Are Moms Ready for A MySpace of Their Own?

When my kids were little, I discovered the Mothers Who Think column on Salon.com. The title was a little off-putting and the column's editors, Kate Moses and Camille Peri, a little heavy handed in their aim to prove how smart some young moms are even when their days are filled with the mundane basics of life. But it was a godsend to find searingly honest writings by moms who were doing what I was doing and were not boasting about how wonderfully they did it.

My kids are 13, (almost) 11, and 9 now, and the Web is filled with voices of moms sharing their lives on blogs. So it's not surprising that social networking sites for moms, the logical next step with the staggering success of MySpace and Facebook, are taking shape.

ClubMom, which (as the New York Times reports), has been focused on offline rewards programs for moms, is introducing TheMomNetwork, a MySpace for moms. Women can set up profile pages and search for other moms by where they live, kids with similar ages, and shared challenges they want to chat about. ClubMom says the popularity of its user-generated articles and message boards convinced them moms are ready for a social networking site of their own.

A quick search for other social networking venues for moms turns up sites such as Amiglia and JotSpot, where you can share family calendars, photos, and recipes, and build family trees. Amiglia has some nice touches, including a family facebook and a photo kids' game to help little ones get to know their far-away family members.

We moms have been seeking each other out to share the everyday long before the Web. I'm not sure the moms I know have the time to maintain online social networks along with their real-life ones. But I can see how connecting with other moms online could be a lifeline if you don't have a strong network of like-minded friends at home or work. And for this generation of moms coming of age in the MySpace era, the Web is a natural extension of the backyard fence.

Moms: Does an online social network fit in your lives? What are some of your favorite Web sites and blogs? Let me know—when you get a spare minute.