Thursday
May052011
Erring On The Side of Caution
Thursday, May 5, 2011 
Some conversations on social media are fleeting. Here today, forgotten tomorrow. Some stick with you forever. Others, forgotten for a while, can come back to haunt. This is the story of one of those conversations.
A frustrated mother, twitter, and the police
Back in 2009, a mother frustrated by bedtime battles with her daughter vented on twitter, setting off a series of events that eventually led to her writing a post warning people to watch what they say on twitter because "big sister is watching."
In her post, the author wrote that the people who know her, know the relationship that she has with her daughter -- one that includes love, frustration, awe, annoyance, anger and bliss. She described the bedtime situation she was facing with her daughter, a frustrating game that is repeated each evening, and which ended with her venting on twitter by asking if it was okay to smother her daughter. She explained that this was just part of her black humour and she was enraged that someone who hardly knows her at all had the gall to have the police sent to her house.
In the comments, it becomes apparent that the woman she was enraged at didn't call the police after all. Instead, she (and numerous others) replied to the mother's tweet and when they didn't get a response, they reported it to twitter. Eventually someone did call the police and they likely obtained information on the woman's identity and whereabouts from her Internet Service Provider because the police showed up at her door and insisted on ensuring that her daughter (sleeping at that point) was okay.
Some commenters on the post were just as enraged as the author and thought it was ridiculous that anyone could take it seriously. Other commenters said that reporting it to the authorities was the right thing because no one would be able to live with themselves if the mother did in fact hurt her daughter.
In a follow-up post the next day, the author (still upset, but somewhat calmer than the previous night) said that she understood the concern. But she called on people to name cases of situations where parents published a tweet, facebook status update, or blog post prior to abusing their child. Unfortunately, today, I found that case.
Australian father kills daughter after facebook update
In the Ottawa Citizen this morning, I read about a case where an Australian father killed his daughter shortly after updating his facebook status to "bout to kill ma kid." An article in the Sydney Herald provides more details on the time line of events.
- The girl, Yazmina (almost 3 years old), lived with her mother, Rachelle D'Argent. D'Argent had been beaten by her ex-fiance Ramazan Acar (Yazmina's father). She had an "intervention order" (sounds similar to a restraining order) against him. Acar had apparently never been violent towards his daughter.
- One day, D'Argent arrived home with Yazmina and saw her ex parked outside their flat. Yazmina was so excited to see her father, so D'Argent reluctantly agreed to let Yazmina go with Acar to get a chocolate at a nearby store. Acar promised to bring her straight back, saying "Do you trust me? I wouldn't take her away from you like you took her from me."
- Ten minutes later, when they didn't return, D'Argent called Acar and asked where they were. He said they had stopped at McDonald's and would be back soon.
- Around 7pm, D'Argent called again and Acar said "How does it feel to not have your child when I didn't have mine for three months" and demanded that D'Argent have the intervention order removed (she refused).
- At 7:23pm, Acar updated his facebook status to "Bout 2 kill ma kid" and then sent text messages to D'Argent saying "I loved you" and "It's ova I did it." At 7:34pm, he updated his facebook status again to "pay bk u slut."
- In less than an hour, D'Argent was with the police and called Acar again. He repeated that he was going to kill her and asked if she had any last words for the girl. Yazmina said "I love you" to her mother over the phone and D'Argent replied "I love you too." Acar then hung up.
- At 8:47pm, Acar confessed over the phone. "I've killed her. She's just lying there next to me." He went on to explain that he didn't care that he would have to go to jail because he did it to get back at her.
- At 11:20pm Acar updated his facebook status again to "I love you mimi." He was arrested by police 10 minutes later.
There were just over 80 minutes between the time Acar posted his initial facebook status update and the death of his daughter. There was not enough time to wait for a reply back to an "are you okay?" or an "are you serious?" message. How many people saw his facebook status update and assumed he was just kidding? I hope no one did, because that would be incredibly difficult for that person to bear.
