Ever since Smartmom announced that she would boldly keep writing about her kids, our “Inbox” has been filled with outrage and support (mostly outrage!). Here are some of the latest comments we’ve received.
“Dear Brooklyn Paper: 20 comments begging you to stop publishing this dreck. Which part of ‘Smartmom s—ks’ don’t you understand? I would rather read Scientology literature.”
Damn from Park Slope
“It’s strange that some people are so negative [about] this column. It’s one column, which takes up a fraction of one page, in one neighborhood newspaper. It’s not Big Brother-mandated reading; and isn’t being read aloud and blasted from rooftop speakers. If I got this vexed and obsessive [about] columnists, I’d have a psychotic break whenever I opened any newspaper, or would have to quit reading altogether.Bob from Pk Slope
“You’re using your children and your family in a far more public forum than a discussion with two of your friends at Sweet Melissa’s. That you even equate the two is a telling sign of what’s wrong with this column.”Emma B. from Park Slope
“I think what’s going on here is that many readers of Louise’s column (undoubtedly mostly parents themselves) who may have even enjoyed the column up to now, have become uncomfortable with the fact that she’s discussing her kids’ personal lives in a newspaper against their wishes. As readers, we become complicit in that uncomfortable family dynamic, and if it’s something we wouldn’t do to our own kids, we don’t want to participate in it being done to someone else’s kids. And many of the comments have taken a positive spin, encouraging her to look for other sources of inspiration rather than just stop writing.
Of course, it’s just as possible that revealing her family’s feelings, and the attendant soap-opera quality of the online back-and-forth (which her editors are milking rather shamelessly), will gain her readers rather than lose them. So who knows what the calculus is? But I don’t think you can say the negative reaction comes from nowhere.”
Parent from Brooklyn Heights
