Are Women Just Mean? (Or Only When It Comes To Beyonce?)

Picture from http://beyoncepregnantpictures.net/ (Just a little creeped out right now that there is a whole website devoted to this and I went on it.)

Beyonce


I actually don't know who she is.  I think she is a singer, but since I mostly listen to Ray Charles and Mark Knopfler, she isn't on my play list and probably never will be. 

Apparently she had a baby.  (Or maybe it was a surrogate and she was just pretending to be pregnant.  People TOTALLY do that!).  And she had the baby via planned c-section.  (Or was it all natural?  I can't keep track.  They are about the same.)  Also, you may have heard that she stopped people from visiting their babies in the NICU because her bodyguards only let Beyonce into the NICU.  Or maybe that was made up.

I don't know and I don't care.  

If you are like me, you are probably wondering right about now why on earth I am talking about this.  I really don't give a hoot how she birthed.  Well, of course I care about birth, but I just hope hers and every woman's birth is happy and joyful and healthy.

WHY am I talking about this?

Truthfully, all this drama and meanness towards a celebrity that I have never met and don't actually care about really bothered me.

Now, there is a distinct possibility that I am pre-menstrual.  There is definitely a full moon looming.  Or maybe this just got to me because it was really pretty mean spirited.

And you know what else?  I have written about being nice a lot.  Like, A LOT (yes, those are two separate words.)  In fact, over and over again.  I am not just telling other people to be nice, I am talking to myself.  I am mean.  But mostly to my husband.  (Is that better or worse?   Uh-oh...)

But when I see all the hatred that people are throwing at some singer or a mother of 20 or some other person they don't actually KNOW IN REAL LIFE just because they did something we don't agree with or don't like, it makes me sad.

In fact, it makes me a little ashamed I am a woman.  Because, let's be real, this is the girls attacking each other most of the time. 

I hear people joke sometimes about how women are catty or mean spirited.  They talk about the mommy wars and backbiting and gossip and cruelty.  I remember saying myself that teenage girls can be the meanest things on the planet.  I mean, I remember being ONE.  It was ugly.

I like to think that we are better than this.  I want to believe that we are not just catty and cruel.  But over and over I am proven a little bit wrong. 

I hope this is not the case.  

Maybe I sound sexist when I say this, but I think one of the fabulous things about women is a natural leaning towards nurturing and kindness.  I hope that we can cultivate that a little more.  It seems obvious that we need to.

I hope that we can remember that meanness in any part of our lives will seep into our family.  I have never had a day that I was cruel to somebody or even just thought mean things about someone that did not rub off on my family a little.

When I am thinking nasty thoughts about somebody else because I am mad or better than them or they wronged me, I am always a little more short with my kids.  I find myself a little more irritated with my husband.  I get angry a little faster.

Cruelty in my heart gets taken out on those around me.  I am willing to bet that I am not the only one who has this problem.   

There is no such thing as a time and a place where it is OK to be mean.  There just isn't.  It isn't OK to treat our husbands or our kids like that.  It isn't even OK to talk that way about a filthy rich celebrity.  It is just mean and ugly and it adds a little more cruelty to a world that is already overflowing with sad stories.

I think we can be better than this.

I think we can be nurturers, but first we have to nurture that in ourselves.  I think we can be loving, but first we have to show love when it is easier to be nasty.  I think we can be kinder, but first we need to remember that kindness begins with us.