I'll take you seriously
We all use social media to vent. Whether it is a full blog post, or a quick status update, it can be a way to let off steam. We need that outlet and people in general, and mothers specifically, are lucky that social media can sometimes help them to overcome isolation and give them a place to share their fears and frustrations with others. But, there is a line we all need to be conscious of. That line can be different for each person, but I believe there is a point of no return which no one should cross and that is one of threatening violence. Tone is not always evident when reading the typed word and especially in the fast paced world of social media where many of us are following people who we have never met in person, there is really no way to tell if someone is just joking around or if they are being serious.
So I need to draw a line in the sand and say that I will take you seriously. If you tweet, update your facebook status, send an SMS or otherwise indicate that you plan to hurt yourself, your child, or someone else, I will take it seriously. I will act. I will send the police. It can save lives. It has saved lives. If there is any doubt in my mind whatsoever about your intentions, I will err on the side of caution. I will alert the authorities because being sworn at and called names is a lot better than the alternative.
Reader Comments (67)
i so agree with you - it is better to be 'safer' then sorry. Through school (social work) we were always told never to let a possible "cry for help" slip through because you didn't take it seriously/believe the person. That has the possibility of a difficult & dangerous consequence then taking action and calling the police would have. (& social media can definitely make the lines a bit more blurry as far as 'seriousness' but again better err on the side of caution)
I call that kind of talk Mom-ese. You have to translate "Ima kill my kid!" into "I'm slightly annoyed and wish it were bedtime already."
And yes, it's very stupid.
I've noticed the Driven to Drinking/Anti-Depressants jokes more than the Violence to Kids, which I find just as distasteful. In the backlash to the SuperMom movement, it's now cute to be "bad" and brag about your drinking over Twitter. It's almost a stereotype of a Mom Blogger to have some mention of alcohol or meds in her Twitter profile.
Or maybe it's just our Me Generation coming through and turning everything--even parenthood--into one big bitch fest about how hard it is for ME.
And that Aussie guy's time line turned my stomach. That poor, poor baby.
I have to admit, I think I've Tweeted at least once before that I was going to "choke them" or something to that effect. I never even thought about someone taking it seriously because anyone who knows me knows that I *LIVE* for my children and I would never, ever, EVER hurt them. In fact, I probably spoil them rotten. Anyway, what I hadn't considered is that it is a public space and that everyone who reads those messages (intended as jokes only) does NOT know me and may NOT know that I am joking. I'm going to make more of an effort to choose my statements carefully.
Great post!
There have been many times that I'm tempted to say that sort of thing on twitter and I don't for exactly this reason. Someone might take it seriously. Like the 2009 mom, I would have been shocked to see anyone post something like this and actually mean it but I refrained from doing so anyway. This case was eye opening though.
I absolutely agree with this post, Annie. I would not be able to live with myself if I ignored something like this and a child (or anyone) was injured.
That is so, so sad. That poor little girl and that mom... I have no words. I hadn't heard this story (down here).
This is unbelievably sad, disturbing and tragic. What an alarming story. I hope that people are careful to say what they mean and do take such threats seriously. You honestly never know, do you, whether someone is in that frame of mind or not?
I am ALWAYS conscious of what I tweet & post on FB, even when I am angry (usually because my toddler is refusing to sleep) & it would be easy to say I want to kill someone (often I say I want to punch something instead--it's safer). I'm always conscious of this because I am a person who takes statements like that seriously. However, I am guilty of not calling the police or taking that extra step when I see friends, family, or even total strangers make those kinds of statements in frustration or anger or helplessness. From now on, I vow to be more proactive. You are so right: it is so much better to potentially be called names and piss off someone than to risk another person's life due to inaction. The story of the Australian girl will undoubtedly stick with me all day and probably many days to come. How sad.
That's a tragic story, and so sad that it's likely not the only instance. For every story that hits the news, how many don't...
In my last two years on Twitter, I've read a few terribly tragic things that were real calls for help, which I've reached out at least to offer condolences or thoughts. I've read far more things that are more obvious "post/tweet on the fly" complaints about children/parenting in general. In this era of "cool to be bad", the majority of these are just airing grievances in a comic-tragic way. I personally don't find it funny to use violence or drug/alcohol abuse as joke fodder and I don't put energy towards them. I typically unfollow/unfriend if it's a pattern as I do think in most cases, the use of "I'm gonna ___ my ___" as post topic is less a call for help and more a call for comraderie. Or followers.
