LA Friends Installment #2
aka my City Mommy Hookers
It was late 2007.
Two years earlier I met my husband. One year in between we married and we had a baby in May 2007. In the midst of advanced maternal age (42!), taking care of an infant and figuring out what on earth I’m going to do with myself and this baby, a client’s assistant recommended a mommy and me that saved my nerves by preparing me for night terrors, croup and autism. .
My next saving grace was a message board called Citymommy. Citymommy was one of the most singularly efficient places on the internet that ever existed. A mom with a problem could log on at 3 AM to ask other mothers (who also were awake)what the hell is the weird sound / face / movement your baby was making. There would be some other mom on your wavelength, able to answer any question you had because they’d been through it and lived to tell the tale. This raw unfiltered communication led to moms flocking; passionate pleadings on all the topics moms talk about - vaccines, private school vs public school, preschool panic, swimming lessons, bullying, IEPs, deals at Disney, soccer coaches, orthodontists, Hebrew tutors, taekwando, cake bakers, event planners, and more. Once we all got a community vibe going there was THE anal sex thread, which to this day is the most epically cringe and hilarious thread I’ve ever read. At the height, I counted Citymommy (anecdotally) as having about 10,000 engaged moms checking in around the clock. It was a very serene community; there was debate but appreciation for each other. Then the 2007 election really rattled our cage.
When approaching sore subjects, I have always preferred real life to online, so I did what all Southern ladies do: invite everyone for cocktails. It would be a large guest list with vastly differing brands of moms, in style, background and politics. Heavy hors d’oeuvres and booze for two hours; old school Mad Men cocktail hour. If you were on Citymommy you were invited. You can read the story about the party on the archive here - everyone was cordial and did not argue politics. If they started I just shoved fresh cocktail at them.
Later Citymommy was sold, and the parenting resources that the community built over several years were unceremoniously thrown in the trash. It was upsetting and quite a scandal back then. But we’ve moved on.
Since my two hour cocktail soirée, a core group of us have continued meet and celebrate every now and then. Im sure some of you who are reading are able to easily drop in on a friend daily to visit, and I envy you. In LA, that is logistically near impossible, so when we do get together, we aren’t wasting time. No talking surface LA industry bullshit, although a couple of our moms’ families are in “the industry”, it’s not what we talk about. Their exciting Hollywood news is balanced evenly with another’s acceptance to college, another’s new job, another’s groundbreaking on a vacation house, a cruise. We all are there for the good news. We’ve celebrated our Georgie’s 50th and 60th in Palm Springs. We did our annual holiday party via zoom during the pandemic. We are REAL when we get together about what’s been happening in our lives. As times evolved, we’ve continued to meet quarterly, and every holiday season Heather has us out to her place in Topanga (her house did not burn!) for pot luck and Dirty Santa. We have endured.
I just got home from hanging out with all but three of our CM Hookers tonight. All but two of our kids are graduating this year and we are starting to talk travel unfettered by children.
