Overreact Much?

[Rageaholic]

So a kid posts a 'meninist' meme on facebook. His mom sees the meme and goes ballistic, spamming his facebook page with angry messages chewing him out. She even says that she plans on showing the post to every girl he brings home.

And the daily mail thinks the mom was in the right

The meme wasn't even that offensive. It was pointing out some perceived double standards. It's false, and kind of tacky, but mom took this way too personally.

And I doubt the parent would be applauded if the genders were reversed.

[KabeRinnaul]

On the one hand, we don't know what was going on in their home, and what the son's current relationship with his mom is.

On the other, I'm still pretty much siding with the mom entirely on grounds of how dumb the image is, and he's a teenager sharing that bull on Facebook, so probably a little tool anyway.

Never mind that the women's side being limited to "no fatties" means a lot of negative traits are allowed, like, for example, implying that the creator would rather have a meth addict than, say, Elle King. The men's side seems to amount to "I'm an unemployed, overweight, passive slob, and I'm upset that no one likes me."

[TheHuckster]

I'm still pretty much siding with the mom entirely on grounds of how dumb the image is, and he's a teenager sharing that bull on Facebook, so probably a little tool anyway.

Sorry, no matter what, if you're an immature teenager who posts something offensive or inappropriate, this is never the correct reaction. You don't have a raging fit on his public profile screaming about how you're going to hold this over his head until his wedding day and tell all of his prospective girlfriends what a pig he is.

Instead, you calmly tell him how inappropriate his post was, have an intelligent discussion about why it's wrong, and hope he learns a lesson from it.

I know I have said idiotic things when I was 14 and got schooled by my mother. She took me aside, had a serious one-on-one talk about what I said, and that was that. Possibility of me being an asshole dick when I grew up diminished.

[Greenday]

I'm still pretty much siding with the mom entirely on grounds of how dumb the image is, and he's a teenager sharing that bull on Facebook, so probably a little tool anyway.

I'm not. She drastically overreacted. That's the kind of reaction that gets her blocked on Facebook. This is why you don't add older family members on Facebook because they don't know how to use it and act immature with their responses to stuff.

[s_stabeler]

was the image dumb? somewhat- more or less, the image is saying that men have to meet far stricter standards than women if they want to find a girlfriend. (it's not exactly true- it's more that guys with this kind of attitude tend to mainly just want sex, while the women they meet tend to want more than that. IF a woman just wanted sex, she may well have just as low standards. Since many people want an actual relationship, yeah, you need to meet higher standards.)

However, the mothers' reaction is going way too far. As has been pointed pout, apparently the mother plans on bringing this up forever- including pointing this out to any future girlfriends he has to encourage them to dump him. ( literally, she says he will be single forever) which si NOT the correct way to go about handling this.

The correct response:
1. confront your son- calmly explain why the image is inappropiate. confront your son IN PRIVATE, not in public
2. require your son to take down the picture
3. give your son a punishment for being such an idiot (make sure it is NOT disproportionate)
4. drop the matter (what I mean is don't keep bringing it up- sure, if your son keeps being stupid online, bring that fact up, but don't keep brining up the individual incidents


what she's threatening to do is essentially make sure her son never has a girlfriend, and effectively is punishing her son forever over this. I know we don't know how the son acts- however, frankly, she sounds far too harsh.

[Gravekeeper]

This is a "Why not both?" scenario.

As in, they're both idiots and everyone lost. -.-

[Anthony K. S.]

I have a prediction :

Once this boy starts dating, you're going to hear "How much longer are you going to keep this up?" asked several times in their home. But not the way you might think. It'll probably go more like this :

"Come on, honey. You've been dating this girl for over three months now. When do I get to meet her?"
"Never, if I can help it."
"Oh, not this again. I've apologized for that about a million times already. I swear, I won't say anything bad to her. I just want to meet her."
"Fine. But I want all of our computers locked up in the basement before she comes."
"Sigh."

Actions have consequences. He has learned that, and I strongly suspect that she's going to.

[TheHuckster]

This is a "Why not both?" scenario.

As in, they're both idiots and everyone lost. -.-

Nobody's arguing what the kid posted was right. It's a parent's job to, when they see their kid act like an idiot, do something to correct it. There are many good ways to do that, and this is not one of them.

All I'm saying is the mother's reaction has a greater magnitude of idiocy than the kid's. The kid is regurgitating some idiocy he found on the Internet. Many kids do, and some grow out of it, while others don't. The mother, who has an expectation to be much more mature, has a reaction which has a low chance of ever "correcting" the kid's idiocy and as a result the kid will likely remain an idiot. And probably a perpetually single idiot at that.