I do think that if we accept social media as part of our everyday life, then we have to accept the people on the other side of the tweets/posts/updates as part of our lives too, to some extent. Those we choose to listen to deserve our ear - as much as we can give it. You've got to use your best judgment when it comes to character; so I choose only to follow/friend those people who don't blog/tweet for shock value.
I complete agree with you, and would do the same. If it save one life it is worth being cautious. Tone is incredibly hard to tell in social media. That is why we have emoticons, LOL, etc. Personally, I try not to even jokingly refer to violence because it isn't a joke for so many people. Similar to making a joke about rape or pedophilia, making a joke about abuse doesn't sit well with me.
My heart is breaking for that little girl and her mother. :(
I completely agree with you. But then you probably already know that I am an err of the side of caution and call when you are concerned kind of person. I have vented frustration with my children via twitter or my blog. I most likely have said that I am considering "running away and joining the circus." Or that they are "driving me crazy." But I would never say that I was planning on hurting them. Quite frankly because I would never want them to grow up, see that and think I might have been serious.
Poor mom and daughter. I wish someone had been there to help her.
I drew my line in the sand a long time ago, obviously. I believe there are things you just don't make light of, no matter how frustrated or annoyed you get.
The bottom line (for me) is that I've met a couple hundred of my 10k social media contacts and really know far fewer than that. I don't think I know any of then well enough to know what they would or would not do in a moment of desperation.
I hadn't heard of this current case before you mentioned it to me. I don't know if it's not on the news here or if I missed it because of SAHM isolation. But I do know that I would do more - and faster - if I ever found myself reading a similar Tweet or FB status or whatever. The mere thought makes me feel sick
Wow. I actually had to take a break from reading this post. It has hit me really hard, today particularly for some reason. I believe in the power of words, whether written or spoken. I am definitely guilty of saying how much my kids are wild, or driving me crazy, or asking if it is wine-thirty yet. I hope that (and can't imagine myself ever doing so) I have never flippantly made a remark about violence against my children, or anyone else for that matter.
I think there is an issue between take-me-as-I-am and your-words-have-meaning and you-can't-always-detect-sarcasm-on-twitter. Finding the line between humor and crossing that line might be hard for some to realize. Knowing when it is our responsibility to take steps to intervene is difficult. After reading this, I am not sure I could look at a tweet like the one above the same way, and I am not sure I would want to. It is great that the mother didn't mean it and all was fine, but the what if is too much to bear if no one had done anything.
I love wine-thirty.
Heartbreaking. I am in tears.
We all need to vent, and twittering, facebooking, blogging allows us that space... but we also need to keep it sane, keep our hyperboles about laughable things. Violence is not a laughable thing.
Thanks for stating where you stand. I'm with you. I will report anything that could possibly save a life.
I think we use violent terminology too often and too casually. When I was a kid (half a century before social media), my mother would often say to me, "If I ever catch you doing ___, I'll kill you." I guess I knew she didn't really mean it (a spanking would have been the norm), but it confused and hurt me...for many years later. Even if we toss off such words in an attempt to vent, it's wrong. As for social networking sites, assume your kids could read what you write. Do you have their permission to talk about them and their activities in public? How would they feel if they read what you've written? Great post, Annie.
I have to say that I've learned to wait till the moment has passed, then report that I'm proud I actually let my child survive after doing whatever it was that he did. Then we all know that I felt a bit insane, but no one has been murdered because of it. Then I don't get flamed, I get sympathy.
This is a horrifying situation. But I can't help but think that this is a completely different situation than a typical mom frustrated by endless bedtime whining. This is a situation where a restraining order has been violated by a person with a history of abuse. A violated restraining order resulting in a murder that was reported on social media is not the same thing as venting. And I understand what you are saying about not being able to live with yourself if something happened, but I think what you are doing is reacting to this horrific event by extrapolating out to barely even tangentially related situations. Making a joke about a "bedtime dungeon" or something is as similar to murdering a child as making a joke about preferring to watch Yo Gabba Gabba while stoned and ACTUALLY going out and buying drugs and watching it while stoned. It smacks of panicky overreaction, and while I think people can differ in their opinions of what is bad taste and what is not, I don't think this one case is reason to alert the authorities to every passing joke on twitter.
