Facebook Moms Groups | Lots of Responses, Support…and Meanness

During her last pregnancy, Pamela Madore joined a group of women on Facebook. What did they have in common? They were due in April 2024.

Although she was about to give birth to her sixth child, it was the first time she had been expecting a baby in the virtual company of other pregnant women. She really enjoyed the experience.

“It’s really nice to be able to follow each other during our pregnancies, to reassure each other,” she says. During her first trimester, following an ultrasound with worrying results, she felt a lot of anxiety.

Paméla Madore is also part of a group of mothers and fathers who head large families. “With so many children, the days can be very difficult or go really well. Being able to meet up and identify with other mothers in the same situation helps to take a weight off your shoulders. They understand me,” says the mother, who is the only one in her circle with a large family.

Meetings and answers

This ease of getting in touch with people with similar experiences to one’s is one of the positive elements of Facebook groups, believes psychologist Lory Zéphyr, who, until last June, was one of the administrators of the discussion group Ça va maman?. A mother asked a question about a rare disease? Thanks to the 12,000 or so members, “there were always answers.” “There was great mutual support,” day and night, she says.

Mothers’ groups are “a gold mine of information,” says Élyse-Anne Ménard. “Whenever I have questions, I have a space to ask questions,” says the mother of two.

This search for information on various topics related to motherhood, such as childbirth or the baby’s sleep, is also one of the main motivations for mothers to join groups on social networks, underlines Lyne Douville, professor in the department of psychoeducation and social work at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). Why don’t they turn to sites whose content is validated by professionals, for example Naître et grandir? They do that too, replies the researcher, but they also want to know what “women like them” experience.

In the virtual world, since it is possible to publish anonymously, “women will discuss things that they would not allow themselves to discuss with those close to them,” adds Lyne Douville, professor at UQTR.

In a study she contributed to by the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies on Child Development, participants said that “social media saved them” by giving them the space to express themselves without fear of judgment from those close to them.

Of judgment and mockery

However, paradoxically, by posting on Facebook, mothers risk being the target of derogatory comments.

Lory Zéphyr and Jessika Brazeau can attest to this. Three years ago, the two entrepreneurs behind the platform Ça va maman? opened the discussion group of the same name to allow for dialogue on maternal mental health. What, at first, was a safe space where mothers supported each other with kindness became a very difficult forum to manage. “There was a lot of meanness,” laments Lory Zéphyr. “And a lot of bickering between mothers,” adds her colleague.

Exhausted by the many hours spent moderating the group, they chose, “after a year of reflection,” to close it. A “heartbreaking” decision, because they knew that the group was “a support for many mothers.” Regulars wrote there every day.

Members of the group Ça va maman?, Élyse-Anne Ménard and other women have launched a new group to compensate for this closure: Safe space for mothers. Even if they advocate openness and non-judgment, the safe space they want to create is “not perfect,” she admits, indicating that moderation is “a difficult task.”

“You have to monitor who enters the group and check the groups they already belong to.” Why? Because there are groups whose sole purpose is to make fun of mothers. Their members post screenshots taken from mothers’ groups that they have managed to gain access to. A problem that the team at Ça va maman? also had to deal with. “That these groups exist surprised me. […] How much time do you have to waste? asks Jessika Brazeau.

Beware of comparisons

Another dark side of moms’ groups is their impact on mental health. Researchers at Pepperdine University in California found that moms who spent more time on these groups had higher levels of stress.

“There is a risk of social comparison,” Lyne Douville points out. If we worry about our son’s development because we compare him to that of the children of other members of the group, “it negatively colors the mother’s experience,” gives the professor as an example, recalling that “children do not all develop at the same time and at the same speed.”

Mothers will be shaken by this comparison even if they are aware that what they see on social networks is often embellished, she adds.

This is especially true for mothers who “are very perfectionists,” the professor reveals, citing a study.

Essentials

Even though she sometimes receives mean comments – mainly from people who think she is getting rich with child benefit – Paméla Madore gets much more positive than negative from her experience on social media. The woman who is also very active on TikTok under the pseudonym Une maman et sa demi-douzaine considers her virtual community to be “benevolent”.

These days, “social media is almost as important as the people around you,” believes Lyne Douville. However, even if this virtual village is now an essential place for many mothers to connect, it does not replace the real presence of friends and family, she emphasizes. In a study conducted by one of her students, all the mothers surveyed said they preferred in-person support over virtual support.