The great thing about social media is that there are groups for just about everything. Dogs, parenting, garage sales, women’s groups, cancer support, cooking, gardening, collecting certain things, you name it. I belong to some parenting groups because, well, I am more of a late stage parent as a step parent, so it’s a great way to learn.

In one parenting group, a post caught my eye. The poster was one of those women whose profile photo was like a head shot. Perfectly coifed hair, professionally done make up and wearing a strapless dress like she was auditioning for a Real Housevives show.

The post was crowd sourcing where to get a dog and bashing a rescue which had turned her down. There were a ton of comments including from her. She was exhibiting shall we say potty mouth. Kind of ironic on a parenting page where there are often comments about how can people get their kids to not curse and not exhibit aggressive and unpleasant behaviors.

Hmmmm.

This woman goes on and on about how wonderful she is and how wronged she was and bashes the rescue some more. When challenged about rescue bashing and potty mouth in a place about parenting and mostly parenting small children, wowza. Super classy…..not. More like a bare knuckles brawler with an expensive manicure.

 If I was a rescue having to decide on her, lordy I feel sorry for them. But truthfully (based upon her comments), her issue seems to be that somewhere in the application and interview process she did not meet their criteria.  Ok pretty simple: rescues and even shelters have rules for a reason. If you don’t meet their criteria move onto a rescue you have better chemistry with or try to politely work it out. Lord knows there are a lot of homeless animals out there.

But the whole thing about a woman who puts forth an image of super coiffed and living on the Main Line and not being able to use their words well enough that they can’t avoid expletives of any level on a group page they don’t own or control where they are basically a guest like everyone else? Unnecessary and poor form. And somewhat distasteful. If they want to do that on their personal page, well that is one thing and basically dumb. But on a group page? Come on and grow up. 

And I also don’t know what it is about dog rescue conversations online but aren’t you sick of them going from zero to nasty in a blink of an eye ?  There are so many animals needing homes, yet some people have to start this controversy constantly basically because they do not like being told in essence,  “no”. Why not try to work with these rescues ? Work through their reservations? Or (again) if you don’t have chemistry with one rescue, move onto another?

And truthfully for me what I don’t care for about these conversations other than the acrimony is the cursing in a public forum like that. Surely other words can be chosen? Or does that also go hand in hand with being told “no” or anything else they don’t want to hear?

How can we teach our children well when the adults in the room are behaving like idiots?

Just saying.