It seems the first thing in all of the single mother by choice books recommend is to "Build up your support network." What that is, and how to do that, is usually left vague.
I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I guess what they mean is to ensure you have a network of people who can sub in for all the various human needs that you will have while a mother -- I.e. someone to brag to about your child; someone to share those moments with when you just have no patience left; someone to babysit for a few hours while you go out and get groceries; someone who will sit through labor with you.
A community of people who you can count on to life this experience through with you. Online community can certainly pay a part in that, especially if you are not in a large city.
One of the first recommended places for online community is the Single Mothers By Choice forums. Jane, the author of the original "Single Mother by Choice" book, has a website at singlemothersbychoice.org ; part of the website is a pay-for-membership forum group.
You can choose to pay either $35/year for website forum membership, or pay $55/year for the full membership. Full membership gets you a list of SMC's in your town, and an in person meetup group. Back-story is that Jane had been running all those groups on the yahoo forums for years, but the maintenance got too much and so they transferred all the groups to their own server. Yahoo groups are still occasionally used for local chapter discussion.
Mikki Mikelson, the author of "Choice Moms", the more recent book on the market, also has a website with interactive elements; I would encourage you to check both out if you are early on your journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment