Moms Against Online Bullying. I Took The Pledge, Will You?

This evening when I was checking my e-mail, I received a Twitter notification of a new follow from The Mom Pledge. Naturally, I was curious, and visited their website to see what it was all about. Well, it turns out it's about something I can totally relate to: Bullying. No, I am NOT a bully. But I do have an 11 year old son who gets bullied at school, and being a survivor of domestic violence, it's pretty safe to say that I have been bullied myself. Heck, I recently ended a very toxic "friendship" with someone who then took it upon themselves to basically cyber-bully me by harassing my friends and family and spreading lies and major exaggerations about me online.And the things she said were absolutely deplorable, and 99% false. And the 1% that wasn't false was completely mis-construed and made to sound absolutely awful when the ACTUAL truth wasn't so bad. And for what? Did I call and harass this person? Nope. Did I do anything but treat this person with kindness? Nope. I never spoke an ill word about her. So why did I have to endure having my friends and family e-mailed psychotic rantings? What did I do to deserve this horrible treatment? Wait for it.....I was treated like this because I was tired of the never-ending drama that surrounded this person and when they started to bring it in my direction,I de-friended them on Facebook. My friends and family, who thank God knew better than to believe this person, were harassed because I deleted her from my Facebook page.Ridiculous, isn't it?

The truth of the matter is, bullying is not something that just exists in the school-yard. Grown women partake in this every day. They gossip, they talk behind one another's backs, they even try and cause misery to one another and hurt each other on a very deep level. The so-called-friend I walked away from said things to me that were downright cruel. She literally took all of my insecurities and played on them, saying the most hurtful things she could to me, and I cried for weeks, wondering what I ever did to deserve how she was treating me. I easily could have done the same thing back to her, but I didn't. Why would I want to go out of my way to hurt someone? Women can be truly ugly to one another, and more often than not, there is no good reason for it. The Mom Pledge is all about women standing up and making their voices heard against online bullying between women. We, as women, can take a stand and have a zero tolerance policy for this petty and very juvenile behavior. We CAN make a difference, one mom at a time. Are we always going to agree with one another? No. Are we always going to like everyone we meet? Again, no. But we CAN treat everyone with dignity and respect, and we can rise above the urge to bare our proverbial claws and lash out at someone who may or may not deserve it. Life is too damn short to be nasty to one another. We as moms should be helping one another, not HATING one another.

I took The Pledge. Will you? Let's stop the hate, ladies, and be a good example for our children.