My PIMs
I’m fortunate to have made the acquaintance of several wonderful women in my short tenure as a blogger. I’m honored to be allowed to peep into their lives, and I’m even more honored when I receive actual, real-life acknowledgement from them – comments on my blog, new readers of my blog, responses to my comments on their blogs, adding me to their blogrolls, even personal e-mails.
After reading the many accounts of real-life friendships realized at BlogHer, I was struck by the similarities between those experiences and my own online-turned-real-life friendships. Bloggers had BlogHer – I have my PIMs.
PIM stands for Psycho Internet Mom. It was coined by the husband of a friend of mine who introduced me to Babycenter when I was first pregnant with Tacy.
My first foray into online friendships started with Tacy’s birth board on Babycenter. I was so soured by the sniping and flaming on her birth board that I didn’t return to Babycenter again until I was back at work and in the throes of post-partum depression. When I did return, it was to the Working Moms board. I needed to hear that other women had survived this hell.
I got that reassurance and so much more. Much more than I had ever anticipated. These women were kind and compassionate. They understood the challenges I was facing. Many of them were seasoned professionals, dedicated to both their careers and their families. Some worked only to pay the mortgage and longed to be at home with their children full-time. Their interests, beliefs, philosophies, home lives, work lives, hobbies, goals and dreams were spread across the entire spectrum, but they all had in common those same daily challenges with which I was struggling.
As with any true friendship, it took time for us to grow close. Some of these women had been posting to the Working Moms board for a year or more, but many of us were relatively new to the community.
In Fall 2002, we took it off Babycenter and started a private group – first on Yahoo, moving shortly thereafter to MSN.
In Spring 2003, we had our first real-life gathering. About 20 of us met in Chicago for the weekend. I had met none of these women before. I had only spoken to a few of them on the phone.
Some of our husbands thought we were crazy. Some of them wouldn’t allow their wives to attend the gathering, fearing for their safety. The Internet can be a scary place; it is often difficult to tell whether people are who they say they who are, whether they represent themselves accurately or not.
Upon returning from Chicago, we immediately started to plan the next gathering, which ended up taking place in Baltimore in Spring 2004. Our third gathering was held in Las Vegas this past spring.
Meanwhile, many of us have visited each other individually. Several mothers live in various metropolitan areas and see each other regularly now. I have visited a few women myself, and I have had others come visit me.
For me, the most incredible personal aspect of this group is that we are here in Colorado because of one of the local Denver mothers and her husband. He was the one who recruited Kyle to his former position. When we were still in New Jersey and Kyle was looking for a new position, I naturally posted the news to my PIMs. Within minutes, my Denver PIM had responded, advising us to check out the job board on the company website and to forward Kyle’s resume to her husband. The rest is history.
I love my PIMs. They have been there for me through so much. I have learned more than I ever thought possible from this diverse group of amazing women. I hope that I have shown them the same kind of support. And you can bet that I will be there for next year’s gathering, wherever that may be.
September 29th, 2005 at 11:04 am
J, You rock, and always will!!
September 29th, 2005 at 11:17 am
We love you, too, girl.
September 29th, 2005 at 11:20 am
Love ya, Jules! I have been enjoying your blog and sit down every morning with my coffee to see what you posted.
September 29th, 2005 at 11:23 am
That’s really cool. I wonder if this would change Dear Abby’s mind or if she’d still denounce the internet as completely evil.
September 29th, 2005 at 11:35 am
I did a BabyCenter group for my first child too. We moved it into a Yahoo Group so that we could do everything over email instead of logging into BC all the time.
Surprisingly, we still email once in awhile: just little updates, but frequently the women seem to send out spam. (Grrr.)
It was an up-and-down thing with me. I kept on the list because of the women who were supportive and shared my fears. But there were definitely other women who were rigid about their expectations and snooty about their chosen birthplan/lifeplan for their new child.
One of the latter-sort contacted me after I had posted that I was leaving NYC. She lived in NJ, and wrote me a note saying “We MUST get together. This is the LAST opportunity we will have!”
Had she been actually reading my posts, she would have understood that I was so overwhelmed that I felt paralyzed. I had a three week old baby, was in a great deal of pain from the birth, and was moving across the country; how was I supposed to travel to New Jersey to meet with someone I disliked online?
