Disruption In The Family

Want to see how easy it is to cause an uproar among family members?

It all played out on Facebook, believe it or not, and a whole darned family became involved in a stupid collision of opinions and angry words flew.

One family member posted about an incident that happened to her baby but her wording "might" have been wrong. Her brother-in-law and great aunt-in-law politely corrected her. She apparently was insulted by being corrected and sent them messages to mind their own business. This is not a good way to talk to your in-laws and is most assuredly a way to alienate them.

Of course, there is now a certain level of discomfort in the family because we feel we have been insulted but this is not anything we can't get past. Is it left alone or does this stupid incident become even more ridiculous? Guess!

Next the lady corrected decides to stay off Facebook for a while and deletes some of her in-laws. The in-laws become further insulted, thinking it's just them that she's deleted. No problem, they delete her, too, but are left wondering what the heck they'd done to anger this lady so much.

Now the lady's husband, whom we all love dearly, feels he's caught in the middle of a family spat and he's terribly hurt. E-mails and phone calls fly off in all directions trying to figure out what the heck is happening. This stupid, stupid incident has turned into a major event that could disrupt the whole darned family.

My take on this is that the incident was minor and not worthy of causing trouble in any family. There was definitely a lack of tact that caused the problem in the first place but how could such a silly incident grow so out of proportion to it's beginnings?

I'm worried that we might face more problems in the future if we all have to walk on eggshells for fear of being misunderstood. We're all human and sometimes we open our mouths before we think. I don't know how this will end but I'm hoping this isn't the start of a total family split. I'm just amazed at how quickly a few words caused such havoc.