Freedom of Speech?

So I am on twitter and Meaghan tweets out about an incident last night on twitter. She said that someone was on twitter and tweeted that:

Now, as a blogger, I can say that I write a lot of things here that I don’t think twice about. Call it freedom of expression or freedom of speech or maybe trying to get my point across to my readers. I have most definitely used phrases on forums, chatrooms,  and blogs that are like “I’m going to kill my daughter/DH” . I mean, have you SEEN who I live with? Miss Priss and Crazy Dancer Guy?

In my world:

Kill = They are driving me insane and if they don’t leave my inner circle, I wont be responsible for going ballistic.

Ballistic = going to take a bath in silence for an hour and let them fend for themselves

Expressions are……..expressions. When I was growing up, “that is so gay” was used all the time. Gay was synonym for stupid. (not making this up) Now, if you say “that is so gay“, your totally going to offend someone that is………..well………gay!

Are we seriously calling CPS on ONE tweet that said they were going to ‘smother’ their daughter? Hell, her daughter was probably  like mine last night…got a little ice cream in her tummy and turned into a screaming, whining, no nap, sugar induced annoying child that I am sure is not related to me. Does that mean if someone hears me telling Charlotte she “better straighten up or else” next time she is begging for a candy bar in the check out lane that I can expect a line of policemen at my door on my way home from Target? I have come to the conclusion that people will NEVER be happy with what you do as a parent. If I let Charlotte act like a punk in public (and no matter how good of a child she is, she is a child), I am a bad parent for letting her misbehave. If I discipline her, I open up my technique, whatever that may be for the day, to someone elses opinion on whether or not THEY approve of how I am handling it. Its lose/lose.

For the record, I think we have given our kids the tools to make us afraid to parent. Even THEY know that CPS is serious. My DH said that his sister used to threaten their father with calling CPS when she got in trouble. WTF.

I’m just wondering where the line is here. Should we all be worried to blog our feelings for fear of retribution. Lets be real…text doesn’t exactly convey expression or tone that well. If you have ever had the pleasure of being a part of a group of online women, you already know that. (and not referring to the girls on the MomDot Forum. They have made it 6 months without so much of ONE argument. Its like living in the Twilight Zone. I may have possibly accumulated the only spot on the net that are not backstabbing, narcissistic b*tches)

You can be totally joking and someone else  wont always “hear” the sarcasm in text, kwim? Partly because we are working without truly knowing someone. I am a super sarcastic, but meaning well most of the time, person. But if you have never actually MET me, and chances are you haven’t, you wouldn’t realize that. Now, if someone was talking all night about a boyfriend cheating and how they were going to get a gun and go kill them…ok, a little concern would come up and I would probably talk to that person and try to judge if it was just anger or seriousness, but CPS is NOT a joke. Even McDonalds father didn’t have me calling CPS from his very public display of craptastic parenting.

Do I need a disclaimer on my blog and twitter that says “Slightly deranged mother, may talk a lot of doodoo about a lot of things, use lots of expressions,  hopped up on coke (that’s COLA, for those of you wanting to call CPS or the DEA) wont actually be tying daughter up in her room till she decides to brush her teeth and put away her toys.”

Good grief.

~trisha[/private]