Anyway… sorry for the long comment, but your post definitely brought back some memories for me! It is nice (or can be hurtful) to have a community of women with whom to interact, even if it is only online. But how wonderful that you got to meet in person!
See you at BlogHer II. I promise.
September 29th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
I abandoned BBC when it got wierd and really immature and high-school ish.
I am glad you found some good frineds that way. I should have tried the working moms board!
September 29th, 2005 at 2:12 pm
Meghan – you can check out the working parents’ board on parentcenter! Small-ish group, very supportive.
Kari – thank you for sharing your experience. I can only imagine.
September 29th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
You know, my husband used to play this on-line game and a few times he got together with his fellow gamers. I thought he was nutso at the time – getting together with complete strangers? They could be psycho killers or something. Now that I blog, I totally get it. I am friends with my blogger pals! I love checking in on how everyone is doing and I love it when they visit me. It is a nice daily reminder that in spite of all that makes us unique, we have so much in common.
September 29th, 2005 at 5:01 pm
Hey girl… I hope you know how much I respect you and love you as a friend. Before I “met” you on BC, I just didn’t think it was possible to find a female that I could have so much in common with. I didn’t have it in high school and I didn’t have it in college. I’ve been lucky to have great friends and a supportive extended family, but I always felt like I had to hide a part of myself in order to fit in. You were the first person on the BC Working Moms Board that made me feel welcome (I don’t think I realized then that you were new to the group too) and it opened up a whole new world for me. Keep on rocking, my friend!!!
September 29th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
That’s awesome. I had a group from my pre-natal yoga class. Now that I’ve moved away I miss them so much. I almost wish it had been the far more mobile internet type support group.
Anyone who denounces the internet as completely evil probably agrees with banning books…
September 29th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
I met my spouse online. We’ve been married almost 3 years. So, there are some great people out there. Glad you found some supportive people.
September 29th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
I hope to have some PIMs too. Another great entry.
September 29th, 2005 at 8:18 pm
We’ll always have Chicago.
The look on your face, trapped in the middle of Michigan Avenue is forever etched into my brain. There you were, a girl who would navigate the streets of NYC on a daily basis, and you couldn’t even cross the street in Chicago.
Passed by that very corner a few months ago and wished you were there with me…
September 29th, 2005 at 9:30 pm
Sniff…you guys are the shit. All of you.
I won’t lie – my PIMs and I have had rough times, but we have managed to hold it together.
And Megan, I thought of you every time I crossed 42nd St at Eighth Ave. against the light at rush hour, and wished you could be there to see just how well I can jaywalk!
September 29th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
It makes me so glad to read that women use blogging for stuff like PIMs. My son is eight and I suffered from a very severe case of post partum depression that went undiagnosed until over three years later. I was convinced that I was a total failure as a mother and a person so I just become an uber professional career woman – which is a bullshit response to problems. You have a link to Milliner – a great blog. I posted my reflections on that time and her response was so incredible healing and validating. Back in 1997 you just couldn’t find
a resource like that. You write well and you write honestly – people connect to that.
September 30th, 2005 at 6:25 am
Jules you are freakin’ awesome! I am proud to be one of your PIM friends! You are one of the greatest individuals I have the pleasure of knowing!
September 30th, 2005 at 6:57 am
Julie, thank you so much for sharing this with us. I loved your PIM post! And I’m so glad I got to meet you in person in Baltimore. (and everytime I see Boogie Nights or Tumbleweeds I think of you because your twin is that actress!) I look forward to reading your blog everyday.
Love ya, girl…
September 30th, 2005 at 8:32 am
OMG Megan… I can totally picture that face too. It’s funny the moments in time that get freezed into our brains.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:49 pm
Sorry I am late on this thread, but you know I love ya babe. And I now laugh at my resistence at being recruited into the PIMs by twingrins. She did me a huge favor cause you all ROCK.
December 2nd, 2005 at 6:37 pm
I’ve got PIMs too! Love them! I have even met some of them!
April 20th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
[...] back in 2003 when my PIMs and I were planning our first gathering in Chicago, a few of them fantasized about how cool it [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
[...] my PIMs and I took our friendships off the Babycenter Working Moms board and onto a Yahoo group and started [...]