Mama Drama

Let's start at the beginning... about this time last year, well in March, I was very pregnant and bored. So I Googled "wilmington mommy groups". Several different ones came up and I checked them all out. One of them I had to join to be able to see the boards so I signed up. That website is www.wilmingtonmommies.com. AKA, WM. I became a member and just browsed the site every now and then.

Fast forward to a month later. I had come home from the hospital with Alex and it was our second night home. I was sitting on the floor in the bathroom in tears listening to my husband snore while reflecting on my first four days as I Mom. I'd had about 10 hours of sleep total in the last 96 hours. They forgot to give me the manual on how to survive after having a baby when I left the hospital!! What was I going to do? I couldn't sleep more than one-two hours at time because I had to get up and feed Alex, and he took forever to breast feed! I sucked at breast feeding and all Alex did was cry, oh my god I wanted to give him back! Take him back! Then I had an ahhh haaa moment! The mommies site! So I actually took my lap top in to the bathroom, sat on the floor, and posted my first post ever on WM.

The number of responses were phenomenal! All of the moms were so nice! They offered some great advice and comforting words. It was just what I needed! I gradually became more active in the group. Computer time was precious time the first 4 weeks of Alex's life. At that time he had colic and undiagnosed reflux from being born two weeks early. Thank God for Zantac! I prayed to the Zantac gods every day, thanking them for giving me my baby back and not leaving me with the demon possesed screaming devil child. I attended my first Moms Night Out when Alex was six weeks old and met some wonderful people! I even dragged my friend Kelly along with me even though she wasn't a member of the website. She had a newborn at home too and I thought maybe if she met the moms she'd warm up to the idea of a "mommy's" website.

Fast forward 9 months later. As of 5 days ago I was an extremely active member on WM. I was on the Events Planning Committee, planning my ass off on some great events. I was also on the Charitable Events Committee working on Relay For Life and other smaller charitable events. I was so happy to be part of a group again. I kind of felt like it was an Alpha Phi Omega for mommies! Kelly, now one of my best friends, was also an active member of the site. And we had bonded with 4 other moms, Kristie, Temple, Maria, and Aly. We all shared similar interests and had the same sense of humor. We got along well with everyone on the forum. But we did bitch among ourselves via email every now and then about different people. Temple had a run in with two members, Renee and Bethann who happen to also be management. It was over something trivial that got blown way out of proportion by those two members and I ended up getting involved with it too. The climax of that whole fiasco was when Bethann "accidently" sent a message to Temple instead of to another member. In that message she stated she wanted to slap Temple in the face. Yep, a member of management was physically threatening another member. But guess what, apprently thats OK! There was a sit down meeting and supposedly all was resolved, even though Bethann never apoligized to Temple. We moved on and our little group had each other and we were happy. Life was good! We even added a new friend to the group a week ago, Ashley! She was always friendly towards us and even called us the underground mommies. She asked if she could join in our email discussions so we said sure! Ashley talked shit about Bethann and Reenie. She also had the same general gripes as us so she we figured she was one of us, right?

Then WHAM! Sunday morning I attempted to get on WM and couldn't. Weird. So I tried later around noon. Still couldn't get on. Thankfully WM had a yahoo group too in case of such problems! So I get on there and see there are no new posts. There were not, so I posted, is anyone else having trouble loggin on today? Nobody responded. Hmm.... I met Temple and Kelly that afternoon because we were shopping for a huge multi kid birthday event that we were holding this Satuday. After 3 hours of shopping and almost $65 we were done. I tried to get on the website again Sunday evening and into Sunday night with no luck. I was able to see that other people were able to post, I just couldn't sign in to read the actual post. The emails started circling in our little group and holy hell, NONE of us could get on. What the hell was going on?? All of us tried to contact management in several different ways and no one would answer us. That was frustrating as hell! Finally the next day we all got this same email:

Your account has been set to pending for further review due to violation of the site rules of Wilmington Mommies. We are currently working with The Mommies Network to determine the best course of action from here. If you feel that your account has been flagged in error, please resond immediately to managewilmingtonmommies@gmail.com. You will be notified within 48 hours regarding the status of your account.

