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MckMama Drama - Including the Fire - Merge


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I think you're totally right about hypocrisy. I didn't phrase my point well with the podunk columnist - what I meant was digging up things not relevant to the person's reporting just because their name is out there in a public place, and maybe has said some things that piss other people off. For example, if a columnist (or blogger) writes about their opinion on politics, and people understandably disagree or think the writer is a nasty so-and-so, saying mean things about politicians they like, then go off and dig up shit on, say, the writer's old divorce or their custody battle for their kids, etc. Something not exactly relevant to what they write about, simply because they are technically a public figure, and those documents are technically in the public domain. That's what I'm wondering about.

Exposing hypocrisy and lack of integrity for any journalist, large or small, I think is totally legit. But digging up financials on a mommy blogger who writes about her personal family life? Ehhh, not so sure about that, no matter how legal it may be.

That happens all the time at my local, small newspaper. Makes reading the comments section interesting! I really think that having your public, personal info out there is one of the hazards of being a public or semi-public writer. And I think there are way too many bloggers who don't accept or perhaps realize this. They want to have the joy of publishing their controversial and often highly offensive posts along with all their personal info, and not take the downside of the job which is that people are going to get mad and dig up their past, even if it doesn't relate. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

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If someone writes a weight-loss book based upon their own success and then it's discovered they actually had gastric bypass surgery, the readers of their book should know that.

Does anyone remember the Kimkins debacle? That was a great case of exposing someone who not only lied about her weight loss, but was promoting seriously dangerous weight loss plans.

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She was just another mommy blogger, who while pregnant with her third child, had complications. Baby Stellan was not supposed to live, due to a heart condition known as superventricular tachycardia. He ended up being born healthy, but then at about 4 months of age, the SVT came back. Multiple hospitalizations, monitoring, and a now-infamous photo of her child supposedly flatlining, and eventually a procedure in Boston that resulted in his cure followed.

I think they were rehashing the picture on MWoP when I stopped reading. The comments section just became more and more hysterical as everyone fed off each others' hatred of mckmama. But the worst part was that the so-called expose was wrong -- I think the MWoP post author concluded that the kid was coding and that mckmama was taking pictures of her kid while he was dying!!!eleventy when in fact he was being treated for his SVT with adenosine, which is a drug that stops and restarts the heart. I posted as much, even pointing out that (in my experience), it's a fairly controlled procedure. But images of mckmama knocking over medical staff who were trying to do CPR on her dead baby in order to get a picture were more enticing, I guess.

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I do remember her! I was on the expecting boards/new mom boards in 2002. I wonder what ever happened to that family? I never saw any pictures like you described, but I do remember she had a blog or some type of website.

She upped and joined the army. No kidding.

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I think they were rehashing the picture on MWoP when I stopped reading. The comments section just became more and more hysterical as everyone fed off each others' hatred of mckmama. But the worst part was that the so-called expose was wrong -- I think the MWoP post author concluded that the kid was coding and that mckmama was taking pictures of her kid while he was dying!!!eleventy when in fact he was being treated for his SVT with adenosine, which is a drug that stops and restarts the heart. I posted as much, even pointing out that (in my experience), it's a fairly controlled procedure. But images of mckmama knocking over medical staff who were trying to do CPR on her dead baby in order to get a picture were more enticing, I guess.

I agree that it was blown out of proportion, but I think the issue was that she claimed he was going downhill fast and the adenosine was a last ditch effort. I know it's typically a controlled procedure, but I can understand the problem that her naysayers had with that picture. Firstly, if things were as bad off as she made it seem, you'd think the last thing you'd be doing is taking a picture.Maybe hold his hand or stand by him or pray or something other than document it for your blog. She knew she'd get more donations if people felt it was dire circumstances. And secondly, the caption was "Adenosine NOW" so she was playing it up. By doing so she played on people's emotions and solicited more donations and help. That's why people had a problem with it and that's why it was so wrong. She used poor little Stellan (who may or may not have been in as bad of shape as she said he was) to drive people to her blog to make her more money. That picture was put on twitter and then she didn't update her blog for hours or possibly a whole day and she had people clicking every 20 minutes for more information because she made it seem like he was going to die. She even said something on twitter about them all saying their goodbyes implying he wasn't going to make it when they were really just saying goodbye because he was going for surgery.

I don't know. I don't read MWOP because I agree it's gone way too far, but I think MckMama is pretty despicable as a human being.

