Your Mom Doesn't Approve of My Blog (I'm a Sleaze Bag)

No disrespect to your mama but she started it.

For the most part, whenever I’ve met anyone's mother (or father) they've generally liked me. I have home training, am well-spoken and display manners in the company of elders. Monday, however, I had a bad run-in with someone's mama—on FaceBook.

I was sitting at my desk when my Blackberry went off (it tends to do that a lot). I glanced down at the screen saw an alert for a new FaceBook message. I don't have Internet access on my phone (long story) and I generally only log into my account when I'm home, so I usually just skim the messages on my phone and deal with them (or forget them) when I get back to the crib.

The subject line of this particular message, though, caught my eye. It read:

Subject: you sleaze bag!!

Who me? This must have been someone playing around I thought. I glanced at the sender’s name and didn't recognize it, so curiosity got the better of me and I opened the message.

Here's what it said, unedited:

"listen here, every post you place on my daughter's page is sex sleaze !!!, get your mind out of the gutter and do something to alleviate your desperation !!, find yourself a partner, pay for an escort or other alternatives, but don't continue to post desperate sex deprived reflections of yourself, alot of young family members read my daughter's page !!"

What?!?!

I had no idea who this woman or her daughter was and I know my blog ain't PG-13; but me, a sleaze bag? LMBAO—literally.

I looked back at the woman's email and tried to think of who I knew with that same last name and no one came to mind. If there was someone on my friends list with that surname I definitely didn't tag them that day. In fact, I generally only tag folks I know personally, other bloggers or someone I feel will be interested in the day's topic. So the likelihood of this woman’s daughter being someone that wasn’t familiar with me or my writing was nil.

I know some of my posts can be racy (cough, cough, Wet Wednesdays) so I purposely make it a point not to violate the personal/digital space of anyone I don't really know like that by posting something that might be considered inappropriate on his or her page. Besides, Monday's blog was about how having sex too soon could potentially ruin a relationship; what's so "sleazy" about that?

**Shrugs**

After I had a good chuckle about the angry mama email I took to Twitter to share the hilarity with the rest of my online community by tweeting:

LMAO. Someone's mama just called me a sleaze bag because of my blog. Hilarious. Made my day.

Truthfully, I wasn't trippin' at all but I had to know who's mama this was. I logged into FB and saw that me and the mystery woman had only three mutual friends, all females (with different last names than the angry mama) that I knew for a fact read my blog. SMH.

My girl Janine was one of them and she happened to be on IM at the time so I hit her up like, "Do you have a crazy mama?" She didn't, so that meant one of the remaining two girls did. Through a process of elimination I was able to connect the dots on the mystery daughter from there.

It was my homegirl Kathy’s mama. Kathy and I might not be BFFs but we do run in similar circles. Unfortunately, I didn't have her personal info other than FB and Twitter. I didn’t feel like dry snitching on her mama, but that message kept igging me.

I know it was just an overzealous mama bear protecting one of her cubs so that wasn't an issue, I'm used to people not always understanding what NWSO is all about. The problem was her overall approach and all those out of pocket accusations. If I was a man of lesser character I would have let this lady have it, but two wrongs don't make a right but it damn sure makes us even and having online beef with someone's mama is a bit lame.

Still, I couldn't get in touch with Kathy and that message was gnawing away at me. I just had to respond. Rather than flying off the handle, though, I decided to kill her with kindness by writing the following response:

Greetings Ms. XXXXX,

Despite the tone of your message to me and use of name calling, I will refrain from responding in the same manner and will instead choose a respectful discourse as my own mother taught me such.

Firstly, I don't know who your daughter is [technically I did by that time but I was trying to make a point] as you never identified her in your personal attack of my character and I don't know anyone who shared your last name. However, I see we have three mutual friends in common and of those three individuals they all know me personally and can vouch for my character, despite what assumptions you may make based on my blog posts.

For the record, I am a relationship and sex blogger so by default conversations about sex and relationships are part of the job. While some are admittedly racy they are honest adult conversations about life, relationships, sex education, news and entertainment. Who knows, if you actually took time to read the full posts there might even be something you might find of interest or could learn from as the other readers do. But that's besides the point.

Once I weeded through the name calling I got to your point, which was that some of my topics may not be age appropriate for younger family members that come to your daughter's page. That's a totally reasonable concern and a simple email explaining that would have sufficed or you could have just told your daughter to relay the message to me and I could easily have stopped tagging her and that would have been it.

While I understand a mother's concern for her daughter's well being, I doubt that the name calling and false accusations were called for. I'm an adult and quite capable of having an adult conversation regarding family and what is appropriate. Your daughter never made any concerns known to me that there was an issue with my posts appearing on her page so I was unaware of any problems with tagging her.

In closing, apologies in advance for offending you by the promotion of my work/writing as it was clearly unintentional. Once I find out who your daughter is I can easily stop tagging her and then there will be no more need for further dialogue on this matter.

I wish you well and a blessed day.

Sincerely yours,

XXXXXX

PS

I'm actual a nice guy, as I'm sure your daughter will vouch for.

It's been four days since I sent that message and I still haven't gotten a reply. (UPDATE: I got a reply and proper apology). I did, however, hear repeatedly from an embarrassed Kathy, who has apologized profusely for her mother's actions as well.

I learned a long time ago that as a blogger you have to have a thick skin so I took it all in stride. In fact, the whole thing was all quite amusing to me and to a certain extent could be considered a compliment. They say the biggest accomplishment for any writer is to be able to evoke emotion from his or her readers. I must be getting pretty darn good if I can get a rise out of someone's mama.

Maybe I should send mama a friend request so I can tag her on this post. Nah, that might come off “sleazy.” LOL.

What would you do if your mother sent a message like that to your favorite blogger? Would you be embarrassed or would just laugh it off? Do you think that mama had a right to be angry at my blog posts appearing on her daughter’s page where other family members can see? Or was this a case of an overprotective and overzealous mother? How do you think she could have handled this issue differently? Was I wrong for responding? Did my email come off rude? Would you have replied similarly or would you have let mama have it for coming out of pocket? What would you do if one of your friends disrespected your mama online?

Speak your piece...