To Tweet, Or Not To Tweet

Fox News presented a story this morning about a woman whose 4 year old son drowned in a pool and she was tweeting about it on Twitter half an hour later. Some were taking the position that it was just appalling that a mom would do it.

First of all, I cannot even begin to imagine the pain the mom had to have been going through.

Secondly, no one should judge how someone else grieves. Grief is completely personal and no two people approach it the same way.

Having said that, I have to say I, too, was shocked at first but only for a second. In today's electronically connected world it might have seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do. We send text and mass emails, share information through blogs and Facebook. Why not Twitter?

It might have actually made the process marginally easier to deal with. That mother could tell the tragic news once and all her friends and family got it. She didn't have to retell it, and relive it, dozens of times. Say it once and then get on to the next thing she needed to deal with. Most likely funeral arrangements.

I know when Mom's husband was sick their friend did the Dicky Chronicles and it was a way to get the news out - both the good and the bad - to a large group of friends, who could then share it with other friends. There is no random repeating of the facts (which can get messed up in the translation) and no inadvertently forgetting to call someone while you were deep in your grief and shock. I think it probably helped by Mom in a lot of ways.

So, while I am often reprimanded for being "too plugged in" and not spending time with my family, I do see there are advantages to having these large online groups. I have been able to reconnect with childhood friends and family members that have become scattered over the years. It helps that I know they are only a mouse click away.

Before anyone criticizes the way someone else handles a tragedy I think they should step back and stop for a minute. People younger than me spend an awful lot of time on their electronics and they think nothing of sharing news that way. The mother of a 4 year old is most likely quite a bit younger than I and probably falls into that category. They have their cell phones on and ready 24/7 so it was most likely just instinct that she picked it up and tweeted.

I guess, like everything else in life, things are a matter of perspective. I'd say all things in moderation, including living electronically, but who am I to decide how someone else should live their life? As long as they are truly living it.

I also think, at least in this case, the breaths wasted on being critical would have been better spent praying for a young mother and family that just lost a child and will never be the same.