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I agree that it was blown out of proportion, but I think the issue was that she claimed he was going downhill fast and the adenosine was a last ditch effort. I know it's typically a controlled procedure, but I can understand the problem that her naysayers had with that picture. Firstly, if things were as bad off as she made it seem, you'd think the last thing you'd be doing is taking a picture.Maybe hold his hand or stand by him or pray or something other than document it for your blog. She knew she'd get more donations if people felt it was dire circumstances. And secondly, the caption was "Adenosine NOW" so she was playing it up. By doing so she played on people's emotions and solicited more donations and help. That's why people had a problem with it and that's why it was so wrong. She used poor little Stellan (who may or may not have been in as bad of shape as she said he was) to drive people to her blog to make her more money. That picture was put on twitter and then she didn't update her blog for hours or possibly a whole day and she had people clicking every 20 minutes for more information because she made it seem like he was going to die. She even said something on twitter about them all saying their goodbyes implying he wasn't going to make it when they were really just saying goodbye because he was going for surgery.

I don't know. I don't read MWOP because I agree it's gone way too far, but I think MckMama is pretty despicable as a human being.

I agree with, like, everything you just said. Mckmama is a terrible person, and only those who have followed her closely can really appreciate how sad the whole situation is. I am pretty sure most of her giveaways are also technically illegal, but no one seems to care. Anyway, MWOP is now just a tool of hers now (I say that as someone who posts/has posted there). And a really bizarre circle of drama has developed involving this vengeful internet granny. It really is something that would show up on encyclopediadramatica if it was another subculture!

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It can be life threatening, it was in my FIL's case. He ended up in heart failure, and required a pacemaker. He has other complications as well that complicated the pacemaker issue. Long story short, SVT was life threatening for him.

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I agree with, like, everything you just said. Mckmama is a terrible person, and only those who have followed her closely can really appreciate how sad the whole situation is. I am pretty sure most of her giveaways are also technically illegal, but no one seems to care. Anyway, MWOP is now just a tool of hers now (I say that as someone who posts/has posted there). And a really bizarre circle of drama has developed involving this vengeful internet granny. It really is something that would show up on encyclopediadramatica if it was another subculture!

Yeah her giveaways are very sketchy. I think her problem is that she's used to rules not applying to her and so she doesn't follow any and figures it will all work out. It usually seems to for her.

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I don't really know anything about MWOP, but I think the way she exploited her son was despicable.

I am curious, what is the deal with her and possibly illegal giveaways? I never got what that was all about.

I agree with formergothardite on all of the crap that's being dug up.

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Part of the Mck Mama history is she lost her Blogher ad contract for plagiarism. Lost the next ad contract for an anti-gay post. Then she lost another ad contract, but I can't recall why.

She gave a speech talking about how God saved her son which basically slapped every mother who ever lost a child in the face. Her apology was a study in narcissism.

She's shady. Tried to do a giveaway but had to recant because it ended up not being legal (the specifics were too intricate for me to recall now, but the charity lawyers pulled the giveaway so it must've been something legit). She allegedly was supposed to still giveaway an RV trip (up to $1000 in value, which good luck RVing for that little money) but it never happened.

The MWOP community, imo, has been infiltrated by trolls who purposely destabilize it and encourage the frenzy. It has been insane these last few months.

M

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Not only the most recent big one (related to sponsoring African villages through a new Christian charity)...in the past, people who "randomly" won giveaways were often top commenters, so people got suspicious about that (don't know enough about it to say how suspicious it was). For each contest she claimed to be keeping track of one entry per participant, but everyone could comment or tweet or IM or email to enter each contest, which all seemed very disorganized and I think breaks the rules for most sponsored contests. When she was selling bracelets for Stellan when he was sick (sigh) many people never received one. She sometimes wouldn't disclose that something she was discussing in a blog post was sponsored when often it was. That's all I can think of right now, correct me if I'm wrong...I never entered a giveaway, so I didn't pay much attention to them until I noticed the contrast between how Mckmama and bloggers like Heather Spohr handled sponsorship.

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One of her more recent contest/giveaways involved people donating $10 for each "entry" (or something along those lines). One winner would receive a "week long family trip in an RV", another would receive a trip to Africa.

Everything about it was sketchy. The details kept changing as she went back and edited over and over and over. The fine print for the RV trip ended up being "up to $1000 value". A little research and people realized that for a family, $1000 towards an RV rental would not go far at all. There was a lot of questioning over that one.

Then Mckmama adds in some sketchy fine print for the Africa trip. Turns out that if she raised over a certain $ amount with the entries, it would be paying for HER trip to go also. This information also changed, over and over, as she went back and edited her fine print. Someone that was more involved could tell you details, I just have the highlights.

