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Family estrangement is no new concept, but between Oprah Winfrey’s recent “No Contact” special and a number of this awards season’s buzziest films, it’s clear that talking about it has fully gone mainstream. One result of this cultural shift? A lot of people are looking for parental advice but lacking a parent to talk to. The sub-Reddit r/MomForaMinute is trying to help with that. The page has almost 40,000 weekly visitors seeking or providing motherly advice and care. Some have gone no contact with an abusive parent; often, their parent has died or disowned them for being LGBTQIA+. Redditors (often referred to as “ducklings” on the sub-Reddit) are encouraged to share the questions they wish they could ask their real-life moms, with requests for advice ranging from “Help me bake pavlova” to “I bought a wedding dress and I’m scared I made the wrong choice.” While there are posts from users experiencing disappointment, fear, and sadness, the page is heartwarming overall, with handfuls of “mothers” sharing advice and love. We spoke with five of these online mothers (and one r/MomForaMinute moderator) about what brought them to the page — and what keeps them coming back.
“I’m putting drops in other people’s buckets.”
— A 41-year-old woman from Toronto
I’m married and have two kids. I reply to everything from trivial posts like “I need help making cheap meal ideas” or “I just need someone to tell me that I’m beautiful today” to deep ones like “I’m transgender, and I want my family to support me.” Though I mostly comment from the perspective of a mom, I actually stumbled onto the thread originally because I am estranged from my own mother, and one time I decided to post as a duckling. I said, “I don’t really hear that I’m a good parent from my own family and in-laws, but I am and I am proud of that and want to celebrate it.” As soon as I posted it, the comments felt so deeply personal and touching. I was crying at every single kind word someone said. These words can be so meaningful even when I have no relationship with these people whatsoever, and I can’t get that from my own family.
It’s one of the only positive places on the internet that exists, which are very few and far between. Have you heard of the water-bucket theory? The analogy is that every time something good happens to you, a drop of water goes into your bucket. Every time something frustrating or bad happens to you, a drop comes out; eventually, you’re going to be really angry and really frustrated when there’s nothing in your bucket, so you’re supposed to be looking for ways to put drops of water in your bucket for yourself. When you do good things for other people, they get a drop in their bucket, and you also get a drop in yours. That’s the way that I engage with the sub-Reddit, like I’m putting drops in other people’s buckets. Repairing relationships with family is tenuous and very difficult, and this feels like a very nice, clean way to help people get a little bit more in their bucket and give them strength to carry on.
“We are extremely aggressive about protecting the space.”
— A 38-year-old-moderator from Chicago
Seven and a half years ago, the sub-Reddit’s founder, Lulu, was looking to bring in new moderators, and I applied. I was working as a behavioral psychologist, and I saw so many kids who were lacking community. I was looking for more opportunities to volunteer with young people, where I could do something positive for strangers. Moderating the sub-Reddit is another facet of my volunteerism; it just happens to be digital.
I probably do two hours of moderating a day. A lot of that is spent reviewing filtered posts, making sure appropriate ones aren’t getting blocked when they shouldn’t and that inappropriate ones are. We are extremely aggressive about protecting the space. Behind the scenes, there are just as many angry users who lash out into the void, so we try to keep it a warm space. We get maybe a dozen submissions a week of people who are very clearly writing therapy letters, essentially to abusive parents, parents who were neglectful, things like that. And those are not appropriate for our space. We have a rule that addresses this: “No negative letters to (abusive/absent/awful) mothers.” It’s just not that kind of space.
“How can you not love your child?”
— A 60-year-old woman from Houston
From a very young age, I felt tremendous empathy and pain for people who are suffering. I grew up in a family with a lot of privilege, but at the same time, there was also a lot of abuse and neglect. I had a good relationship with my dad, but my mom was constantly telling me that she could never love me. And that really messed with me. I thought, How can you not love your child? Going to a psychologist and becoming a mother myself made me realize that the problem wasn’t me. And it made me want to show up as a parent differently. I got hooked on Scandinavian child psychology, which emphasizes the importance of accepting your child’s unique personality and respecting it. That’s when I really learned about unconditional love and how there was nothing my daughter could do in life that would cause me to stop loving her.
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I was on a feminist Reddit thread where someone came in and said, “Hey, we’re starting this new group for people looking for motherly guidance.” Because of my experience growing up, I wanted to help those users and very quickly became active in the sub-Reddit. I remember one post from a transgender kid that came out, and after being rejected by his family, his mother had told him, “I don’t recognize you as a man.” I replied, “You haven’t changed. You become more yourself, but you’re still the same person. If your mom isn’t able to love you unconditionally, then that is about her and not about you.”
People jump in to respond, but only if they’re going to contribute positively or share life experience. For example, I read the threads about cleaning advice because I want to pick up those tips, and I know that is not one of my strengths, so I remain silent. There are unwritten aspects of the thread that I really value. It’s not about us. So much of social media is about “see me and hear me,” whereas this is almost the complete opposite.
“Reddit gives me a glimpse into the future.”
— A 43-year-old woman from Colorado
I’m a mom of three kids; my husband is a disabled veteran, and I’m his caregiver. I created a Reddit account a little over a year ago, but I wasn’t really active on it. I was commenting on a group called r/InternetParents, and r/MomForaMinute popped up. I’m like, Oh, I can be a mom for a minute, I’ve got three kids already.
The posts that really get to me are the ones of people who are in their late teens and early 20s, and they’re asking questions like, “Is this normal for me to feel okay about this? Is this okay for me to do this?” My kids are younger than that; they’re preteen age. When I read some of these posts, I take a mental note that when my kids get to be this age, this is something that I need to look out for. The other day I had somebody tell me, “You’re a really good mom.” And I’m like, “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.” I’m an okay mom. My kids are all alive, and they’re all fed. But when you are a mom, it’s hard for you to look at everything you’re doing during the day and be like, I really hit it out of the park today.
When my twins were 5, they asked me if I had an iPad when I was little, and I said that I didn’t even really have the internet. They thought that was insane. How could anyone live without the internet? I’m raising my kids in a world that isn’t my own, and being on Reddit gives me a glimpse into the future of what their young adulthood is going to be like. I’m hoping that the world isn’t too terrible when my children become young adults.
“I get to be someone’s cheerleader.”
— A 44-year-old woman from Portland
I always wanted kids, and that just didn’t work out. But I have really treasured being the special, weird aunt for all the little kids in my life, and I’ve got some of that energy to spare for folks on the internet. So it’s been an uplifting hobby for me to get to be someone’s cheerleader. The sub-Reddit is a wonderful anti-doom-scrolling spiral that is rare online.
I’ve had someone reach out to me about a decision they felt kind of dumb about. It wasn’t a big deal, just a bad haircut that everyone commented on in real life, so they were spiraling a little bit. I checked in with them over the course of a couple of weeks until they got their legs back under them. They just needed someone to tell them, “Your hair will grow out. It’s okay.” We’re not in touch anymore, but I still think about them. I feel like I’ve done my job. It feels like you’re running along, holding on to the back of the bicycle, and then it clicks, and off they go, and they don’t need you to hold them up.
I saw one young woman on the sub coming out as trans, and she had just gone out in public as herself for the first time. She had briefly posted a picture of herself, and she just looked so happy. She had picked a killer outfit with a great color. And not only being able to say, “Good job, you’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you. You look so happy,” but also being, in sort of a different mom mode, to be able to say, “That color is beautiful on you and you should wear that more,” felt like really lovely mom advice. How great to be allowed into that moment for someone.