Wilmington Mommies Management Team

What the fuck was this? I broke a rule? Are you freaking kidding me? What rule? Could you be a little more specific please? What the hell is this all about? So, what do I do? I go read the rules! I didn't break one fucking rule. Not one. (Although I'm breaking rule 4 right now! HA! Doesn't matter anymore since I've been BANNED!) So I type this reply:

I do not know if my account has been flagged in error or not because I have no clue what it is I have done to violate the site rules of Wilmington Mommies. I am extremely upset that I was mislead by management who let me become extremely active in the Events Committee and the Charitable Events committee, only to be suddenly, and with no warning, denied access to the site. I have been actively planning events and encouraging participation. Yesterday another member of the events committee and I went out to purchase items for a large birthday event that is to be held next weekend. Over $65 was spent of personal money. Some of it is nonrefundable. Does this sound like the actions of members who would disregard the site rules for any reason? I assure you any violation of the site rules was not done on purpose or with any ill intent. I feel it was completely unprofessional in how this was handled. I have received numerous compliments from our Site Administrator on helping on the committees and for taking an active interest. To have my account set to pending with no explanation is unacceptable. How do you expect a person to be able to defend their actions if they do not know what it is they need to defend or clarify. I personally posted on our Yahoo group several times yesterday and not one member of management contacted me to inform me of my suspended membership. I look forward to seeing your response within 48 hours.

Well they responded within 48 hours. I got the email on the 45th hour. Seriously, it took them two days to send this email. Here's what it said: (yes it was the same email for all of us, again)

Hello,
I am writing to discuss your account on WilmingtonMommies.

It has come to my attention that you regularly participate in an email loop with the purpose of complaining about WM and its managers and members.

After reading some of the emails that have circulated among you, I
really must wonder why you are so adamant to get your accounts back on WM? It is very clear through your emails that you disagree with the management of the site and don't seem to really care for many of the members.

After discovering your group, we did move your accounts to pending status until we were able to review all of the emails we had. During that time, you continued to cause problems, posting bulletins on MySpace and one of you went so far as to post Beth Ann's phone number. It really saddens me that someone who dedicates so much time to managing one of our communities is having her privacy invaded in such a way. It is disrespectful, childish and certainly not weighing well on your case.

After reviewing countless emails, I do not understand why you would like your access to WM returned. It seems to me that you are not there looking for support and friendship, but rather to cause problems and gossip about members.

If I am somehow mistaken and you really do have the best interest of the site in mind, please feel free to email me and help me understand your emails that have been shared with me. Otherwise, I am going to suggest that Marsha formally ban your accounts.

Heather Meininger

Whatthefuckkindofshitisthat? Did that sound accusational to you? It sure as hell did to me! May I add that I was furious at that point! What fucking right did this woman have to use MY personal and PRIVATE email to justify kicking me off of the website? More importantly how did she get my private emails? And the MySpace bulletins were posted AFTER the fact because NO ONE WOULD FUCKING ANSWER OUR EMAILS OR VOICEMAILS! So here was my reply.. warning, its loooong!

Ms. Meininger,

Thank you for sending an email to me regarding this issue. I have been eagerly awaiting this email for the last two days. You said you are writing to discuss my account however your tone in your email is extremely accusational and appears that your mind has already been made up as to what your decision is.

I regularly do participate in email conversations with my friends. That right is protected under the first amendment of the Constitution. I do not however exchange emails with the sole intent of complaining about WM or its managers, or its members. Seeing as you have seen emails written by me complaining of WM, its managers, or its members, I request physical evidence of the same. With what right do you have reading an email written by me that was not directly sent to you? I am baffled at the lack of personal respect you have for reading private emails that were not about you specifically nor directed towards you. I understand you are the president of the Mommie Network. That does not however make you privy to my personal correspondences because it may contain information about a member of the Wilmington Mommies site. You, and whoever supplied you with the emails you admit to seeing, has just broken rule 4 listed on the Wilmington Mommies site:

Rule 4 -- Keep it Private & Safe
Respect the privacy of each other and of our leadership team. Information learned via private message, email or on private forums cannot be shared without the permission of the member. Likewise, information learned from any forum cannot be shared outside of our organization without the permission of the member. Never divulge any private or personal information about another person online (including their real name) that the person has not asked you to make public.

I can assure you I have not made a negative comment about Wilmington Mommies as an organization nor The Mommies Network in any email. Yes, I have made negative comments about Bethann. However that was over an incident that occurred in December. A meeting was held between Bethann, Marsha, myself, and another member and I thought the issue had been resolved. At that time I had negative feelings towards Bethann and I did say some negative comments about her as person and her character in emails between myself and a few friends. I did not however post anything negative about her on the site or say anything negative about her at any WM event. The incident I am referring to is when Bethann physically threatened another member. This is the only member that I can think of that I have spoken and written negatively of and it was during an incident that has since been resolved.

This part of your email has me extremely disturbed:

" It is very clear through your emails that you disagree with the management of the site and don't seem to really care for many of the members."

