Dear Boston Mamas: London Parent Resources

Today's Dear Boston Mamas question comes from Jillian via e-mail:

Hi Christine! I have been faithfully reading your site since my daughter was born almost two years ago. Thanks for sharing all of your insights and recommendations. They're invaluable!! Unfortunately my family is moving to London, England in the next few months and I'm a little nervous to be moving to a different country without at least the online resource you've proven to be for Boston and the surrounding towns. Please please please tell me you have a counterpart in London that you love and would recommend to a new-ish mom. It would be great if you had a twin doing the same type of blog in London!

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Dear Jillian,

Thanks for writing in. I'm so sorry to hear that you are leaving this fantastic city, but London is a wonderful and beautiful place. I'm sure you will have amazing adventures there with your family!

To answer your question: many people have asked me to start versions of Boston Mamas in other cities, but regretfully, there just aren't enough hours in the day given my design and consulting/editing businesses. Also, admittedly, I'm a perfectionist and expanding to multiple cities would mean finding people with similarly obsessive work habits. So the short answer is that no, I don't have a London twin.

However, while I didn't get much in the way of Google returns for parent blogs and resources in London, I queried on Twitter and received a couple of responses. I also e-mailed a friend (a mom of three -- she's a US citizen) who lives in the city. Here are a few leads that emerged:

My blogging friend Jennifer James (founder of the Mom Bloggers Club) pointed me to the London Mums Blog, a collective parenting blog. Jennifer noted that the blog is not as active given that the owner also runs British Mummy Bloggers (a networking hub for British bloggers), but I thought the resource might be of interest given that there are a number of contributors to the site; scroll down and you can see them listed in the sidebar.

On Twitter, @MrsGoose pointed me to London Mums, an independent support group for mums based in London. It's more of a static site and the message board hasn't been updated recently, but they do offer a newsletter, event listings, and other information.

Lastly, my friend Libby in London recommended NW3Kids as a great resource for North London activities, and also Angels & Urchins as a magazine that "has everything (albeit in hard copy)."

Of these recommendations, I'd start with Angels & Urchins. It's the prettiest site to look at and offers timely features. And though not as pretty as their landing page, Angels & Urchins does have a blog that appears to be updated a few times a week. There's also a blogroll in the right sidebar that might lead you to some other interesting local reading.

I hope this information is helpful, and I hope despite the move you'll still check in with Boston Mamas now and then! I'm wishing you the best with this big transition.

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Image credit: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Have a question for Christine? Drop her a line! And of course feel free to comment in if you have recommendations beyond those made above.