Mommies in the ‘Hood

Keeping up with my last post about mommy communities, I’d like to celebrate the fact that I just found out about a website for Vancouver mommies. No idea how I missed this before, but one of my friends and fellow moms pointed out one of their articles showcasing great local mommy blogs. Funny enough, a few of them are blogs I read/lurk on regularly (shout out to Crunchy Carpets, Mother Woman, strocel.com, and all the others who got mentions) and it sure brings our community closer to reality.

I started poking around the site and found some great articles, reviews, and resources for local events, advice and everything else under the sun. I’m impressed. Many more locally driven sites often tend to be quite thin and narrowly focused. I like to find something a bit more beefy.

Then I started wondering how micro can you get before the appeal or value is lost? Do I even qualify as a Vancouver mom if I live in a veritable suburb? Would there be value to my fellow mommies in our community if they had an online resource such as this, but focused solely on our local community? I know there is a thriving demographic up here, but I don’t know that there would be enough to sustain interest in a small, regionally specific online community. I think for now I’ll hang with the “big city” mommies and try to leverage the community there.

I’m very proud that our local Vancouver mommy bloggers have reached such levels of sophistication in the North American ‘scene’. Most of those that I read, I found through reading some of the other well-followed blogs out there, without even knowing I was reading a Vancouver mom. In fact, one of my favourites (Mr. Lady from Whiskey in My Sippy Cup) just moved out of the Vancouver area – who knew we were fortunate enough to be in the presence of such greatness for years? I’m only sad I never got to meet her while she was so close by.

I look forward to learning about more and emerging local mommy bloggers, and will continue to read those that exist with interest and enthusiasm. But would we ever have the chance to come together in person? Would that make this community stronger or would it just be weird, like a bunch of stalkers that finally get to meet their objects of attention in person? Would we get shy with each other or would we finally be satisfied that there is a whole truth to that person you follow every week? Would our inhibitions become real? Would we get awkward?

Personally, I’d love a Vancouver mommy bloggers meet up. While I get alot out of what I read, I’d also love to round out my experience and membership in this community. If I don’t have 100 readers a day, am I even allowed to say I belong? I think I do. I write, the occasional person reads, I follow and comment and feel some type of kinship with the authors.

What do you think? Am I sounding like a stalker or is this like online dating, where eventually meeting in person takes the community to a new level? Or would it fall flat on its face, never to be the same afterwards when the person you envisioned turns out to talk differently or walk differently or just be different in some way than how we imagined? Are we better left to our imaginations, just like so many blind dates should have been?