Wired Women
Online Advice for Moms
July 29, 2008
By Jen Gaffney
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Nineteen-fifties sitcoms provided Americans with an image of the ideal mom, a paragon who vacuumed and cooked dinner in heels, pearls and a perfectly pressed dress while her perfectly behaved children played quietly in another room.The modern wife and mother might not be held to such a dress code, but she’s doing a lot more than just cleaning and making dinner. She’s multitasking like crazy. Help the kids with homework. Tell bedtime stories. Keep up with the housework. Prepare healthy meals. And, in many cases, do all this while working full or part time.
Mothers run their own particular rat race, day in and day out. In honor of Mother’s Day and to lighten the load of mothers everywhere, we have compiled a list of web resources designed to help the modern mom keep all those balls in the air.
www.parentdish.com
The “mommy blogging” trend has exploded in recent years. Parent Dish, a multi-author blog, is one of the best in the genre. The ladies here write about everything from product recalls to family law to pregnancy to celebrity parenting news. The bloggers’ engaging tone stimulates an ongoing conversation with readers, who respond with their own opinions and comments.
http://life.familyeducation.com
This website aims to save your sanity by helping the entire family get and stay organized. Look to this resource for printable forms often needed by school-age children (think permission slips and homework-completion charts) and fun rainy day activities such as puzzles, coloring sheets and learning tools. Not only is the fill-in-the blanks family tree educational, but it’s also a great way to tell your kids stories about their ancestors.
www.realsimple.com
Real Simple endorses a clean, uncluttered lifestyle. The magazine’s website offers time-saving worksheets and checklists — perfect for the woman who lives for the sense of accomplishment gained from crossing items off a to-do list. There are forms to organize household finances, grocery store shopping lists and even a timeline checklist to keep your babysitter on schedule.
Real Simple also features a database of more than 1,300 recipes that can be sorted by main ingredient, course, occasion, cuisine, prep and dietary considerations. Of greatest interest to time-strapped moms is the “Conveniences” category, which allows users to find recipes that are freezable, kid-friendly, quick-and-easy or make-ahead. You can store your favorite recipes in a personalized cookbook.
www.clorox.com/tools/cleaning_advisor
Stains are part of the deal when you have kids. After you answer five quick questions about a stain, the Cleaning Advisor provides a solution to get rid of it. (Of course, only Clorox products are recommended.)
www.heloise.com
“Hints from Heloise,” the long-running nationally syndicated newspaper column, has a website that is chock-full of cleaning tips. Here you will learn MacGyver-esque stain-removal remedies that call for household staples such as baking soda, vinegar and even artificial sweetener.
www.childhealthguide.com
Caring for a sick child can be overwhelming, but the doctor-developed Child Health Guide can ease your mind. This resource allows parents to decide whether their child’s symptoms indicate a mild illness or something more serious that requires a call to the doctor’s office or even an emergency room visit. The Symptom Checker will help determine the seriousness of the condition, and video clips give real-life examples of what certain symptoms look and sound like.
www.babynamesworld.com
This is a great site for moms-to-be, who have a big decision ahead of them: what to name the baby? Search the extensive listings by alphabetic order, sex, origin or meaning. An extensive tip sheet titled “What Not to Name Your Baby” (click on “Naming Tips”) gives advice on naming an infant after a relative or celebrity, as well as advice on the pros and cons of very popular and very unusual names. It also offers tips to make sure your child doesn’t wind up with a potentially unfortunate nickname or set of initials.
http://parenting.ivillage.com
This corner of the iVillage community, one of the most popular online gathering spots for women, includes a live message board, daily feature articles and a whole slate of interactive tools. One of the best tools here is an informative Development Tracker that tells parents what to expect in each year of their child’s life through high school.