[Shangri-laschild]

I saw this posted somewhere and based on how it was talked about, I was expecting some clever or sarcastic response from the mom that pointed out the problem. This however was just the mom losing her temper and freaking out. Her reacting like this helps nothing.

[s_stabeler]

Her reacting like this helps nothing.

it helps the kind of moron who first created the pic- because it's a clear-cut case of a woman treating a man unfairly. Considering the main complaint of the MRA idiots is that men are treated unfairly in today's society...

[TheHuckster]

it helps the kind of moron who first created the pic- because it's a clear-cut case of a woman treating a man unfairly. Considering the main complaint of the MRA idiots is that men are treated unfairly in today's society...

I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the MRA community is citing the article as an example of oppression of males.

[kibbles]

It sounds like a raving lunatic!

[Shangri-laschild]

it helps the kind of moron who first created the pic- because it's a clear-cut case of a woman treating a man unfairly. Considering the main complaint of the MRA idiots is that men are treated unfairly in today's society...

That is very true, especially if her son is already an MRA. If he's posting stuff like that there is a decent chance he may have ended up one if he wasn't already.

[Valinor]

I've looked at several articles online about this incident. I've noticed that the writers of these articles are usually very quick to praise the mother, but the comments written on the articles tend to be overwhelmingly negative - especially from women.

One female commentor wrote :

"The hate pent up in this mom for her son is terrifying. I would be afraid to ever set her off. There are better ways to correct/teach children than to curse at them publicly ... This mother needs therapy."

Another woman said :

"I think the reaction from this 'mom' is way over the top and a little ridiculous. The boy was making a valid point about the shallow expectations of both sexes ... I am both a mother and a grandmother and there are much better ways of teaching your child unless you hate your child."

More than a few comments called the mother's behavior "emotional abuse." Also, some female commentors pointed out that there's a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg thing at work here :

"So, this boy has a negative opinion of women, does he? Gee, I cannot imagine where he could possibly have gotten it from."

"If this is in any way indicative of how this mother speaks to and treats her son, it's no wonder that he doesn't know any better."

"It's no surprise that this kid posted an obnoxious meme. He learned to be obnoxious from birth."

"Small wonder that he has a negative view of women. If this is how she speaks to him publicly, I don't even want to imagine what she says to him when they're alone. Instead of calling him names and threatening to sabotage all of his future relationships, perhaps a heart-to-heart discussion of why he feels the way he does is in order."

It's a valid point, one worth considering, but we don't actually know that what she did here is typical of how she treats her son. It's definitely not a good indication, to put it mildly, but we should not draw sweeping conclusions about a person's views or behavior based on one incident. Speaking of which :

That is very true, especially if her son is already an MRA. If he's posting stuff like that there is a decent chance he may have ended up one if he wasn't already.

It depends on what you mean by "a decent chance." Not enough of one, in my opinion, to do anything other than simply ask him what his views are and address them.

I haven't seen any articles that indicated that he ever made any sexist statements other than this one. Considering how quick the article writers were to praise the mother, I'd be willing to bet that they would have mentioned it if they knew of anything else he'd done that was similar to this. It's a bit of a leap to draw any conclusions about his political or social views based on just one meme he shared.

Also, we don't know where he got this image from. He might have been reading meninist websites, or he might have come across the meme in a Google search, or somebody might have sent it to him, or any of a dozen other things.

In my opinion, the only possibilities that are reasonably supported by the thin evidence we have are the really moderate ones, such as that the kid has a really immature sense of humor, or that he was unhappy about something (maybe he asked a girl for a date and got turned down in a really rude manner) and was just acting out (again, very immaturely).

She even says that she plans on showing the post to every girl he brings home.

Meh. All he has to do is sit down with the girl before bringing her to the house, show her the meme he posted, and explain that it was a really stupid, immature thing he once did, that he now sincerely regrets.

Then, he shows her the images of his mother's online rant, and explains to the girl that no matter how many times he's apologized, his mother just won't let it go.

I would bet money that at least 9 times of 10, the girl will sympathize with the boy and judge the mother harshly, rather than the other way around.

And I doubt the parent would be applauded if the genders were reversed.

Well, that just goes without saying.

Actions have consequences. He has learned that, and I strongly suspect that she's going to.

Cry me a river. She made her bed. Now she's just going to have to lie in it.

[Shangri-laschild]

It depends on what you mean by "a decent chance." Not enough of one, in my opinion, to do anything other than simply ask him what his views are and address them.

To clarify, I didn't mean a decent chance of it happening due to him posting this stuff without being confronted, I meant the manner in which his mother addressed him was more likely to drive him in that direction than make him see her point.