By Ginger S., from the Moms Network

If you had to guess, how many moms in the U.S. do you think go online more than once a day? (Skip down to the end of this blog for your answer, and I’d love to know how many of you were close! Comment me!)

I go online about a half-dozen times a day (or night) myself. Most of it is for my work, but about 30 percent of the time I’m reading news stories and visiting my favorite online communities to see who’s discussing, dishing and dissing.

Last week I happened upon a group of brand-spanking-new moms who were chatting as fast as their fingers could fly. Man! I wish there were online websites when my son was a baby. I can remember being the only one awake in my house either because I couldn’t fall asleep after a 2 a.m. feeding or because I was worrying about some strange new-baby symptom.  It would have been great to have someone to talk to other than the nurse at the Scottish Rite hotline who I think knew my voice by heart. Today, moms just go to their favorite online community and they can pretty much bet there is a bleary-eyed mom (or millions of ’em) on the other end already engaged in dozens of conversations about bottles vs. breast; rice milk vs. soy, feeding or treating a fever – all kinds of forums, chat rooms and message boards for moms to talk to each other, get advice and simply connect with a kindred spirit who also happens to be up in the middle of the night.

So fast-forward 12 years and here I am, thrilled that there are dozens of online sites for parents of adolescents and teens. On my favorite sites I’ve asked other moms dozens of questions about the roller coaster ride of hormones, the survival techniques for homework blues, and the “is this normal” questions that come up all the time. Soon I imagine myself once again awake in the middle of the night, worried about my son who is out past his curfew and isn’t answering his cell phone. Who am I going to call at that hour? Why, I’ll go online to Parents & Company or theantidrug.com or Teendriving.com and find some other moms in some other states also up at 1 a.m. worrying over their kids. And I bet we’d all rather be worried about a diaper rash, don’t you think? 

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