It all goes back to insecurity.

There was a very interesting conversation on a parenting community I visit on occasion. This vegan mom was saying that her meat eating friends are really antagonistic toward her, and when she posts pics online of food she's made, or even mentions food, people go out of their way to tell her they ate a big steak for dinner the previous night, or something else equally crappy and uncalled for. Other vegetarian and vegan moms reported similar issues with friends of theirs. It's a very common thing. People are threatened by vegetarians and vegans for some inexplicable reason, and they express that by being really mean to them every time the topic of food comes up.

I think this goes farther than diet, though. I think the reason why so many people are mean to moms who (borrowing my Drill Sergeant's words here) take the hard right over the easy wrong is because they took the easy wrong, and feel guilty about that.

Not one person who's ever told me I'm nasty for cloth diapering has ever, in fact, tried cloth diapering. They unquestioningly filled up the landfill along with Proctor and Gamble's bank account, and anyone who dares to do better is a threat to them because they feel guilty over it then. Of course, I don't go seeking out disposable diapering parents to school on their carbon footprint, but I have a toddler. Diapers come up in conversation. When someone offers me a Pampers coupon, I tell them we use cloth. That, or they see me change Orren, and from there, it's obvious that we use cloth. Then a lot of times they say something really nasty to me. I don't give it the justification of a response or anything, because I know I'm doing the right thing, and the opinions of people of no consequence don't matter, but the fact remains, there are a lot of people in this world who are as nasty to cloth diapering mommies as they are to vegans.

Ditto extended rear-facing. You would not even believe how rude people have been to me about it, and people I've said NOTHING to. They tell me that I can't bear to see my kids grow up, so I keep them in car seats forever, or that I'm depriving Orren of seeing the world (Sorry, but he can see the world OUTSIDE of the car. Plus, he can still see out the window. Who cares if it's backward?) The thing is, it's not always easy to keep a bigger toddler rear-facing, but it's far safer, so we take the hard right over the easy wrong. People feel threatened by this, even though it's something anyone can do.

Then there's the old standard, breastfeeding. Everyone who's ever breastfed can tell you at least one story about someone who told them it was nasty. Hell, I only breastfed my kids very briefly, and I can even tell you about the disapproving looks I got while trying to nurse Orren in the car at the Savannah Mall when he was about a week old. People are extremely disapproving of it, and it's always the ones who didn't even try.

I seriously think people have a hefty dose of guilt over crappy decisions they themselves made, or things they know they could have done better, and try to justify that to themselves by putting people down who have put the time and commitment in to make the better decision. I don't think anyone who's truly confident in their decision actually feels the need to put others down about theirs.

The real problem with this is that it creates a vicious cycle. These people are mean to us, so after a while, we get sick of it, and tell them some home truths, then we're the mean evil ones, when really, if they weren't so insecure as to feel the need to be mean to us, it never would have come to that point. It's stupid, but it's also pretty apparent that it comes of a lack of confidence in taking the popular route rather than the best route that causes this kind of thing.