Mums to the front: @cbrmamas is the online community celebrating motherhood in all its forms
Posted on
Online communities have never been more important to our mental health and wellbeing than over the past two years.
One such community is @cbrmamas. A blossoming platform that spotlights Canberra mums and their unique stories as well as organising events for connecting IRL, cbrmamas is all about making every aspect of motherhood normal and spotlighting services perfect for mums of bubs of all ages.
We chatted to the team behind cbrmamas to talk connection, parenting in a pandemic and sharing the truths of motherhood.
Who is behind Cbrmamas?
Yasmin: The cbrmamas team currently consists of three women.
Myself, Yasmin Edgerley (pictured above middle), a first time mum to one-year-old Noa who inherited the page from its original creator in October 2021, Krissy Kelland (pictured left) a first time mum to six-month-old Tilly, and Lauren Brunskill (pictured right) a soon-to-be mum due in July.
I inherited the community from the founder of cbrmamas, and rounded out the team with Krissy and Lauren earlier this year.
What’s great about the team is not only do we share a passion for community and connecting Canberra mums, but we are all at different stages of our motherhood journey which benefits our approach, experience, and content for our mama community too.
What inspired the team to create cbrmamas?
Yasmin: The founder of cbrmamas, Olivia, who owns two other businesses, started the Instagram page and website as a platform for mamas to share their stories back in March 2021.
In October 2021, I jumped at the opportunity to take over the page from Olivia because I already loved the community that had been created.
Although the team as it is now was not part of the original creation, we are extremely passionate about taking Olivia’s legacy forward and have been working hard to grow and nurture the community by building, connecting, educating and promoting positivity for the Canberra mum community.
What do you want the cbrmamas community to provide for its members?
Krissy: Cbrmamas is a place built for the mums of Canberra to connect, share their stories and seek solidarity in the every day ups and downs of motherhood.
The core of the cbrmamas is for mums to share their stories about their pregnancy, birth and motherhood journey, so this will continue to be our primary focus.
So far, more than 100 mums have shared their stories and we are blown away by their honesty and openness. We have seen the impact that their stories have had on other mothers, to help them not feel alone in their journey and give them a sense of relatability and connection to what other mothers have gone through/are going through.
We have opened up important conversations about pregnancy loss, fertility treatment, breastfeeding challenges, traumatic births and medical conditions – just to name a few.
Lauren: In addition to this, we see big things for the community and with nothing else like this in Canberra, we are working towards enhancing the platform, and overall community, to include more education, connection and collaboration – both online and in person.
We also want to cbrmamas to continue to promote self care for mamas, and also provide ways on which to do this through events.
We understand that motherhood can be overwhelming and lonely at times, so if we can use the cbrmamas platform to give Canberra mums a place to go to seek solidarity, information and connection then we would be very happy mamas!
Many first-time mums (and veteran mums!) say it’s difficult to connect with women in similar situations. What’s been your experience with this?
Yasmin: Whether you are a first-time mum, or a veteran mum, it is extremely important to have the support of other mums throughout your journey — especially during a pandemic where a lot of mothers groups have been non-existent, or online, and especially during your maternity leave with your first baby.
Sharing the truths of motherhood is not something that all women are exposed to growing up, or even throughout adulthood, until they become a mum, which is where our platform comes in.
Krissy: On a personal level, both myself and Yas have experienced loss with our first pregnancies and found that miscarriage is not something that is often openly spoken about. We want to challenge that stigma, through our platform.
In addition to that, we find that it isn’t common for people to speak openly about the difficulties of becoming a mum or being a mum, but we feel like our platform is changing that for our community.
There are mums contacting us every day thanking us for being open, honest and real about motherhood.
Lauren: Our Friday Instagram takeovers are proving extremely popular for that form of connection, giving mums an opportunity to show their life as a mum and creating important conversations and connections.
It is through sharing that we are connecting, we are seeing ourselves in others and we are finding that we are not alone.
Photography: Zoe Spaleta
Tell us about cbrmamas events—what happens and what purpose do you hope these events serve?
Lauren: Our birthday event was our very first event, and a stepping stone to where we would like to see the community flourish in the future.
We were overwhelmed with the support for the event, both from the women that attended, to the many local businesses that donated to the evening, so we are excited to continue running events.
We’re currently planning what the rest of 2022 will look like for the cbrmamas community, which will definitely include more events that are kid-friendly, meet and greets and educational.
What do you see as the future of cbrmamas?
Krissy: We are focused on continuing to build this community to reach as many mamas as we can in Canberra.
We’d love to have frequent dates in the calendar throughout the year that mamas can come and connect with others.
Yasmin: We’re also working on collaborating with professionals across Canberra to take a more educational approach with our content too.
Big term goals would be to use it as a place for advocacy for women and to branch out nationally.
What can mums do if they’d like to be featured on the site?
Cbrmamas features two “mama chats” a week and has been very fortunate that each mama has reached out personally to share their stories, and many continue to do so.
If anyone is interested in sharing their story please contact the team at hello@cbrmamas.com, DM them on Instagram @cbrmamas or visit our website cbrmamas.com.
