"Please pray like never before. My son fell in the

pool."

A firestorm erupts online.

A popular mommy blogger & avid tweeter losses her two-year-old son.

This morning I got a call from Jennifer Chidester, mother and PR practitioner who studies media trends & social media. She opened my eyes to this sad tragedy & explained how she had been watching this story unfold in real time -- as both a parent and a social media observer.

Shellie Ross’ (@Military_Mom) tragedy quickly jumped from tweets among mommy bloggers sharing in this mom’s grief, to wars of words with critics posting things like, “A child is dead because (of) his mother’s infatuation with Twitter.” The New York Times ran this article "Tweeting About a Child’s Death" (http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/tweeting-about-a-childs-death/) that fueled the flames and just this afternoon, word came from officials that in fact "Mom's Tweeting Played no Role in Drowning of Fla. Boy." (http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20091218/NEWS01/91218014)

What seemed to be missing in the quickly-forming dividing line between the mommy bloggers/readers who reached out to comfort Ross, and the critics who came after the grieving mom, was an understanding of how in today’s world many people are separated by cities, states and countries but united in online communities that, for many, become close friends and extensions of their family.

Two well-known mommy bloggers took time to share their personal stories with me today. One shares an incredible story, for the first time, of how her online family helped her cope with the loss of her 17-month-old daughter.

I plan on learning more from these women, from mommy blogging to cyber bullying, in future pieces.

Heather Sphor http://twitter.com/MamaSpohr

Heather shares for the first time how in the moments before her daughter unexpectedly passed away, earlier this year, she’d been reaching out to her “online” family for support. Now pregnant, Heather shares how in an otherwise isolating job, like stay at home parenting, your online community can be a great source of strength, resource and community. And a lifeline in the face of tragedy.

Heather notes how her online social network was there for her in her time of fear when her daughter was sick, in her time of loss when her daughter passed (with emotional support and genuine friendship at every hour of the day) and now in her pregnancy.

Jessica Gottlieb – www.JessicaGottlieb.com

Gottlieb gave some great insight about mommy bloggers and their online community. She describes the mommy blogger & online media worlds as very real communities, solving problems together, raising kids together (often with real life play dates, etc.) and how powerful it can be when groups of women come together over a tragedy like the one this week. I found this interesting: regarding the power of online communities, she said where before you’d be on the phone, now you’ve got a party line and instead of speaking to 1 you’re speaking with 10,000.

http://www.jessicagottlieb.com/2009/12/all-moms-are-fallible/comment-page-1/#comment-7604

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