I’m a day late on my Your Turn Thursday post this week, because I spent most of yesterday packing and then driving East. But I’m not where you might expect me to be – the BlogHer conference in NYC – this year. Instead, the kids and I made the trek to Ohio to my friend Jill’s house, to spend the weekend with 30+ women from our original online mom’s group.
I’ve known most of these women since my oldest son was just a baby – that’s 14 years! We’ve grown a lot as people and as a community (once upon a time, we were what you might have called an, ahem, intolerant attachment parenting militia), but there really is something amazing about being surrounded by the women who’ve known you from the beginning of your motherhood journey and have seen it all: good and bad, the successes and failures, the happy and humbling moments.
I’ll be writing more about the weekend and my mom’s group soon, but for today’s post I wanted to ask you about your online mom’s group. Did you start off at a forum, like me? An email list that grew into a local playgroup? Did you strike up relationships in the comments section of a favorite blog? Your turn!
I have a group of mom friends who were blogging in the mid 2000’s. We found each other because we all lost babies. These ladies were my lifeline during a horrible few years (and often still are now that we’ve reconnected through FB). They are an amazing group of women who really understood the dark places the loss of a child can take you to, when most outside people didn’t. We’ve gotten together a few times in various available groups and it is amazing to think of all we have shared with each other over the years.
I’m still building mine; a group of moms in my neighborhood formed a Facebook group, which is how I interact with most of them (we live in a toddler-filled neighborhood, which is beyond our wildest dreams, but our playdate time is limited by work schedules and weekend needs).
Beyond that, I really appreciate the regular commenters on my blog (I comment on many of theirs as well) and my Twitter followers-and based recent weeks, I’d like to give a particular shout-out to Kathy V. Of Don’t Forget to Feed the Baby.
My online community has thus far been my blog readers and Baby Center when I was first pregnant. I still comment on Baby Center but since so many come and go, it’s hard to keep track of who’s who. My blog is still new but in the last few months, I notice that many have been around from its inception and we still check in on each other.
I don’t have a online forum, but I do have a great real life one. I moved to our current location just over 10 years ago. The first week I was here I meet a lady who had children of similar ages to mine and who had also just recently moved here, we started getting together once a week or so, then we started meeting with a few more ladies and soon it grew into a group on ladies that are so dear to my hearts and I can call them up to support me in whatever life throws at me.
My group is also forum-found, originally MSN and now on cafemom. We met as we all started staring at pink lines or pluses or whatever the “you’re pregnant” thing was. Some have dropped out over the years (more than 5 years!), but there’s a dozen or so of us. We meet in person whenever business or vacation travel bring us close to each other and constantly “plan” wistfully of a full-group gathering. I’d love to hear how you planned yours and got everyone together and how to decide on a location when everyone is spread across the USA (or is your group local?).