head, but you very articulately beat me to it! Sometimes people are just doing their best to make conversation, and they are a bit awkward and don’t know what to say exactly. Stop using it to click-bait! Friendly old ladies are running out of things to say to you that are not going to make you mad! When someone tells me, “your daughters are so beautiful!” I can choose to be offended and write a pseudo-feminist blog post about how society focusses too much on appearance, or I can smile and agree! I’m sorry your son is exceptionally tall and that you hear about it a lot, or that your kids look so different from each other, or that your kid keeps losing a shoe, but the person who pointed it out this time has only pointed it out once, and she just was probably trying to be friendly. Be gracious, people. Save getting offended for things that are, you know, offensive.

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