Parenthood can be trying, especially if you live in a big city without the support system of an extended family that can help you juggle work, home, kids and find some me-time too.
“When a woman moves to a new town or has a new baby, how would she make friends, find the right doctor or school?” argues Bhavai Raman, 36, who co-founded Bharatmoms.com, an online service site for mothers, with her husband Vivekanandan Raman.
In 2008, when Bhavani moved to India after a long stay in the US, she started laying the ground work for the creation of a social media platform that helps mothers whose children are almost of the same age or share similar parenting styles, challenges and schedules get in touch.
“As I was used to a lot of mother networking communities both online and offline in the US, I was surprised to find no such thing exists in India. I decided to create one myself. I created my business when my son was very young. I literally built my business around him and his needs,” says Raman, a mother of two.
She started chennaimoms.com in August 2008, and in July this year Raman opened the Hyderabad chapter of Bharatmoms.com: hyderabadmoms.com. The site aims to provide a social and support network for not only new mothers and mothers new to the city, but all mothers living in Hyderabad and Chennai through a wide variety of parenting resources, including regular meetings, events and practical advice.
“I also craved for good friends to have fun and get the emotional support a mom always needs,” Raman says. “When women finish college, their level of interaction with friends reduces a lot. This gets worse after marriage and kids. They drift apart geographically too. So there is always a need to make new friends. This site makes it easy to make new friends,” she says.
From free activities to pursue in town and tips for choosing the right school for your child, to tactics to encourage your children to read, this site is a winner in local resources and no-nonsense advice. Prior to chennaimoms.co, Raman worked in MNCs such as Cisco and HP as a software developer.
Setting up an online portal was a task in itself. “The biggest challenge was to create awareness about our site. But once we reached out to a few mothers, they spread the word. We feel rewarded when we see moms making new friends or their queries being answered. We have had instances of moms who lived in the same apartment complex for years, but never knew each other. They become friends through our site,” says Raman.
Chennaimoms has grown from one to 40,000 members in just two years. “We are revamping the website to make it compatible for smartphones,” Raman says.