Leah:
In retrospect, the two situations are completely different. We now know a lot more about these two people and the two situations. Do you think all of his facebook friends knew about the abuse and the restraining order? I think most abusers would go to lengths to hide that type of thing and probably blame the victim.
I don't have the benefit of knowing the full background and history of everyone I am following on twitter. If this dad had been on twitter and had posted "I'm about to kill my kid" how would I know whether he was serious about it or not? I wouldn't know and in fact I would probably have assumed that he was just having a frustrating day dealing with a difficult toddler.
I think the onus is the person writing the status update to not post things that they do not mean.
I understand your perspective, I just think that extrapolating out from a statistical anomaly (one case on a planet of 7 billion people) to make a police report every time someone makes a (very common) joke about their frustration is an extreme reaction.
I made a mistake similar to this once. I didn't threaten to hurt anyone. I want to make that clear up front. However, my then 9mo DD (she's 5 now) had very difficult nights for the first year of her life. No one ever said it could be colic, but she screamed every single night until the wee hours of the morning for 9 months straight. I was exhausted and probably depressed. I vented in a blog post and called her a bitch. Not on my current blog, not even a blog that anyone knew about, though it was public (now it doesn't exist.) As far as I knew the blog was only read by my best friend and husband. Eventually my DD started sleeping better and I got pregnant again. I was 8 months prego when a friend came across the blog and that post. Instead of calling me to talk about it, after all the post was over a year old at that point, she called a suicide hotline. The guy told her to convince me to meet her somewhere and drive me to a mental facility. She called me to have coffee and fortunately fessed up before the attempted "intervention." Never in my entire life had I been so scared or hurt. But I learned my lesson. Even words written months previous can get you in trouble.
At this point, I don't have to be careful about what I say. I'm not a sleep-deprived barely functioning person. I just don't think those things anymore, but I had to learn the hard way.
That's absolutely horrifying. And unbelievable.
Wow.
I can't believe that man did that.
I wrote a whole long convoluted blog post called To Kill or Not to Kill. First line was: “I’m going to kill him.”
I must have said it 40 times. And I wouldn't hurt anybody. Ever. But how is anybody else supposed to know that? Nothing like being a novice, random blogger with no strategy....
Yikes.
Thanks very much for this.
I agree. I think people use this common parlance enough that most people don't think twice and statistically, it will be - yea - that one in a million that actually do something. As with calling in CPS or the police IRL, I think that more investigation needs to be done than to jump the gun (so to speak) and get authorities involved.
This is a slippery slope and one that has been discussed, again, in real life situations, everything from a frazzled mom grabbing or swatting a three year old in public and having police or social services called by an over-zealous well-meaning onlooker, to people calling police because a child is in a car while parents can see the child, calling social services because of assumptions made about home situations based on one or two pieces of "evidence".
I've heard more horror stories to this bent than parents who really killed kids when they said they were going to and no one took them seriously. Most parents aren't going to take the time to Tweet if they really want to strangle their teen, etc. In fact, taking the time to Tweet is a good "counting to ten" and more people receive support on Facebook, Twitter, etc. in tough moments than use it to telegraph a murder. I'd hate to take that away from people, especially parents who finally have someone to "talk" to during a lonely day with the kids. Yes, there are other ways to communicate, etc. but I'd hate to get too dogmatic about the rules.
If we were a society that never, ever used this kind of imagery or metaphor, I'd be more inclined to jump on it when it did happen. And I'm not saying it's not good food for thought; I'm just saying that a hard and fast rule, right here, right now, is going to cause more harm than good to 99.999999999% of the parents who say such a thing.
*standing ovation*
EXCELLENT post. It's far too easy for society to pull the "I was just joking" card - it's a coward's way out of saying something they're getting flak for. I don't know anyone who wants to take the chance that one of these updates IS "just a joke." I sure as hell don't.
A couple of years ago, I was on Twitter when a young man I tweet with started talking about hurting himself. I knew he'd been depressed for a while, and was very concerned. Together with another Twitter friend, we did everything we could to make sure that someone in this man's family knew what was going on. It took most of the night and several long distance calls to Texas, but we finally got to the point where someone was checking to make sure he was ok.
