UrbanBaby at NYMagazine.com

NY Magazine has a cover article this week about mothers in NYC - as gleaned thru the online community called UrbanBaby. It's intersesting - non-treacle-y and bonus!!! - sort of styled as a front in the invisible class war. I learned the terms “sanctimommy” - a self-righteous mom and “Über-boober” - a sanctimommy obsessed with breast-feeding.

The only message boards I've ever been to are at forumosa.com, ivillage and babycentre. Forumosa - mostly for legal stuff regarding living in Taiwan. The other 2 for preg and baby stuff. Except for a couple comments that were not well-received at the beginning of Ivo's gestation, I've been a lurker. Either satisfied to find the info I wanted or more often sickened by the strange 2D online manifestations of women, individually and as a community, with whom I thought I'd have a little more in common.

Typical message boards feature women who start reckoning the age of their embryo before their period is late - in terms of days not weeks, these same people profess to already be showing at 2 weeks preg - going with the idea that their "muscles are shot" by former pregnancies. There is other magical thinking; terms like baby glue (to prevent miscarriage, represented by + signs), and counters featuring cartoon angels morbidly marking the days since a previous -usually super early miscarriage... Everyone is REALLY supportive - I don't even know what that means. Supporting others' undiagnosed untreated delusions, neuroses and fetishes? Providing a safe place for people to air their opinions without challenge?

So reading about urbanbaby was refreshing...Since you have pretty thorough anonymity - if you want it - on the web, why the restraint?

Ivo's up. We're gonna water the garden and go to the gym.