Let's face it - "Youth Moms" on Facebook

*In case you didn't read my most recent post introducing this series, "Youth Mom" is my admittedly lame title for women with children 11 or younger.

After talking to several new moms about Facebook, it appears to be the ultimate time saving tool available for the busy "Youth Mom". "Facebook simplifies parenting," said JB, mother of 2 children aged 5 months and 2 years. When JB had her first child she was not on Facebook but was encouraged to join by other new moms. She held off for a while thinking she did not have the time to waste on it, but once she joined quickly saw that just the opposite was true. "Now I love it," she says. "It allows me to quickly share pictures with everyone that is asking for them, coordinate play groups without 20 calls and texts about scheduling, RSVP to events, get advice from friends that are parents, and to actually have some sense of personal life by staying in touch with friends and colleagues that are not in the same baby crazed mindset that I'm in."

JB's play group has set up a private group on Facebook so they can easily schedule meeting places and times. For moms that are looking to join a play group, a simple search yields hundreds, some private and some public, which they can join to provide interaction for their children and networking with other moms in their area.

On a larger scale, applications have been developed to enable Moms to connect with others around the world. Circle of Moms is one application that offers a social network for moms and soon-to-be moms. It's discussion boards, product reviews and chat functionality attracts over 2,000,000 active users on a monthly basis.

Although Facebook clearly has many mommy fans, they recently caused a massive uprising among thousands of "Youth Moms" by censoring their breastfeeding photos. In December of 2008, over 58,000 people joined together to protest the companies policy of removing breastfeeding photos from the site.

According to an interview with Reuters, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said the website takes no action over most breast-feeding photos but some are removed to ensure the site remains safe and secure for all users, including children. "Photos containing a fully exposed breast (as defined by showing the nipple or areola) do violate those terms (on obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit material) and may be removed," he said in a statement.

Kelli Roman, a mother whose photograph of her feeding her daughter was removed by Facebook, started a group called "Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!" to petition against the companies actions. The group now has 218,855 members that are outraged. View this clip to hear Kelli's take on the issue.



What I find most interesting about this is that 218,000 Facebook users are clearly angry at the company, but yet remain on Facebook to interact about their feelings on the topic. I suppose this is proof enough that the positive benefits that platform offers to Youth Moms, outweigh their disagreement with the company's evaluation of breastfeeding images as explicit material.