Several months after that, I was on IM with a friend of mine and experiencing a particularly low point in my ongoing struggle with depression. I won't go into details, but suffice to say that if he hadn't called my therapist, who then contacted my husband and got the ball rolling with getting me into a facility, I might not be typing this today.
The simple fact is, you never know when someone is joking. I have a notoriously dark sense of humor, and most people probably dismissed the young man's tweets as typical teen emo. I couldn't live with myself if I let something go and someone was hurt, or worse. I join all of you who have said they draw the line at violent rhetoric.
This is a really powerful post. What a tragic story! It would be good if everyone could understand that the sarcasm doesn't come across online. People need to take full responsibility for what they post online. I hope I would have the courage to step in if I saw a threat like that. Thanks for this.
I think this is a good discussion to have, mainly because it makes the venter think a bit about how some people might receive the vent. I'll tweet I'd like to punch someone, and the people who know me know there's no chance in hell I'd ever punch someone. But the people who don't know me have no idea whether I have rage issues or what's going to happen next.
If we make comments about harming someone else in the near future, there are going to be people who feel strongly that they must do something about that, and who can blame them.
As for the story in Australia, it is BEYOND horrifying. He is someone I'd break my no-punching rule for.
How horrifying.
Just a few days ago I was thinking of tweeting something like, "My husband's away for five days. May my kid and I both survive until he gets back!" But being hyper-aware of how what I say in a public forum can be misconstrued, I actually tweeted something more like, "My husband's away for five more days. May my kid and I have a harmonious co-existence until he's back. Please?"
Rewording it takes the "funny" out of the tweet, but it takes the scary out of it too. I'd never want my son to be reading through old tweets when he's older and find threats of violence toward him in my timeline.
Great post, Annie.
I'm another who understands where you are coming from but doesn't quite agree. The two situations you are discussing are miles apart. I really don't like the idea of censoring anyone's words. I REALLY don't like it. It's like telling women they can't be authentic about what they are feeling. And one of the biggest things this generation of women struggles with is that sometimes being a mother is a horrible job and that ugly feelings come up. Dealing with those ugly feelings through writing is important to us.
The father in Australia abducted his daughter and the mother knew about it despite a restraining order. There appears, from the timeline, to have been plenty of time to act upon that knowledge and have the police become involved.
Let's look back at "Jane" and her unfortunate twitter. She struggled with this chronic bedtime problem with her child. In the midst of the bedtime routine she asks Twitter, "I wonder if it's ok to smother my child". Concerned folks couldn't get in touch for over an hour. Then they alerted Twitter to the post. Twitter then did some investigating and found out the contact info for Jane. They called the police. The police go to Jane's house and, if I'm not mistaken, wake Jane up and insist on seeing the child.
Here is my problem: If Jane was in danger of smothering her child that evening, the police were far too late to do anything about it. Had the child actually been smothered, the father who was in residence, friends, family, daycare, etc would have discovered the deed and the mother would have been treated/brought to justice in due time. What exactly were the "alerters" hoping to accomplish by their actions?
I don't know. Maybe I have the wrong of it. Something about this rubs me the wrong way. As I tell other doulas who are earnestly trying to help women have "better" births, "you can't save anyone from their choices" and sometimes people make stupid choices.
I agree that we should be able to be authentic about our feelings. However, I don't think it is authentic to talk about violence if we do not mean it. I do think that we lack the ability to discuss frustrations without using references to violence, but I don't think that is a valid reason for continuing to use violence as a metaphor for frustration.
With regards to the "alerters" and what they were hoping to accomplish, I think they were hoping someone would be able to intervene before something happened. The man in Australia murdered his daughter around 80 minutes after his status update. Sometimes there is time to intervene before something happens. Just to clarify in the case I was talking about, the child was sleeping when the police arrived, but the mom was still awake I believe.
My point about the Australia case is that Facebook had little to do with the situation. The mother spoke directly with the father and I'm wondering why police response wasn't requested at that time, since there was a restraining order on him. I read this as a story about a mother's bad judgement and poor choices and not that the death of a child could have been prevented if only "we" (who ever that might be, any person reading the post, I guess) had been more interventionist.
