Mums? groups can get a bad rap.? The worst of them are competitive and cliquey ? a minefield of ?mummy wars? ? a place where women facing the gauntlet of new parenthood hope for support and guidance and leave feeling judged and alone.
Not so in my group.? In the two years since we met in an online ?due-in? thread on a baby website, we?ve morphed from slightly wary strangers (potential ?axe-murderers?, according to some of our partners) into something I?d never have believed was possible except ?in real life?.
We do the things that best friends do.? See each other through the deaths of parents, the end of relationships, the excitement of engagements, weddings and pregnancies.? Mourn together through miscarriages, support each other over the loss of jobs, encourage the flourishing of careers and pitch in to rebuild after the destruction of homes in floods and fire.
We?ve supported each other through custody battles and court cases, through post-natal depression, after car accidents, through the development of anEthiopian orphanage, the set-up of businesses, the hiring and sacking of employees?We?ve opened up about things we?ve never opened up about before ? to anyone.? Domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse.
We?ve shared our dreams, our grief, our belongings, our money.
And right now, we?re sharing our hope.
As I write this, forty-two of us are embracing each other in our little, private Facebook hideaway, while one of our own fights for the life of her newborn baby girl in Western Australia.
A Queenslander suggested we buy her a bracelet with her baby?s name engraved on it.? One of the Victorians wants to send money to a Perth member so she can deliver a home-cooked meal on her behalf.? Someone from NSW is looking into the?Heartfelt?organisation, which provides free professional photography of very ill or stillborn babies.
This is the second critically-ill baby we have had.? We lost our first, and mourned him like Aunties, while holding our precious babies even closer.
This was a group of random women across the country.? It?s now a tribe.
There?s a twenty-year age gap between our youngest and oldest members.? We?re single, married and divorced.? We?re atheist and religious.? We?re career-driven and staying-at-home.? We?ve breastfed, we?ve bottle-fed, we?ve controlled-cried, we?ve attachment-parented, we?re private schooling, we?re public schooling, we smack, we don?t smack, we immunise, we don?t immunise?
We?re all of that. ?On paper, it looks like a recipe for a giant, PMT-fuelled electronic catfight.
But it?works.? More than that, it thrives and deepens the closer we get, the more we go through ? as if we?ve known each other all our lives.
Maybe it?s because we?ve never met in person that we get along so well?
Maybe it?s because we?re fabulous??:-)
Right now, all that matters is little Emilia Jayne, whose tribe of online Aunties is heartbroken once again, and wrapping her and her beautiful Mummy, Bek, in our arms.
Whatever happens ? we?ll be here.
Online, in real life.
Emma Grey is the Canberra-based author of ?Wits? End Before Breakfast! Confessions of a Working Mum? and Director of the life-balance consultancy, WorkLifeBliss. She writes, speaks and coaches on motherhood, career and relationships and ?having it all?, while parenting a teen, a tween and a toddler.? She?s currently writing a sci fi romance novel for teenagers and blogs on life balance at?www.worklifebliss.com.au??and sometimes at?www.emmacatherinegrey.blogspot.com?. A free eBook on the 7 Types of Busy is available on her website. Source: http://www.hercanberra.com.au/index.php/2012/02/13/8753/
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