Again, I want to see physical proof of where you have come to this conclusion. This statement is completely in and of itself a false and grossly generalized statement. You do not personally know me; therefore you are in no position to judge what I do and do not believe or for whom I seem to care for. Yes, I may have disagreed with some decisions management has made. That does not mean I disagree with the management of the site. I thought Reenie did a great job as SA. I think Marsha has done an extremely excellent job as the new SA. I get along with and have a good repertoire with the other members of management. The only person of management I have had a conflict with is Bethann. Which again, was resolved in December. I take extreme offense to you referring to me as not seeming to care for many of the members. I am a well liked member by many. I have made numerous friends since being a member of the site. I have been extremely active and encouraging other members participation. I recently got the Northern sub group active again. I like all of the members of the Wilmington Mommies. Each and every woman is an exceptional individual and offer something unique to the group. That is one of the many reasons why I love the group.

You again have offended me when you stated I was "disrespectful"and "childish" in posting a bulletin on my personal and private MySpace account. You do not have authorized access to what I post on my MySpace account. And since it is outside of The Mommies Network, rule 4 does not apply here. All the more reason why my MySpace bulletins have no bearing on this matter. However I will clarify the meaning of my three bulletins in hopes that you are indeed reading this with an unbiased opinion. I have not been able to access the Wilmington Mommies site for three days. Most of my correspondence with friends and acquaintances on the Wilmington Mommies site was done via private message. I do not have the personal email addresses of most of the members on the site. Sunday evening I realized that other members where able to get on and post without a problem. I saw where updated threads were updated via time stamp by viewing the Forum Index page without having to sign in. I posted on the Yahoo group for Wilmington Mommies several times about not being able to access the site. I knew something was wrong when there were hardly any other members posting there. I was concerned because I was in the middle of helping plan the MNO, FNO, Family Play date, and the large mutli-kid birthday party for the month of February. I had several private messages in my inbox from members with suggestions for events that I had not had a chance to respond to. MySpace was the only way I had to communicate with a large number of the members. I posted a bulletin because it was the fastest and most effective way to send a message. I did not have the time to sit down and write separate messages to everyone. Marsha, Reenie, and Bethann were all friends on my MySpace page with access to see the bulletin. I intended for them to see it because neither Marsha nor Bethann had responded to a message sent to them privately. I was hoping for a further explanation as to why I was not able to access the site. What I said in my MySpace bulletine was straight fact and in absolutely no way invaded Bethann's privacy. I also did not post Bethann's phone number on any of my MySpace bulletins, emails, forums, or private messages. Nor have I seen it posted by anyone who is on my friends list.

You insulted me a final time when you stated: "After reviewing countless emails, I do not understand why you would like your access to WM returned. It seems to me that you are not there looking for support and friendship, but rather to cause problems and gossip about members."

You are drawing a disillusion conclusion about my character off of emails that I have no knowledge as to what you are referring to. I joined the Wilmington Mommies 10 months ago looking exactly for support and friendship. I was a brand new mother to a baby who had colic and undiagnosed reflux. I needed help, comfort, advice, support and friendship. I got all of this and much more! Since then I have been a very active member. I have never been the cause of a problem on the WM forums or at any WM events. Are you accusing me of purposefully being negative, argumentative, and a catalyst for arguments and gossip within the Wilmington Mommies site? I absolutely deny your implications and again ask for physical proof. I was recenlty appointed by both the Wilmington Mommies management and The Mommies Network to hold a position on both the Events Planning Committee and the Charitable Events Committee. If I was "not there looking for support and friendship, but rather to cause problems and gossip about members" , why in the world was I offered these positions? I jumped into both committees immediately and began brainstorming and planning. I am the exact opposite of what you claim I am. Until Sunday evening I was 100% committed to the Wilmington Mommies and everything it stood for. I was excited with the direction the site was heading and pleased to serve on the committees that were steering it into that direction. I personally am responsible for at least 5 members joining the group, although some are not active participants. I handed out WM cards to pregnant mothers and mothers with children I met in stores, at work, and at the park. I revived the Northern sub group and got it active again. I was extremely pro Wilmington Mommies. I also received numerous compliments from Marsha on threads and by private message on a job well done within my committees.

I am exceptionally disappointed in how this whole situation was handled. I am still in awe that I have not seen one bit of correspondence from Marsha regarding the situation. I love Marsha for who she is and supported her whole heartedly as the Site Administrator. I am very disappointed in her lack of action. I am stunned that an attempt to rectify this problem was not done first within the Wilmington Mommies management. I am angry that I was abruptly and suddenly denied access to the WM site for three days without a clear explanation as why. While at the same time attempting to plan a large scale event planned for this Saturday. This was handled with unprofessional-ism, disrespect, and privacy violations.