And, you may be right that "Jane" may have been awake. It was quite late at night, IIRC. "Jane" is a friend of mine and I remember well the incident. I really do think the entire thing was ridiculous. In fact, the police themselves commented as much to "Jane" but were compelled to follow up on the "complaint".
Again, I will grant that I may be completely wrong. I often end up having differing viewpoints :)
Honestly, even if I didn't feel that children were in immediate danger after a comment like that on twitter/facebook/whatever I would still feel some obligation to respond in some way, either personally or through the appopriate channels. Even if the caregiver in question wasn't looking to hurt their child, expressing those kinds of feelings would make me think they need some kind of break or better support system in place.
We only know these cases were completely different in retrospect. If I'm looking back on a situation, I'd rather look bad and think, "Whoops, everything was really okay and I really inconvienced that family" than "holy crap, I wish I had done something."
I have to say I'm bothered by your statement "a mother's bad judgement and poor choices". The mother is as much a victim as her daughter, and I don't think it's right or fair to blame her. Of course in hindsight it seems she made a bad decision, but as stated above, the father had never threatened or harmed his daughter, and she had no reason to believe he would. I can just picture the little girl, overjoyed to see her father, and the mother, hoping that time with his daughter would help him be a better person, if even for half an hour. And now she'll blame herself for the rest of her life. I can't imagine the pain.
This is such a tragic story, and my heart goes out to the little girl's mother and family. Perhaps even if someone had seen it in time, there would have been nothing they could do- but I agree, that's no reason NOT to try.
Recently I came across a tweet that said something to the effect of, "My son said xyz and I bitchslapped him". It was retweeted by someone I follow with the comment "Good for you!". I found it quite offensive, and tweeted both the original tweeter and the person who RT'd it that violence and abuse were not something to joke about. The original tweeter said, "Yes I really did slap him, but anyone who knows me knows it's a joke, and he was laughing."
From there it devolved into the original tweeter, and her friends, cursing at me and generally being nasty. Yet there were others who spoke up and said violent tweets, especially concerning children, were not acceptable, and shared their stories of abuse.
I do believe that anyone who threatens or brags harming another online should be spoken to both to assess the threat and to help the aggressor and victim in any way possible, precisely because online there is no way to know how serious it is.
I disagree, strongly.
There is context, and we have brains that are capable of recognizing context and behaving appropriately to the situation, rather than applying a blanket "no tolerance" policy. There is a huge difference between an angry father with a restraining order, a frequent user of black humor, and a normally positive person who suddenly posts something quite dark.
In a context-free situation, I would agree with your viewpoint -- but this seems to be pretty rare. Usually we have a feel for the people that we follow through social media, and these are not 140 character messages from completely random people out of the blue.
How may readers didn't know that the mother in the former used black humor frequently? Are these really people who are reading her Tweets? And how many Facebook friends did the father in the latter example have? Did they not know he had a restraining order against him, and was bitter and angry towards his ex?
I'd prefer we all use our brains a bit, rather than drawing these unequivocal lines in the sand.
Reading things like this (the father killing daughter part) gets harder and harder for me by the day, and I agree with your stance completely.
I have a bit of black humor myself, but I ALWAYS think twice about posting anything that could be construed as a threat. Probably the lawyer in me. And really, there are just some things you don't joke about. This is one of them.
I have, however, at least once, joked about selling my daughter to the gypsies . . . Which I'm more embarassed about based on it's insensitivity to Gypsies than anything else.
I agree with Annie. People can be authentic with their feelings and vent frustrations without invoking violence. It isn't censorship it's just choosing different words. We do it all the time as parents. I can't count how many times have I wanted to yell F@#$, but because my daughter is there I say "darn it!".
I think part of what bothers me about this idea of always responding - and warning people away from using specific language - is our general mistrust of everyone and the "save the poor, helpless children" vibe it evokes. Now, please don't get me wrong, what happened in Australia is an absolutely horrific tragedy and I'm never going to get that story and the images it created out of my head and I'm not making light of the situation. However, this kind of thing is in the same vein as "don't leave your kids in the car when you run in the corner shop for milk lest someone abduct them" and "don't let your children walk home from school because someone will abduct them and murder them". Except in this case it's "don't joke about violence and children lest I call CAS or the police on you". Taking a one in a billion occurrence and applying that to the billion is ridiculous.
