Blogging mom criticized for tweeting after son’s death


S hellie Ross counts herself among the growing ranks of moms who blog (and tweet), with thousands of followers subscribed to her Twitter feed– an impressive audience for a social media civilian.

Now Ross is in the crosshairs of holier-than-thou critics who haven’t a clue what it’s like to be in her shoes and can lurk behind the anonymity of the internet that most of the time we embrace. Ross is living what every parent fears, experiencing the sudden accidental death of a child on Monday. But what differs in Ross’ experience is that she had the audacity to express her grief on Twitter. Those of us who use the internet daily for work or maintaining important relationships may not find that shocking- and stay at home moms (or dads) are a group in particular who rely on the godsend of internet companionship to alleviate the loneliness that can settle in when parenting small children. So when tragedy visited her family, she reached out to her friends- and was reminded cruelly in her time of need that everyone on the internet isn’t always your friend.

Ross was in the midst of an average day at the beginning of this week, posting updates about her pets and her Christmas decor, including one particularly sad tweet in light of the tragedy:

@themorrisbunch my mom thinks I am nuts for doing a fragile tree with a two year old

Ross posted again in the evening about the weather, at 5:22. Then, at 6:12pm, she posted a request for prayers and details of her son’s fatal accident:

“Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.”

Her next tweet came just over five hours later, indicating that she was “remembering (her) million dollar baby,” with a followup pictures of the boy, who was named Bryson Drago Ross. It didn’t take long for the critics to pile on, assuming they knew what happened, assuming Ross wasn’t watching her child and placing the blame for his tragic death solely on the shoulders of a mother who dared to use the internet while home with her child.

Madison McGraw, who does not know the Ross family, tweeted about the incident and also posted an item on her blog, at www.madisonmcgraw.com, titled “Mom Tweets While Son Drowns.”

“The person that I have compassion for is her son – who might still be alive if (Ross) interacted with her son like she interacted with people on Twitter,” McGraw wrote. “To me, that shows the repercussions for social media gone awry.”

McGraw’s Twitter account lists her hometown as being Bucks County, Pa., which is near Allentown.

Asked by FLORIDA TODAY if she thought it was appropriate to attack a woman she doesn’t know who just lost her son, McGraw responded, “If she didn’t want questions raised at such a painful time, perhaps she shouldn’t have tweeted immediately after her child died. A child is dead because (of) his mother’s infatuation with Twitter.”

It’s a horrible idea to put out there- accidents are preventable, but any parent who doesn’t look at an event like this as a situation in which they could easily find themselves is suffering from a dangerous case of arrogance. The fact remains that despite precautions we all take to safeguard our kids, any one of us can be that unlucky mom or dad who has to break the news to friends and family (via the internet or in person) that something terrible has happened to us or our family. Could you imagine having to explain the situation over and over again without falling apart? Is it any wonder she put the information where it was easily accessible and she could relay it without having to break down crying?

It was bound to happen to a prolific mommy blogger, not because of the fact that these women blog while home with their kids, but statistically children die in accidents more than they do of other causes and many stay at home moms are blogging. To blame the internet, and by extension Shellie Ross, is a fallacy insulting and harmful to all parents. No one but Ross knows what happened between her tweet at 5:22 and the 911 call at 5:38. I hope for Shellie’s sake she was able to grab that last sixteen minutes with her son, but any parent will tell you that the demands of raising a toddler means you don’t get to cherish every single moment. That doesn’t make you a bad parent, it makes you a parent.

[WTSP, Image: ABC]

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