The thing is, she's very sketchy in general. She is purposely evasive about things and it's hard to catch her because she goes back and edits or removes certain posts or pictures. Sometimes it happens months and months after the fact, so it's hard to really prove something one way or another. And then when questioned about it, she'll do her little coy "oh, did I say that? Sorry you misunderstood" thing. And then she brings on the "religious persecution and how she's flawed and oh thank the lord that she's forgiven" B.S.

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I don't know. I don't read MWOP because I agree it's gone way too far, but I think MckMama is pretty despicable as a human being.

Co-signed.
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What do you all think about the appropriate role of watchdog/criticism sites that focus on bloggers? If you blog elsewhere, have you taken serious heat over it and how did you respond?

Yeah. I don't maintain a blog now but I had the misfortune to be blogging when a certain political crisis erupted. I was on the wrong side to some people and the right side to others so even though I was a no name blogger, I took some heat (I blogged about politics, not religion or home life.)

I don't know this woman but I honestly think it comes with the territory. I spent a few sleepless nights but it wasn't because of angst, it was because I was getting criticism, quite angry, from people I respected a lot. I was worried my line was mistaken. I was basically doing "politics and knob jokes" and I was getting it in the neck off serious theoreticians so I had to do a lot of thinking.

Thing is, if you're willing to put it out there you have to be willing to have it critiqued. I don't feel sorry for anyone who shares everything when people don't agree with them. If one wants people not to comment on one's beliefs and home life, it might be an idea not to start a blog about those topics.

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I haven't commented at MWOP since they required people to actually have accounts, but I really want to now. Some people are saying the stupidest stuff in comments... I think she's an attention-seeking, passive-aggressive, manipulative and parasitic person, but I don't think she forced herself to have kidney stones just to piss off a bunch of MWOP commenters and steal their tax!

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wonder if they have insurance...

They are self employed, traveling the country earning their money off her photography skills and blog. Highly unlikely they have private insurance. Private insurance for a family of that size would cost a fortune, typically has high deductibles, and usually has poor coverage.

My sister and her family used to have private insurance and it was pretty $$$

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Most insurance covers your kids as a group. So it would be the same for two children as seven. But, yeah, private insurance can be crazy. When I had Group Health it was $380/month for just me. It would have been like $50 more to add my kids. That's a lot of money!

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Shocker, she thrives off drama. Or rather her blogging livelihood thrives. What kind of medical emergency did she have now?

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I don't really understand the kidney stone thing, because they don't really hospitalize people for kidney stones anymore. (I am pretty sure I have one right now- which is why I'm still wide awake, it's been a heavy water and lemonade drinking day. Trying to get it to move before it REALLY hurts and I have to resort to the vicodin. All they will do at the dr's is give me a scan to see it, prescribe more vicodin, and if I have a ride home offer morphine before sending me home.) And after I had the first one, I knew what that pain was, and after the second I started recognizing the early warning signs... (which is what I have right now, for me it's cramping on one side of the lower back.)

ETA- I have driven to urgent care by myself when I shouldn't have. It's why I now have injectable migraine meds- the doctors were NOT happy with me. I look back on a couple of those drives and wonder why I was so stupid to get behind the wheel, since I'm otherwise very responsible.

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Okay, it makes even less sense now. Surgery already? No wait and see, with drugs, no ultrasounding to break up the stone? Hmmmmm..... And it sounds like she is home with her kids.

Now why is it that her stories never quite add up?

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My husband gets kidney stones...usually about once a year.

The first time he had no clue what was happening. It was so scary. I actually ended up calling an ambulance.

He has only had to be hospitalized twice. Once for pain management (it was taking forever to pass, and he was vomiting and passing out), and another time because it couldn't pass on it's own and they needed to do the surgery. He ended up with a stint that time. It was awful.

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My husband gets kidney stones...usually about once a year.

The first time he had no clue what was happening. It was so scary. I actually ended up calling an ambulance.

He has only had to be hospitalized twice. Once for pain management (it was taking forever to pass, and he was vomiting and passing out), and another time because it couldn't pass on it's own and they needed to do the surgery. He ended up with a stint that time. It was awful.

I had one refuse to pass, it took over a month, they just kept sending me home with painkillers, or filling me up with an IV and sending me home. Kind of odd, but I know in the 50's-70's they did more hospitalizations. I haven't had surgery, but I do know that with the really bad month long one, they were going to go in the day after it passed. BUT they gave it time to pass before trying anything else, even though I was sick as a dog in that time. That's why I don't understand the day one: find a stone, day two: surgery. It doesn't match my experiences OR the experiences of the family members with the same issues. (as it's generally a genetic predisposition, even the calcium oxalate stones.)

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