And, yes, if you have a restraining order on your partner who beat you severely and he takes your child and taunts you on the phone, you are making a bad choice by not immediately calling the police to remove your child from his custody. And, yes, in that case, allowing him unsupervised access to his child is incredibly bad judgment. Doesn't mean I think the mom is horrible and beyond pity. Just means that she is partly responsible for her role in this very specific situation and that's what makes this story particularly tragic.
And now my stomach hurts thinking about this more. So I'll stop talking about it.
Trish:
Thank you for sharing those stories. They help to illustrate that this is not an isolated incident. People do use social media as a cry for help. Sometimes we can reach them through a reply or direct message. But sometimes it does take more than that.
Mr. Topp:
I'm not saying we shouldn't use our brains and just apply a blanket "no tolerance" policy. If I know the person a bit and don't think they are capable of violence, I would probably start with a reply to say "is everything okay?". If they reply back and say "Yeah, I'm okay. I'm just really frustrated, you know?", then we can continue the conversation from there and there is no need to send the police.
However, if I reply with "is everything okay?" and that person has walked away from their computer after writing the (perhaps serious, perhaps not) threat of violence, should we just shrug it off because we assume/hope that they were just kidding?
I think sometimes threats of violence are a (sick) joke, sometimes they are a cry for help, and sometimes they are a true threat. If it is a cry for help, maybe I can reach them through the computer before it is too late if they stick around at their screen. But if they don't and I'm not in the same area as them, then someone else may need to be sent out to respond to that cry for help. If it is a true threat of violence, then alerting the authorities as quickly as possible is what is necessary to try to prevent a tragedy.
There's also "don't joke about having a bomb in your suitcase at the airport".
Jozet:
More than anything, what I hope comes out of this is that people think about how they say things, especially if it is online and especially if you are going to walk away from the computer after typing the statement.
I do hope as well that we, as a society, will learn to be more compassionate towards parents who are dealing with frustrating situations with their children and that we will be less quick to judge. But I think that will be easier if people cut down the violent vocabulary too. I would feel more comfortable approaching a mom and offering help if I heard her yell "I am so annoyed at you right now" (or something similar, throw in expletives if you want) than I would if she was physically assaulting her child or threatening violence, because I would feel threatened too in that situation. I do not approach people who are being violent or threatening violence, for my own safety.
@Leanne - I agree with what you're saying here, at the end of the first paragraph. Unfortunately, there have been cases where "concerned" neighbors or bystanders have called the cops or CPS on mothers who have run into the store, or who had a screaming toddler. It's not always a quick check and then "see you!" Once you have a CPS file they can check up on you until the kiddo is 18. In the States we have this weird binary where there is a hypersurveillance on "normal" parents combined with dysfunctional levels of inability to help those in actual crisis (like this Australia mom. Why would an abusive partner have legal access to the child in the first place? Violence to mom = violence to a child. The whole idea that he never hurt the child is ridiculous. I don't mean that as a comment on the mother's choices because I would not call her in any way responsible for what happened).
On the other hand, I also agree with Annie's larger point about toning down our language. I've started to worry about that more and more now that my child is older - what am I saying out loud in front of him/ about him? What does he hear and what kind of climate am I creating by the way I talk about him when he's not in the room? We're going through a rough patch right now so I'm thinking esp hard about it. I'm a *lot* more careful than I used to be. I'm not judging parents for venting or how they vent. I vent by swearing (not at/about my kids, but just general underbreath mutterings) which I know some people find unacceptable. So my point isn't "Mama X is a bad mother because she uses violent language when frustrated." It's more of a general call to think a bit more about the environments we create through the stories we tell about ourselves, our lives, and our kids.
I think context is important. So is respect for freedom of expression. Family violence is certainly no joke and protection of children is paramount, however this is a point at which political correctness becomes language policing.
I know someone who objects to the word deadline.
