The anti-AMITA - Momforaminute and Dadforaminute

January 6, 2023 5:14 PM

Need a mom-friend or dad-friend to give you advice, sympathy and virtual hugs? Or just to have your faith in humanity restored after a deep dive into AmItheAsshole? Browse MomForAMinute and DadForAMinute for sappy, sweet and happy moments.
posted by dorothyisunderwood (9 comments total)

I did not expect the level of support in these forums to immediately make me cry. Oh Reddit, how can you be both this and so often also a cesspool?
posted by abulafa at 5:26 PM on January 6, 2023 [7 favorites]

Yeah, you left out heartbreaking in various ways.

Reddit is a mixed bag. It's at least 25% porn. Some of it is anonymous people being trash in the internet agora. But it also has specialists, great advice, deep communities and true connections. People are people, yin and yang.
posted by Jacen at 5:50 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

My only goal as a parent is for my kids never to feel like they need something like this, while I draw breath.
posted by potrzebie at 9:50 PM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

Reddit is like a city. It has a huge entertainment district and red light district and there are a lot of drunk people. But it also has places of learning and quiet corners and support groups.

I suppose in comparison metafilter is more like a library (where quiet chat is permitted)
posted by memebake at 1:53 AM on January 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I think a lot of Mefites don't recognize how kind, helpful, and well-informed the small good corners of Reddit can be. (Impatience with the bigger, worse aspects of social media is, after all, how a lot of us got here...)

Anyway, I'm not surprised by this -- people do like finding ways to be kind to each other, even in places that don't optimize for kindness -- but I'm absolutely delighted.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:55 AM on January 7, 2023

Unrelatedly, an old friend of mine studies microorganisms called foraminifera (forams for short) and for a moment I thought these were going to be adorably named forams.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:57 AM on January 7, 2023

I thought Momforaminute and Dadforaminute were drug names and didn't even bother reading them out until there was more context.
posted by srboisvert at 9:29 AM on January 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm a Reddit reader though I rarely participate, and occasionally I see those subs linked (surprisingly, often in AITA). They are good and wholesome and totally unlike the larger Reddit reputation.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:39 AM on January 7, 2023

I participate in Reddit quite a bit, but largely in the antiques, home repair, coin collecting, and other areas that are interests to me and avoid the uninformd debate regions. The areas for professionals -- electricians, plumbers, roofers, etc -- are understandably unreceptive to amateurs and idiots but I have learned a whole lot from just listening in those areas.

I, however, also learned that an acquaintance was a huge right-wing bigot because when he found out I used Reddit he assumed I was familiar with his favorite parts of the site.
posted by AzraelBrown at 10:35 AM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]