First off, I just want to remind everyone that this is not a mommy blog. I repeat, THIS IS NOT A MOMMY BLOG. It never has been and never will be a mommy blog or even a parenting blog which I am told is the newer, more egalitarian term.

That said, I am taking a page from Chris Crocker and asking the Internet to LEAVE PARENTS ALONE!

Here is a blog post that appeared on a website that helps people find caregivers for their children.

My response is in the comments, but in case it is buried under many new ones, I’m reposting it here:

I realize that the goal of a blog like this is to get traffic to the website and controversial topics are more likely to do that. However, since I assume it is your company’s mission to help parents, I would think seriously about what you are achieving with posts like these. It might seem like just a good-natured parenting debate, but what I hope you know is that many, many parents are insecure about their parenting and all you are accomplishing here is making those millions of parents question themselves further. In addition, you are putting your readers and commenters in the position of making pronouncements on what the “right” approach is and there IS no one right approach to parenting. This is not the first such post that I’ve seen, but I’ve finally gotten fed up enough to comment. The Internet and our media in general are already rife with parenting “advice” and debates that do exactly nothing to help parents unless one considers it helpful to make them doubt themselves further. Please don’t add to this sort of noise on Care.com.

Now, I am singling out Care.com here, but as I wrote in my comment, this applies to SO MANY websites, not to mention books, TV shows, etc., etc.

Can we stop the madness, please?

Oh, but parents buy those books, you’ll likely tell me. They read those websites! They watch those TV shows! And that’s true. It’s true, because systematic destruction of your audience’s self-esteem is a lucrative industry. Just ask so-called “women’s magazines” like Cosmo.

(As an aside, I love how the consumerist justification for all sorts of heinous tripe is that there is a market for it. Heroin has a market too. Does that mean we shouldn’t try to stop dealers from selling it?)

So I’m going to say this one more time to Care.com and everyone else who is guilty of this crap. LEAVE PARENTS ALONE!