Cafemom: Social Networking for Mamas

Patti — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:00:00 GMT

Three years ago I had this great idea for a social networking site for parents that I posted about on my personal blog, and then I promptly forgot about it (given that I refer to my idea as "Momster" instead of "Momspace", you can see how long ago it was). Now I can't believe that it's taken this long for someone else to have the same idea, given the rising popularity in parenting communities on the web, including ours truly.

CafeMom is essentially Myspace for the mother set, with individual home pages, friend-inviting, space to journal and upload pictures. It's an offshoot of ClubMom, who you may remember from their ignominious start as being ad-saturated and impossible to navigate, but has since streamlined itself quite a bit. CafeMom may be just what Clubmom needs to set themselves apart from other communities, as we here at Babble have our urban-conscious, tongue-in-cheek look at modern parenting, Maya's Mom has their excellent activities and groups content, and ParentsConnect takes a wide-ranging approach to the whole shebang.

Here's my favorite thing about CafeMom: the diversity, which I hope survives and flourishes. Search profiles by self-assigned traits like "Political Views: Extremely Conservative" or "Relationship Status: Lesbian Relationship" and you get dozens of profiles that match the request (maybe less so if you search for both at the same time). At this stage of its development CafeMom is all over the map, and long may those freak flags wave right next to their less freaky counterparts. And may they add one another as friends, because dude, if there's one thing I've learned from partaking in online parenting communities, it's that we are all in this together.

Strollerderby : cafemom

Cafemom: Social Networking for Mamas