Magicmum.com is an invaluable source of information, entertainment and friendship, writes Sheila Wayman
IT'S 9.30PM on a Monday and the comments are flooding in, at least two or three a minute. In response to a query on toilet-training, "mmurphy" explains how she coped with her son; "Judithjuju" is looking for used Playbmobil in good condition; "Fudge" wishes her husband would offer to help out instead of having to be asked; "Veryhappy" recounts an incident when she was eight that only recently she has realised was sexual abuse.
This is just a snapshot of the range of topics covered daily on the online discussion forum, Magicmum.com. The 12,000 members ask questions, offer advice and comfort, joke, debate and rant, in a continuous stream of "posts".
Some outsiders might view it as the inane chatter of self-obsessed Irish mammies, but for the participants it's an invaluable source of information, entertainment and friendship. It is curiously addictive too.
"I might be watching EastEnders or Fair City," says one member, Sue Cloonan from Tipperary, "but I'll have the laptop on my knee and be constantly hitting the refresh button on Magicmum. It's just a habit."
She joined in December 2005 after logging on for a look when she saw it disparagingly referred to as "the mental mammies".
A mother of two daughters, she had moved from Kildare, and didn't know many people.
In recent months Cloonan has met up in "real life" with other Magicmum members in the area. Such local meetings are easily organised through the site, but last November Tricia Cawley, a mother of four living in Co Mayo, had the idea of organising the first national get-together.
One of the site's more prolific posters, "it was just an off-the-cuff remark [online]," she says. I had just been to a ball and didn't enjoy as I didn't know anyone. I said why not have our own party and help a charity at the same time. A couple of hours later there were five pages saying it's a great idea, go and do it."
Within a week a committee was formed and now hundreds of Magicmum members and partners will descend on the Citywest Hotel in Co Dublin on 19th for a fundraising charity ball in aid of the Laura Lynn Foundation (with the Children's Sunshine Home) and the Irish Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society (Isands).
A mother of four children, ranging in age from 21 years to 17 months, Cawley lives in the small village of Rake Street, 10 miles from Ballina. "I have no next-door neighbours. I get a lot of help and companionship from Magicmum."
Cawley was one of the first to join Magicmum when Mary Bouchez set it up in July 2004. They had both been members of the bulletin board on the Irish mother and baby website www.eumom.com, which had been established in 2000 and now has 50,000 registered users.
Like the other big Irish parenting advice website, www.rollercoaster.ie, eumom has a lot more than just its bulletin board. However, Bouchez was bereft when the board closed for a month's holidays.
Originally from Co Kildare but raising a young family with her French husband in Paris, she particularly missed the link with people from her home country.
"While chatting to my husband one night he encouraged me to start my own forum - Magicmum.com went online a few days later, using free software," she explains. "It is open to everyone; 98 per cent of its members are Irish or living in Ireland, and a small percentage are Irish mothers living abroad like myself."
Bouchez had been on her Erasmus year in France as an Applied Languages student from Dublin City University when she met Eric, her husband-to-be, and moved there at the age of 22. Living near Eurodisney outside, Paris, they ran their own business until she gave up work after having their first child, Neeve, who is now six. Four-year-old Tom and one-year-old Zoé followed.
Bouchez is the sole administrator of the site and fits the work in around what she has to do at home. She deletes comments or shuts down threads if a discussion is getting out of hand and insulting.
"I don't want personal slagging matches."
If somebody mentioned by name asks for comments to be taken down, she will do that immediately, and any spamming is removed. However, she says very little has to be moderated and she thinks the members respect the forum and the fact it is just her behind it and now a big business.
With about 1,000 posts a day on the site, she can't possibly read everything but is helped by some of the long-time members who will let her know if something looks dodgy.
"I do make money out of it, but nothing like a full salary," she says. However, once her youngest starts school, which is at three in France, she hopes to have time to develop the site and add articles on topics written by the mothers themselves.
The influential Mumsnet website, set up by a group of mothers in the UK eight years ago, has recently signed a six-book publishing deal with Bloomsbury. It's a reflection of how increasingly people seek advice on parenting from collective, first-hand experience, rather than from one authoritarian voice.
For Bouchez, the downside of the growth of Magicmum has been that she has less time to post herself. "I still really enjoy it. I spend more time reading it than I should, it's fascinating."
According to Cawley, "it's a fun place to hang out. If you have the computer in the kitchen, when you're cooking the dinner, you can nip over to have a look. Magicmum is responsible for a lot of burnt spuds in this country."
• For details on the Magicmum charity ball on www.charityball.magicmum.com
The lingo: Mum's online speak
• DS -dear/darling son
• DD - dear/darling daughter
• DH - dear/darling husband
• TTC trying to conceive
• M2B mother to be
• AF - Aunt Flo(w), period
• PG - pregnant
• BFP - big fat positive (pregnancy test)
• BFN - big fat negative (pregnancy test)
• SAHM - stay-at-home mother
• WIPE - women in paid employment
• BD - baby-dance (sex)
• MIL - mother in law
• FIL - father in law
• SIL - sister in law
• XH - ex husband
• BF - breastfeeding
• NIP - nursing in public
• HTH - hope that helps
• BTW - by the way
• LOL - laughing out loud
• TMI - too much info