A modern-day knitting circle? Or the female version of a gentleman’s club?
The message boards on UrbanBaby are, technically, forums for new parents, the pregnant, and those trying to conceive. But I’ve been noticing that parenting topics are simply woven into conversations, as excuses for other subjects. The users really want to talk about juicy topics anonymously—such as dating, finances, politics, family drama, and rather graphic questions about sex. You can log onto the message boards and find heated discussions about the 2008 election interwoven with “Dear Abby” posts that ask, “If my two sisters-in-law don’t speak to me, what should I do?” One response went something like, “You’re lucky—you just killed two birds with one stone.”
A woman recently posted that while she was away at her sister’s wedding on the opposite coast, she called her husband at midnight, at their home. A woman answered the phone and promptly hung up. The husband called back ten minutes later to explain that his colleague was too drunk to get home on her own, and he swore up and down that she was sleeping on the couch. The coworker, he said, had answered the phone because she though it was a delivery person. From then on, this poster was known as “Drunk Coworker Mom,” and women logged on night after night for weeks, not only to find out what happened, but also to weigh in on whether or not she should leave him.
Another time, on the day of the 400-point Dow drop, a self-described investing newbie logged on: “Finance Moms, please tell me where you’re putting your money tomorrow morning.” And then, investment bankers on maternity leave jumped in: “small caps,” “global,” “index funds.” One of the investment bankers thanked the poster, and said, “It’s nice to talk about something intelligent on here, for a change.” And I realized that although I, too, was logging on to ask questions from the mundane to the ridiculous, what I really wanted was advice. Free, anonymous advice from other women, who were possibly experts in their fields. I asked a real-estate broker how to deal with a sloppy tenant in a house I was trying to list. I asked the investment bankers how to find a good index fund, and I even spilled my retirement goals, net worth, and income—all anonymous, and live.
The downside of an anonymous women’s group is, of course, the potential cattiness. Did I say cattiness? That’s too kind a word. The wrong people on UrbanBaby can create a vibe that is seething and dangerous. This usually happens late at night, when bored, unhappy wives have gone past their one glass of Syrah, the kids are in bed, and the husband is still at work (or somewhere else). I saw a post once where a woman poured her heart out about her unhappy situation at home, and another simply wrote “Wah. Who cares?” But this is the dark underbelly of a useful tool, and my advice to a new user is: if you get the feeling there are trolls on the board, log off and come back later.
As women become more powerful in the business world, whether they have children or not, they need a place to cross-pollinate. If they’re stay-at-home parents managing the 401(k), or single equity fund partners fighting insomnia at 2 a.m., they want and need to exchange ideas with other people. Men need this too, but they’ve always had poker games, men’s clubs, and golf. It’s become a part of their life, and it can leave women feeling alienated and in need of their own forum. Working mothers used to be embarrassed to ask questions about diapers and teething, because it made them feel powerless and shallow. Now they can use it as a vehicle to get into the real discussions: about money, law, politics, and power.
