Popular Recent Topics in the DCUM Forum

The DC Urban Moms and Dads home page has been severely neglected for a long time as I have run out of both energy and ideas for updating it. I am going to try to rectify that by providing regular posts about topics that have received significant attention in the discussion forums.

As longtime DCUM users will know, DC Urban Moms and Dads originally started as a mailing list completely devoted to parenting issues. The website forums were an afterthought and got their initial impetus when we required that "nanny posts" -- posts searching for a nanny or advertising the availability of a nanny -- be moved to the forums rather than the mailing list. After that, the forums grew mostly organically as we added topics due to user requests. I don't remember when the "Entertainment" forum was created, but I do remember that the idea behind it was that it would be used to discuss books, TV shows, movies, and music. So, it is with some surprise and not a little disappointment that it has become a popular forum for discussing the British Royal Family.

With the death of Queen Elizabeth II, interest in the Royal Family went into overdrive. Multiple threads were created and received a flood of posts and views. Consistently, such threads devolve into fights about Meghan Markle. So much so that I have been forced to essentially ban such discussion lest it take over every thread.

In the political forum, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' effort to fly migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard has generated considerable discussion. While Texas Governor Gregg Abbott has been busing migrants to DC and dropping them near the Naval Observatory -- home of Vice President Kamala Harris -- that has received much less attention despite being right on the doorstep of a significant number of DCUM users.

That the British Royal Family and Ron DeSantis are among the most discussed topics on DCUM shows that the forum has moved a long way from its original focus on DC parenting issues. Those topics are still discussed, but just don't generate the same controversy and, sadly, controversy generates posts and views.

PS I have not included links to the threads mentioned because, in my experience, home page links generate lots of spam posts. But, you can easily find these threads in the relevant forums.