I keep wanting to leave Facebook, but one thing has me coming back: the mom groups

• I had my first child in 2016 when mom influencers were starting to be a thing on Instagram. 
• I felt like I was failing as a mom and found more comfort in a Facebook group. 
• People are in the comments helping each other, whether to find formula or leave an abusive partner. 

When I gave birth for the first time in September 2016, the Instagram mom aesthetic was at its peak. Everyone in my feed was pregnant and over the moon. The playrooms were Montessori, the onesies were beige, babies were sleeping in large wicker baskets, the moms were "blissed out" and "#blessed," and any hint of a complaint was met with a chorus of "you got this, mama" in the comment section.

Meanwhile, I spent my maternity leave Googling "Does my baby hate me?" and crying in my car. I felt like the only mama in the world who did not, in fact, have it.

It wasn't until four years and another baby later, when we moved from our beloved neighborhood in downtown Phoenix to St. George, Utah, for my husband's job, that I discovered the antidote to Instagram's unattainable image of parenting in the most unexpected place — a private Facebook group.

Moms are helping other moms

With more than 10,000 members, the group is a wild hodgepodge of caregivers that cuts across demographics. There are the very vocal homeschooling moms; the teen moms who found themselves thrust into single motherhood while their ex-boyfriends leave for college; the veteran moms and grandmas who live to offer unsolicited advice; and the aggrieved moms who are always shocked and appalled at something someone else's child did.

But amid petty arguments, there's something a bit more heartening happening: the moms are helping the other moms. And this isn't the type of toxic positivity "help" that I'd grown so weary of — it is true communal care.

At the height of the formula shortage, the group became a situation room of sorts, with scores of women figuring out ways to feed each other's babies. When someone asks for advice on how to leave an abusive partner, the comment section is flooded with advice, resources, and offers to help. Spare bedrooms are opened up, rides are offered, and childcare is provided. 

I found comfort

The group quickly became a lifeline for me, too, albeit in a less visible way. Isolated and depressed since the move, I found comfort in the way women spoke within the group, how they discussed the difficulties of parenting without ensconcing them in the guilt-ridden silver lining that is typically expected of mothers, and perhaps more than anything, I marveled at how easily they asked for help. 

I thought of the group often during times of panic and overwhelm. When I had to leave my mom in the emergency room one day to go pick my kids up from school, I knew that if push came to shove, I could post in the group, and someone would come help. Someone would watch my kids or check in on my mom, and they wouldn't hold it over my head as a sign of my failings, my inability to do it all.

I never made the post and never actually asked for help, but something shifted in my mind that day — I realized that in lieu of an actual safety net, the women in our community had built one of our own.