I am going to draw a conclusion from your email as you have unjustly done from several of mine. This seems to merely be a problem between Bethann and six other WM members. The common denominator is Bethann. Somehow a personal attack on six members was orchestrated and based on shady tactics and non truths. I have been racking my brain as to why management feels I need to be banned. I can assure you we are not the only members holding private conversations. We are just the members that were specifically picked to be persecuted for, in my opinion, personal happiness.

I would also like to point out that the information you posses would never hold up in a court of law. It is hearsay. I am shockingly surprised that those emails are what you are using as a reason to ban six members. Interestingly however, you do not know all of the members who were involved with private emailing and messaging. Otherwise there would be more than six members without access to the WM site. I do not believe it is a coincidence which members are being persecuted. The emails you supposedly have read are also electronic documents. As I'm sure you are aware of, electronic documents can easily be altered.

One final thing. I am very suspicious of my personal email being violated. I would like to know who was passing along private correspondences. Not for retaliation, but because I work for a large regional hospital in which I also use this email address for work related issues. I will report you and all I suspect of gaining unauthorized access to my account to the proper authorities for potentially violating the federal HIPPA law.

At this moment I have no ill feelings towards Wilmington Mommies as a group, nor with the The Mommies Network, collectively speaking. It is my hope that everyone involved will learn a personal lesson from this experience. After all, life is a classroom in which we all will make mistakes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you were able to keep an unbiased opinion and understand that this was written under anger, hurt, and sadness. I will graciously except whatever decision you and the management of Wilmington Mommies make. I would like to extend an invitation to Marsha to please contact me so we can talk as friends. I look forward to hearing from you by either email or telephone.

Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? Got a cold beer? Her response was so thought provoking. I could really tell how much time and effort she put forth into reading my email and responding appropriately... oh, no wait. Thats what I wish had happened!

Jenee,
I am sorry that you are offended. You do have a right under the first amendment to do whatever you please. I do as well.

I have recommended that your account be banned from WilmingtonMommies.

Did you even read my fucking email? I think that may have been a challenge seeing as she doesn't even know what the hell the first amendment to the Bill of Rights stands for. Well I couldn't just sit silent after reading that pathetic excuse for a reply. So here was my angered response:

Heather-

You either did not take the time to read my entire email, or never intended on looking at this from an unbiased perspective. I spent quite a bit of time writing it and addressing everything contained in it. Your lack of courtesy in the doing the same is sad. Also, the first amendment does not give me nor you the authority to "do whatever you please". It gives American citizens the freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right to assemble peaceably, among other things. The notion of you using the first amendment of the Bill of Rights to ban me from a site is ridiculous.

The only reason I am responding back to you is because you did not address the issue of unauthorized access into my email account. You did not deny that you gained access to my account and you did not provide me with information as to how you came in possession of those private emails. I therefore I will be immediately notifying the proper authorities at New Hanover Regional Medical Center, GMAIL, and MySpace of you, Marsha, and Bethann hacking into these accounts to gain private information and with the possibility of breaking the confidentiality of medical patients protected by HIPAA laws.

Yah, I wasn't kidding about the HIPPA thing asshole! Maybe if you'd have answered me the first time. It would have been nice if you answered any of my questions! I really did think someone had hacked into my account. I was going to go postal on their ass. I get my work email forwarded into my gmail account which contains patient information. I was fuming. Finally she responded with this:

The emails were forwarded to me by a member of your group, as I am sure you know from the other members of your group. Notifying your "authorities" will only waste their time and mine.

I did read your entire email and did my best to remain unbiased, however difficult it may be when I am reading such a rude, disrespectful and self-righteous email.

Best of luck in the future

Well at least it was longer then a few sentences. I wouldn't have had to waste the "authorities" time if you'd have answered me the first time dumb ass. I still have gmail looking into my account anyway. I think this Heather person has an issue with cyber stalking.

