Membership: Extended to all parents of children aged 2 months to 4 years. Junior Membership is available to expectant parents and parents of newborns. Junior Members receive all of the benefits of membership (namely advice, friendship and second-hand baby gear), but are forbidden from volunteering even well-meaning advice and opinions to more experienced parents. Members with more extreme approaches to parenting (Jesus freaks, attachment parents and future home schoolers) may wish to join a sub-sect of the Not-So-Secret SOPOYC that caters to their particular belief set.
Benefits:
Emergency baby supplies: If you ever find yourself short a diaper or wipes, Baby Tylenol or a Band-Aid, find a Member and request assistance. Members will help in any way they can because karma dictates they do so.
Gear: Both a lender and a borrower be. No one needs a baby bathtub, Exersaucer or swing for more than a year. We’d rather have the space. And that goes double for baby clothes.
Friendship: You haven’t made friends this fast since summer camp. Look around the playground, grocery store, pediatrician’s office. Find a parent with a kid roughly the same age as yours. Fifteen minutes later you’re exchanging phone numbers. One month later you’re wondering how you survived before meeting your Mom friends. Enjoy this time, because once your kid starts making friends on his own, you lose total control of your social life.
Advice: Put away those parenting books and health manuals. Everything you need to know about eating, pooping, sleeping and potty training you can learn from your fellow Members. Those growth charts and developmental scales? Interesting, but you can always compare Johnny to your friends’ kids. And you know you will.
Membership Fee: Priceless, but you won't pay a penny