As a mentioned in an earlier comment, I wrote a blog post about saying, “I could kill you.” http://wratwrds.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/to-kill-or-not-to-kill. The message of the text was that rhetoric and intent are two different things. The post was in reference to an Ottawa teen who had used similar words and I questioned whether he had any intent to follow through. I used specific language over and over again: “Death to the child” and “You’re life is O-Ver” and so on to illustrate that point.
The English language allows us to say one thing and mean the opposite. Literature is full of examples. Context, details, circumstances and facts must come into play when deriving meaning from what is written or said.
For instance, an ex-con with a rap sheet that includes murder appears on Twitter. He (with a female avatar) tweets, to a mom: “I’d really like to get to know you and your kids better.”
Next tweet is from a pillar of the community – a sweet mom of teething triplets, one of whom just shoved a marble up the nostril of the dog that just chewed her credit cards…She tweets, “Please somebody take them from me.”
In both instances, the meaning is different from the message.
Sure, it’s important to be mindful of how we communicate, but I argue against any hard and fast rules.
Erin, I can definitely get behind a "what effect is our language having on people and can we find ways of improving ourselves, relationships and parenting skills through improved communications" exploration. Statements about what women should and shouldn't say or do, tho, make me want to stick a fork in my eye. KWIM? It sounds like a classic abusive scenario: "don't say something that's going to make me act in a way you don't want me to."
Part of my job is to allow women to explore any and all ways of coping. Some times I watch women be verbally abusive to partners or myself in birthing, sometimes they swear, they often make unreasonable demands, but it's my job to protect their space to act like that because whatever gets them through their stress and to the other side of peace and control is their business, not mine. Any form of "you should only communicate in these prescribed ways" rubs me the wrong way.
Leanne:
I think that women should be encouraged to explore new ways of coping, but I think that saying "any and all" ways of coping are okay does take it too far. I don't think women (or anyone) should be given permission to be abusive towards others to get through a stressful situation. Self-defense is obviously fine, but beyond that I think people do have a responsibility to consider how their words and actions will impact others. Otherwise it opens to door to making racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, bullying, threats of violence and so on "justifiable" as a coping mechanism (which they absolutely are not).
I am totally and completely fine with a woman turning around and saying to other adults "I'm gonna smother this kid if she doesn't go to bed," if it is the control valve that prevents the woman actually smothering the child. And in birth, when a woman tells me to "shut the fuck up" when she's in transition, I'm totally fine with that. That's all I'm saying.
Just thought Katherine Stone's humourous post today in Parentdish was pertinent - or at least of interest - to one of the tangents of this discussion: http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/06/mother-warning-phrases
Awhile back, a woman I knew murdered her baby and then herself. We all said it came out of nowhere. NOWHERE! We didn't see it coming! Not at all! Not one little bit! We blamed other people - her husband, her parents - said that they should have seen in coming. Who else could be expected to recognize the subtle warning signs but them?
But time passes, and with time comes endless hours of introspection, and with that comes...well...unrest. I was much more at peace with their deaths at the time it happened. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that we should have taken the time to just ask. Ask why she kept making certain comments and jokes, ask why she referred to her child in certain terms, we just should have asked. It would have taken half a second and it could have saved two lives.
Or maybe at the very least it could have saved one.
I don't advocate taking everything seriously on Twitter or other social media outlets, and I do think that the two cases you mentioned here are completely different - a history of violence and a history of non-violence - but I do advocate knowing your community and making an effort to be close enough to them to recognize truth or fiction in a social media statement. I have a good friend who makes jokes about selling her toddler, smothering, etc. periodically - and I think that the difference is that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is complaining and trying to be humorous. (She also knew the woman who killed her baby and herself; I think that part of the reason for my confidence is that we have discussed this topic ad nauseum. There is a different sort of relationship between 'survivors' of that sort of thing than otherwise. Those who are left to pick up the pieces also have a habit of picking up a very dark sense of humor.) If for even a second, a tiny little split second, you think that there could be a shred of truth in something like that? Ask. Call. Double check. Report. Wring your hands and wait. Whatever you have to do.
Better safe than sorry.
Actually, studies have shown that when violence/threats are expressed, it's more likely they will occur. That's another good reason NOT to make statements like that. Additionally, when the culture is permeated with these ideas, it makes violence more acceptable and thus increases the frequency.