So back to her email...Oh, a member of our group gave them to you?.....oh..huh?..wait? Where the hell is Ashley? Where has she been during all of this? Ohhhh thats right, silent and not suspended from the site. Because she's a sneaky little snitch! Just stamp the word BETRAYED across the middle of my forehead. Wow. There are some cold, cruel heartless people out there. Scary thing its she's a teacher! Yah! Act like your students much? Sooo I of course had to respond again because Heather big and mighty called me "rude, disrespectful and self-righteous". I'm sorry, who are you? Oh, right, no one that I should give a rats ass about! But instead I'm defending myself anyway! Here it is:

Heather-

I do not feel that my email was rude, disrespectful, or self righteous. It is obvious you did not read the entire email with an unbiased view. Your mind was already made up when you read it. I was simply doing what you asked in your first email. How do you expect someone to react when they are kicked off the site suddenly and abruptly with no reason as to why and as someone who was extremely active within the site? Then to be told why which was based on hearsay and not shown any physical proof? You were extremely accusational in your email before ever hearing my side of the story. You passed judgment on my character. You are painting a picture of myself that is severely distorted and far from fact. I am not the vindictive, disagreeable, rude, or disrespectful person that you claim I am. I am not a person that causes trouble on purpose nor do I condone gossip. I was merely trying to defend myself and my character. If that is was you consider to be self righteous, so be it.

You are wrong, I did not know how you got the emails which is why I asked you twice! The other women are fighting their own battles and I was fighting mine. I was honestly concerned about my email account being hacked since I am a medical professional and federal laws apply to me and information contained within my email. Thank you for finally letting me know.

Now that I have this information I would like to address something else. It is glaringly obvious that "this person" is Ashley L. I have all the copies of every email she was privy too and she herself made a negative comment about overthrowing another person to gain a moderator spot. She should be held accountable as anyone else. This witch hunt was specific with specific targets. Ashely purposefully gained our trust and friendship to be able to use any information gained against us in whatever twisted and misinterpreted way that she could. I was approached at an MNO last week by Ashley specifically asking to join our email group while at the same time she was complaining about management and Bethann in particular. Our group was not a secret. There are many others who knew about it and there are others involved in other conversations that Ashely was not privy too. Our conversations were largely about life as women, mothers, wives, and our careers. They were hardly ever about WM or its management. Yes, every now and then something would be brought up. But it stayed private and amongst ourselves and was never ever reflected on the WM website or at any WM event.

I have looked at every single one of my comments and can not find a just reason for banning me from the site. Yes I did say one negative comment about one member. But I never made any comment or reference to purposefully causing problems on the WM forum. I think it is ludicrous my personal and private emails are the reason I am being banned. If you were to read all 1200+ of my posts in the past 9 months you would not find any negative connotation. I was completely and honestly 100% for the Wilmington Mommies and what it stood for.

Emails are easily taken out of context when you have no knowledge of the individual or their intent.

I would like to request a meeting with Marsha, our site administrator. I am asking you because I have noticed that Marsha has taken no part in any of these correspondences even though she has received copies of them. I would like to meet with Marsha because I considered her a friend and I would like to hear her side of the story so we can part with no ill feelings. It is inevitable that we will meet at a children's function or fund raising event and I would like to prevent any awkwardness from occurring since children can sense things like that.

There have been no more response as of yet. I'm confident I won't be getting one even though I made several valid points in my last response. I guess it doesn't really matter because I don't think she's capable of having an articulate two way dialogue. Everyone has been officially banned except two. They seem to have forgotten that Aly even exists, she hasn't received any emails since the very first one. And Temple was granted another day of "not being banned yet" so she can look further into the physical threat issue that occurred over a month ago and has no bearing on this situation.

So the site administrator of WM is Marsha. She has not made one peep throughout any of this. She has left it to the admin of The Mommies Network. I'm very disappointed in her lack of leadership and not having the courtesy of contacting us herself over this incident. We all once considered her a friend. I don't need a friend who hides behind others.

Here's another weird and interesting twist. Maria apparently blogged a similar story on her blogging website that I never even knew existed! No one did because she NEVER told anyone! Queen Heather sent Maria an email tonight saying she was banned after reading her blog!!! And you really wonder why I thought my account had been hacked? Do they have a cyber stalkers anonymous? She needs help.

So HA HA HA. I got kicked off a mommy website. Who'd a thunk it?! Apparently I don't play well with others. .. Fuck 'em!




****UPDATE: 2/1/08: Temple and Aly were NOT banned from the Wilmington Mommies site. Aly should have never been suspended in the first place so the appropriate action actually took place there! We're not sure why Temple didn't get banned. She's not sure either!! She didn't do anything different than the rest of us so who freaking knows! The management must have wanted to look good and not ban ALL of us. Instead they must think Temple will quit on her own because they kicked out all of her friends. Well, they're wrong.****

Here's a link to Maria's blog with her version of events:
http://immoralmc.blogspot.com/2008/01/when-i-moved-back-to-wilm-ington-last.html