Laura Warren, a television news anchor for WRDW in Augusta, recently took a stand against viewers who took offense to her choice of maternity wear.
Warren was 20 weeks pregnant when a viewer called and left a voicemail telling her she was getting to be "disgusting on the TV."
"Please go to Target and buy some decent maternity clothes so you don’t walk around looking like you got a watermelon strapped under your too tight outfits. Target’s got a great line of maternity clothes in case you’ve never heard of such a thing. You’re getting to where you’re being disgusting on the TV," said the viewer.
Warren was so disturbed by the call that wrote about it on her blog, Bump, Baby and Breaking News .
"So, the thick-skinned journalist in me who knows better than to give comments like this a second thought says, delete the voicemail and move on. Unfortunately, I'm pregnant, hormonal, currently not allowed to drink wine, and feeling extra in touch with my feminist side," Warren wrote.
She wondered if the woman was talking about a particular outfit and proceeded to search the archives for the prior week to determine exactly which outfit could have set the woman off into such a tizzy. Warren discovered she had spent a most of her on-air time with her arms crossed in front of her belly.
Why was she letting this negative comment overshadow all the positive things viewers had said about her during her pregnancy?
"I don't really have an answer. If I did, I could probably solve the world's bullying problem. But, that whole saying our moms taught us about sticks and stones is kind of garbage. In fact, sometimes, I think words hurt far worse than sticks. And right now, we are living in a culture tolerating, often even encouraging bullies," Warren wrote.
She decided the best response to the phone bully would be to spread positivity by saying as many things as she could to as many people as possible.
The support from readers/viewers in response to her post was overwhelming, said Warren in an interview with the Huffington Post ,
"It really reaffirms my faith about how many kind people there are in the world," she said.
