Support groups provide a plethora of information for Westside parents
(A note from Leslye Adelman, founder of GentleNurturing.com: Congratulations to Linda Perry and Peachhead Families for a great article, and even higher praise is extended to you for founding such an invaluable service! Other cities across the United States and beyond should look to the example of PeachheadFamilies.com and work to provide user groups that are so beneficial to the community-at-large.)
CITYWIDE -- Some say it takes a village to raise a child. In Elisha Lenders' case, the old adage has never carried so much weight.
From inquiring about disciplinary measures that are kosher to finding the best baby bottle, the Culver City resident refers to the same parenting resource without fail, tapping into a network of more than 6,000 parenting experts and novices.
"When I first became a mom, I didn't know a lot of people around Los Angeles and didn't have a lot of resources of what to buy and what to do when my kid was sick," said Lender, the mother of a 3-year-old daughter. "I found a great Yahoo group ... and was hooked."
The group she is referring to is the Peachhead Families, an online and off-line community of parents, providing resources on all things related to parenting, from finding the best pediatrician to warnings about the recent Mattel toy recall.
"We talk about nutrition, pediatricians, lawyers, problems with children, difficult moments," said Lenders, an interior designer who has been a Peachhead member for two years.
The Westside-based organization is among the many support groups guiding new moms through their early and most vital years of parenthood, utilizing the years of combined child-rearing experience and expertise that springs from such a large network of parents.
People who subscribe to resource groups like the MOMS Club of Santa Monica South, Peachhead Families and CityMommy -- the newborn of the bunch -- swear by the seemingly endless supply of information. Some mothers say they have also discovered a new type of social life through these communities that they can't share with friends that don't have children, outings such as mom's nights out and play dates. The newest addition to the support group scene is CityMommy, a social networking site for mothers that can be described as the MySpace for moms.
The mother of a 1-year-old daughter, Dayna Landry of West Los Angeles launched the free service in June of 2007. Dissatisfied with the lack of information available online for new mothers in her area, Landry, whose professional background is in Internet advertising, decided to start-up a new Web site that would provide resources catering to this particular community.
"A lot of times for moms, especially stay-at-home moms, don't have a lot of connections with people that are moms," Landry said. "It can be kind of lonely and frustrating, you can feel like you don't have a good place to go for questions."
The Web site's membership has grown during the past two months to more than 1,200 parents, many of whom are concentrated in Santa Monica.
Similar to networking sites like MySpace and Friendster, mothers can customize their own pages on CityMommy and upload photos and videos of their children. Parents can also find a directory to local events and businesses and find answers to questions on a message board. The site is available by member invitation only.
Santa Monica resident Moujan Kazerani has subscribed to CityMommy since its inception, using the service to find out about upcoming events for her family. The full-time attorney said she doesn't have time during the week to attend play group meetings and "Mommy and Me" classes for her 15-month-old son.
"It's a wonderful way to keep in touch with other moms and ask questions and read what they're doing," she said. Many moms subscribe to more than one organization where they often get the opportunity to learn about similar groups. Such was the case for Lenders who discovered Peachhead through the MOMS Club of Santa Monica South.
The local chapter of the International MOMS Club was founded in Santa Monica about two years ago, supporting families south of Wilshire Boulevard all the way down to Venice Beach.
The club has about 60 members split into subgroups depending on the child's age, said Helen Kim, who runs the organization along with co-president Katie Dellecker, both of whom are Santa Monica residents.
Along with serving as a bank of parenting information, the MOMS Club hosts holiday parties throughout the year, from Halloween to Valentine's Day to Father's Day. Club meetings are held every few weeks where experts come to speak about the latest parenting issues.
"It's nice to talk to somebody going through the exact same thing," Kim said. "You don't feel isolated at home with a baby and no adult contact."
The mother of a 2-year-old daughter, Kim joined the MOMS Club last year but wished she would've joined sooner, calling her first year of parenting the most challenging. "You just feel like you're doing everything wrong and it's nothing like you expect at all," she said.
IT'S THE OTHER PEACHHEAD
When Venice resident Linda Perry founded Peachhead Families in 1997, the new mom interacted with club members through her husband's e-mail address. The fan of the Allman Brothers Band incorporated the word peach-head into his e-mail address. The name stems from the band's "Eat a Peach" album.
Soon after, Perry took over the e-mail address and adopted Peachhead as the name for the group.
The organization started with 15 moms at a "Mommy and Me" class and has slowly expanded to more than 6,000 members throughout the county, many of which reside on the Westside. Perry now has two children, 9-year-old and 6-year-old daughters. The heart of Peachhead Families is its Yahoo Group mailing list, a resource that features approximately 7,000 messages being sent back and forth between members each day, said Perry, an attorney. When the mailing list was launched in 2003, the server averaged about 55 messages a month. Aside from the mailing lists, the organization hosts a number of events throughout the year, including mom's nights out and spa nights. The group has also spawned a series of sub-communities, including ones for working Peachhead moms and single Peachhead parents.
"I didn't know anything about babies before I started this group and it was great to know I could just send an e-mail out," she said. "It just helped me to be able to meet with other moms."
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