You are not a village, you are a bully

Dear Fargo, ND Village Woman writing Halloween trick notes to fat kids:

Kudos to you for being the latest moron to go viral on the internet. I’ve been waiting for a while for someone to dethrone Maria Kang and her accusatory abs. I also enjoyed the internet take down of that crazy mom of boys who chastised girls for wearing too little clothing in facebook pictures. Lo and behold, today you decided to step into the limelight and share your crazytown opinions with the world. Thank you for opening your mouth and giving me a reason to bark right back at you.

Normally Halloween is a time when parents have to worry about pedophiles and people putting razor blades inside of candy. Now thanks to you, we get to check our kids candy bags for mean spirited notes telling them that they are fat.

I am sure that in your head you mean well. And yes, I agree that the statistics on childhood obesity are terrible. But your plan to publicly shame children who are overweight is horrible and abusive.

Since you’ve decided that “their kids are everybody’s kids…it takes a village”, I will assume that I am equally justified in pointing out what lessons your poor choice is teaching your/our/everybody’s kids.

1. Passive Aggressive is the new black.Yeah, that’s right. I said it. Sending a letter to me (or any other mom) through their child is completely passive aggressive. If you think that I am doing a poor job in parenting and that MY decisions are having a negative impact on my child’s happiness and future, grow a pair and come on over and talk to ME about it. Not my kid. You can leave the kids right out of the discussion. If you come and talk to me and that talk doesn’t go well…then go and talk to another ADULT. Yes, a grown-up. Again, not the children.
2. Online shaming is so 2012. Our kids are going to have to deal with bullying in ways we, the pre-internet generation, could never imagine. We good parents focus our attention on protecting them from online bullies. Good work on reminding us that old-school, in your face public shaming is still alive and well. I really can’t wait to see the reactions of a mixed group of kids when all but one of them get handfuls of sugary goodness and the other gets a note for their mom. I’m sure that won’t be scarring or anything.
3. Perfection really must be a burden for you. It must be so hard to be such a perfect parent. It would be so tiresome watching the rest of us muddle through life, struggling with our own burdens and feelings about weight, health, money and happiness. I bet you lay awake at night wondering what else you can do to help little old me achieve the perfect life, like yours. Thank goodness we can count on you to take time to inform and guide the little (or should I say not so little) people.

It doesn’t take a village to see that your twisted plan has some fatal flaws in it. Please don’t take a bad situation and make it much, much worse. Channel your energies into working together with your fellow village elders to find a sustainable solution to the problem instead of setting out to tackle it on your own.

The distance between village leader and village idiot is pretty darned short. You just took that step.