Greetings, friends of the Sea Sisters community.
Lately, I’ve received a ton of messages through the site from readers, especially from women who are either new moms or potential moms who are concerned about going back to sea and leaving their young children at home to be raised by a spouse. Many of their concerns stem from challenges like breastfeeding and travel, as well as the societal pressure to quit work altogether and stay at home to become full-time moms.
A lot of these women have written to us saying that they haven’t been able to find any information on these topics almost anywhere on the internet (which, considering the vastness of the world wide web, can be pretty demoralizing), and that finding these topics discussed by our contributors on Sea Sisters has been a lifesaver (which is incredibly exciting!). Until now, there has just been one way to reach out through the site, and only one person receives those emails (me). I can disseminate those messages to our contributors for discussion, but it is a closed process.
Enter the Community Forum. Site users can create their own account, edit their profiles to reflect who they are, and join in discussions on message boards, all within the website. Now, users will be able to talk about issues directly with each other, and skip that middle step of submitting a message and waiting for a response! Discussion categories on the forum range from family planning, to continuing education for mariners, to preparing to enter the industry for the first time, and there is no limit to how many new topics we can discuss. We are so incredibly excited to try out this new feature. Sign up, connect with others, and get to chatting! Just go to http://www.seasisters.org/forum/
posted by Elizabeth Simenstad