{"id":608805,"date":"2026-04-15T16:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/608805\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T16:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:25:09","slug":"despite-their-bad-reputation-parenting-group-chats-are-for-some-the-village-that-never-sleeps-parents-and-parenting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/608805\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite their bad reputation, parenting group chats are \u2013 for some \u2013 the village that never sleeps | Parents and parenting"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first few days after I brought my daughter home from the hospital, my house was busier than it had ever been. Family<\/a>, friends, neighbours and even loose acquaintances crowded the doorway, plying me with food, gifts, hand-me-downs and advice.<\/p>\n

But as the sun set, the crowds thinned. My daughter would wake for a long night of not sleeping and I\u2019d retreat to my bedroom and, honestly, my phone.<\/p>\n

Late-night descents into the digital abyss have rarely been fruitful for me. I\u2019d fall into some paranoid void of content, commerce or conspiracy, only to emerge, hours later, exhausted and anxious.<\/p>\n

Post-baby, though, I discovered a hidden digital sanctuary: parent WhatsApp<\/a> chats.<\/p>\n

While pregnant, I\u2019d been added to several mothers\u2019 groups and their accompanying threads. There was the one with pregnant friends, my local council group, another for mums in my area, a paid group for hippy parents and, finally, the family thread where all the planning was handled.<\/p>\n

Even then I knew the internet could be a fraught space for new mothers, crowded with toxic simulacrums of the kind of parent one is supposed to be. Parent WhatsApp chats often form the dark heart of this culture. Earlier this year, actor Ashley French (formerly Tisdale) wrote a viral piece<\/a> detailing her decision to \u201cbreak up\u201d with her toxic mothers\u2019 group \u2013 and accompanying group chat.<\/p>\n

The article set the internet alight as readers speculated about which celebrities were involved and shared their own stories of judgment and bullying in these spaces. When I began asking around while researching this piece, I also received dozens of messages that essentially said: \u201cI blocked all my mum chats because they were awful and judgy.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, in perhaps the first reprieve the internet has ever granted me, my chats never turned noxious. Instead, they became 24-hour, nonjudgmental spaces where I could ask advice, celebrate small victories or just vent.<\/p>\n

When teacher Jessica learned she was having twins, she didn\u2019t know anyone who had experienced what she was about to face. Then, while buying a pram on Facebook Marketplace, she met another local mum who invited her to join a group chat for families with twins.<\/p>\n

\u201cSingleton parents can\u2019t really understand twin parenthood,\u201d says Jessica, who asked to be referred to by her first name only. \u201cYou need parents of multiples in your life for support.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the chat I always felt like I had a cheer squad. I never felt alone, even though I was raising twins interstate from my friends and family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018You know that there\u2019s someone there 24\/7, which is very important in the darkness of the night,\u2019 Annie Portelli says. Photograph: Namthip Muanthongthae\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

When her sons were born, the online connection became even more important. The babies spent 10 weeks in hospital and, once they came home, she felt leaving the house was nearly impossible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe parents of multiples association runs playgroups but those are so hard to access when you\u2019re in the trenches with newborn twins,\u201d she says. \u201cHaving other twin mums to talk to in the chat felt integrated into my daily life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, Louella admits she\u2019s lucky to have strong in-person support. But even with the real-life community, her WhatsApp mothers\u2019 group \u2013 started by a friend \u2013 offers a different kind of connection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve found motherhood to be really amazing but also, at times, quite isolating,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have someone message and be like: \u2018I\u2019m up doing the 3am feed, is anyone else awake?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markIn those moments my phone didn\u2019t feel like a void but a window I could crawl through to find another person.Wendy Syfret<\/p>\n

Art director Annie Portelli met the members of her chat \u2013 aptly named \u201cFree Therapy for the Mummy Vault\u201d \u2013 through her local library\u2019s toddler sessions. The group still meets in person but, like Louella, she benefits from the always-on intimacy of the thread.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe WhatsApp group chat specifically is really comforting because you know that there\u2019s someone there 24\/7, which is very important in the darkness of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s openness also matters. \u201cYou can literally say anything \u2013 baby-related or not \u2013 and no one will judge you,\u201d she says. \u201cGetting a welfare-check message the morning after a bad night means the world when you\u2019re home alone with your baby and feeling like a failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the proliferation of WhatsApp groups might feel like a post-pandemic phenomenon, parents have been seeking these spaces for decades.<\/p>\n

Kiri, whose children are now teenagers, remembers her council mothers\u2019 group as a far more performative space.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt a huge amount of pressure to give the impression I was coping,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen people talked about sleep training or baby-led weaning, I\u2019d pretend I\u2019d researched it too. I felt incredibly unsure of myself but I didn\u2019t want them to know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than open up in person, she found herself drawn to anonymous online forums with names like \u201cBirth Club\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSharing online was a whole other story,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was no question too silly and no vent too revealing. No one knew who I was, so I could say how I really felt. Strangers from overseas would commiserate or send \u2018virtual hugs\u2019. Honestly, it was a delight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite my fond memories of those group chats, it\u2019s probably for the best that I no longer spend entire nights staring at my phone. Still, when one of the old threads pings to life with a rogue update or birthday invitation, I feel a pang of nostalgia.<\/p>\n

Suddenly I\u2019m back in my dark bedroom, looking out at an empty street and feeling like the only person awake on Earth. In those moments my phone didn\u2019t feel like a void but a window I could crawl through to find another person.<\/p>\n

Perhaps in another life, another decade, another country, these women and I wouldn\u2019t have needed group chats. Maybe our families would have lived nearby. Maybe we wouldn\u2019t have been rushing babies to sleep so we could return to work. Maybe we would have spent long afternoons with other parents, slowly and communally navigating early parenthood.<\/p>\n

The world has changed but the demands of parenting remain the same. It still takes a village to raise a child. But, for better or worse, these days the village often lives inside our phones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first few days after I brought my daughter home from the hospital, my house was busier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-608805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}