These Are a Few of My Favorite (Facebook) Things – Mommy Blogger
10/18/2018
Elyse Lalonde has always called Saskatoon home. She started on the motherhood journey in the Summer of 2015 when she had her son. Elyse is a working mom, always seeking a fine balance in life with a busy toddler. As a MommyConnections “alumnus,” she enjoys socializing with moms and babies her son’s age. Elyse has always enjoyed writing and journaling, and hopes to share her experiences (good, bad, and sarcastic) with the online parenting community in Saskatoon.
My next New Year’s resolution is to quit looking at Facebook so much. I realise this is a tall order, but I am starting to despise myself a little for sneaking in the seemingly small videos and trashy articles here and there… and, who am I kidding, everywhere! But the reason I can’t quit Facebook completely is because there are some nifty uplifting mommy pages out there that I want to draw attention to. And I’m sure you’ve heard of them, if you don’t already follow/subscribe to them.
Before I start my rant, I just want to put out there that this is strictly opinion (and MY opinion, at that). I in no way affiliate or know of anyone who works for these sites listed below. I’m just tossing out to you what I hope to be a carefully thought out and researched (as much as possible) summary of my top 3 favorite mommy/parent Facebook sites. These sites are not parenting-type specific. They touch on all topics and items for discussion, including recent parenting trends, or news in general that impact parents raising young ones in today’s world. Each of these sites reviewed below hold the fundamental essence of building positive parent communities across the globe. They’re something you can really get behind!
And on that note, here it is: my top three fav mommy Facebook Sites:
- Scary Mommy (& Scary Mommy 2.0) – Self-Proclaimed “snot catchers, and ass-wipers.” Yes! A popular feed on my Facebook page, full of sarcastic memes and stories that highlight the highs and los of parenthood. Not to mention the multitude of memes about singing baby shark in your pjs whilst holding a cup of iced coffee (that was warm an hour ago…) Been there, done that. Scary Mommy delves into the day-to-day hilarity of the imperfections of Parenting. They often host live feed from the site’s main bloggers/contributors’ and post multitudes of articles and essays, ranging from everything on parenting in its relation to health & wellness, sleep (Ha! Good one!) beauty, politics, relationships, friendships, etc. They even have the quick, more personalised blog posts/rants that you don’t have to “click” on in order to access or read. The only downfall to Scary Mommy is that it had, at one point in time, taken over 99% of my Facebook feed. I had to quiet it down for a while so that I could actually find posts from my own friends and family, and not the ones from the Scary Mommy Community. I still have a limit set on their posts, to only show me the most popular ones. Sometimes, less is more… except with this gem: because we could all use a little more of the F word https://www.scarymommy.com/why-i-use-the-f-word/?utm_source=FB
- HuffPost Parents Canada – “for the People, not the Powerful.” That is the opening mission statement of the main Huffington Post Page, where they describe themselves as a News & Politics site that is diverse and inclusive. And I would say it shows in their subset parenting site, for the most part. I like the HuffPost in general, but I feel I get a lot of duplication of articles and content between Huffpost Parent and the regular HuffPost. Obviously, with the issues the world is facing now, there would be concerns that affect the way in which we rear our children. But I find there are quite a number of darker articles being shown in my Facebook feed (ie. Climate change crisis, infantile diseases, USA political catastrophe). There is definitely a time and a place for reading these articles, but I don’t want my time to be burdened with heavy material. There’s a reason I don’t watch the news on TV—I value my sanity and the belief that the world IS actually a good place. Similarly, I choose to read about uplifting stories of hope, current research on parenting techniques, creating positive child-parent relationships, and creating positive changes in culture, politics, etc. I think a better balance could be found with HuffPost Parents. On the flip side, there’s always informative articles to be found: consider this recently posted article on why parents should avoid the “Baby Shark Challenge,” which is seen here: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/10/05/baby-shark-challenge_a_23552309/?utm_hp_ref=ca-parents. So, there’s that…. Props to them because I didn’t know this was a thing. The more you know!
- Motherly – I discovered this on Facebook only a few months ago. I feel like I have been missing out on this site for the first chunk of my motherhood journey. I really have nothing negative to say about it, other than I only read what seems interesting… which is a lot. I find the articles here to be well-rounded. Case in point– a recent article on sleep training from a sleep coach, going through the positives and negatives of sleep coaching, including the myths and misconceptions. Also, Case in point– a well written article on the benefits of co-sleeping, and the research to back it up! There is a lot of hope and peacefulness about the bloggers who contribute here. I have quite a few of their posts bookmarked to re-read later, to remind myself of the positivity to be found in every day. I particularly like that Motherly lists who contributes to the articles and topics, from Pediatricians to wellness coaches to Psychologists/child development experts and relationship specialists. A worthwhile site to follow!
So there you have it! These are a few of my favorite mommy Facebook things. A good article or two, and then I don’t feel so bad 😊 (See links below for more detail!)
https://www.scarymommy.com/about-scary-mommy/
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/parents/
https://www.mother.ly/st/about
