Basic attitudes about family (spouse, siblings, female, male)

[Escort Rider]

Not too long ago I posted a thread in the Writing Forum about people who say they are writers but who are not. I used the example of my female cousin and mentioned that she is a loser. I reaped a firestorm of protest from posters who seemed to feel it improper to criticize a family member. I tried without notable success to direct the discussion back onto the thread topic and off of my cousin personally. With considerable reluctance I finally answered some of the questions about her, at one point stating that all of her sibilings and all of the other cousins agreed she is a loser. That brought the comment that the poor soul is encumbered with a horrible family.

If I had realized what a distraction calling her a loser was going to be, I would have omitted that from my OP. As it was I was surprised by the vehemence of some posters (and their personal attacks on me) whose ideology about family seems to require that we not call a spade a spade if it comes to family members. I suppose it would be O.K. with those people to talk about a neighbor or a co-worker in the same negative terms, just not a family member.

Personally I don't understand what family has to do with it. In this world there are, unfortunately, people who are undeniably all sorts of things: alcoholics, drug addicts, liars, cheats, moochers, drama queens, criminals of various sorts, and so on. Certainly no one believes that people in those categories don't have other people related to them? Even murderers have parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, and sometimes even children of their own. This is simply an objective fact.

So I guess according to the "speak-no-evil-about-family-members" point of view we just shouldn't mention such things, even on an anonymous internet forum? It doesn't make sense to me. But thinking about it brings home how deeply rooted such basic attitudes are; during childhood some people must pick up that concept and accept it as unquestioned dogma. Otherwise how am I to understand what I ran into in the other forum?

Your thoughts on the matter?

[key4lp]

I didn't read your original post so I don't know everything about your cousin but I would like to respond. I don't know
why some posters would attack you. I will say this, I do not believe that anyone should put up with toxic family
members. This notion and attitude that "it's your family" to take any kind of abuse is absurd to me. I agree with you
that if it were a neighbor, co-worker, an abusive spouse, etc... you don't have to take it. The word "Divorce" to
dissolution, severance, divide, sever, detach, dissociate & dissolve one-self is the healthy (mentally) solution to
live a happier life.

[fallingwater]

I think because the word loser is subjective, this could have been part of the problem. Also I find certain forums are some what closed. What I mean by this is that some have several long time members seem to control the overall attitude within that specific forum. I have seen quite a bit of bullying type behavior until the mod breaks it up.

now back to your original question. Some people feel you shouldnt talk ill of family out of respect and others do it because they are enablers. I vent about family because I need to get it out at times.

[cremebrulee]

You should distance yourself from toxic family members, you will never gain anything from them, least of all their appoval....for years I tried to get my maternal mother to like me, let alone love me, but it was futile...finally decided, it was never going to happen....my cousin hasn't talked to her own mother for 35 years...her mother and my mother are sisters....both should have never been a mother....
I find you calling them a loser, a man's term for dysfunctional?

[Escort Rider]

Originally Posted by fallingwater

I think because the word loser is subjective, this could have been part of the problem. Also I find certain forums are some what closed. What I mean by this is that some have several long time members seem to control the overall attitude within that specific forum. I have seen quite a bit of bullying type behavior until the mod breaks it up.

now back to your original question. Some people feel you shouldnt talk ill of family out of respect and others do it because they are enablers. I vent about family because I need to get it out at times.

You may have put your finger on part of it with the idea of the "closed" forums (long-time posters controlling what goes on). It was my first post ever in that forum, and I had the gall to start a thread. So I was new there (not to City-Data, but to the writing forum).

[Escort Rider]

As for posts #2 and #4, I agree with what you are saying, but I am not talking about distancing from toxic/dysfunctional families and family members. What was at issue in that other forum was criticism of a family member, plain and simple. People were offended and upset because I called my cousin a loser, while I see nothing particularly wrong with it.

[Threestep2]

Originally Posted by Escort Rider

You may have put your finger on part of it with the idea of the "closed" forums (long-time posters controlling what goes on). It was my first post ever in that forum, and I had the gall to start a thread. So I was new there (not to City-Data, but to the writing forum).

How are we supposed to know what happed on another forum? BTW - what makes you judge and jury to call someone a looser?

[BirdieBelle]

I read two pages of the replies to your thread and had yet to come upon anyone who brought up her being a family member. They mostly objected to your looking down on her in general.

I believe it was your callous judgment of another and the overall haughty tone of your posts that brought out the talons.

[Tracysherm]

I was not in your other thread, but I have noticed a lot here on City Data that people have this "judging is wrong" attitude. I'm always getting "who are you to judge?" and "what gives you the right to judge that person?"

Well, we all have the right to judge others. Judging is not a bad thing. Somehow, many people seem to have twisted the idea that it's wrong to judge people based on race, gender, age, disability, into "you should never judge anybody based on anything they do."

I firmly disagree. I believe in what MLK said: I judge people based on the content of their character. Our character is evidenced by our words and actions. So yes, some people show through their words and actions that they are "losers." Nothing wrong with the OP coming to that conclusion and limiting his/her interaction with that person based on that conclusion. I wouldn't call the person a loser to their face, or taunt them with "loser, loser, loser." But yes, when asked my opinion of the person, I'd honestly share if I had judged that person to be a loser, and then I'd have examples of the person's words and actions to support that judgment. If I did not have examples to back up my opinion, then I'd expect people to dismiss my judgment as invalid.

I also find it funny that the people who are so vehement about not judging others are so very quick to judge those of us who do share our judgments.

And when it comes to relatives, I certainly form judgments about them, and I expect they do so about me. Just because we share a few strands of DNA doesn't make us immune to judging each other.

[purehuman]

Originally Posted by Escort Rider

As for posts #2 and #4, I agree with what you are saying, but I am not talking about distancing from toxic/dysfunctional families and family members. What was at issue in that other forum was criticism of a family member, plain and simple. People were offended and upset because I called my cousin a loser, while I see nothing particularly wrong with it.

Maybe people feel that calling someone a "loser" is pretty mean...especially a family member...especially when it was just for something as simple as her calling herself a writer, and you not agreeing with that...Calling someone a loser kinda denotes that everything they do is wrong.