When you become a parent, finding community amongst the chaos becomes one of the hardest parts. Capsule talks to Sophie Moskowitz, creator of Imperfect Parents, a community that aims to help walk parents through the first few years of early childhood – no perfection required.
Over five years, Capsule has written a lot about the pros and cons of social media – it’s amazing for finding community, it’s diabolical for comparison-itis. And both of those points get a hell of a lot stronger when you become a parent – hungry for connection and information, while being deeply susceptible to judgement and bad information.
(Think of the ‘hot takes’ you’ve read about the following: co-sleeping, breast-feeding, sleep-training, only children and daycare. Right??)
All of this formed the impetus behind Sophie Moskowitz’s core kaupapa in creating Imperfect Parents, both the online community and in-person meet-ups that she started back in 2022.
“I was expressing my frustration at social media aimed at parents, particularly a number of pages that seemed to be telling parents that they weren’t doing enough – that they should be doing MORE activities, having MORE engagement with their children…” Sophie says of creating the business. “The parents that I was seeing in my daily life were overwhelmed by this feeling of ‘not enough’ and I wanted to share some of my thoughts around this.”
The page was initially called Imperfectly Sophie, detailing Sophie’s own journey through raising her second child. “The name was very much inspired by Brene Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection, which was a real catalyst for me in letting go of so much of my own perfectionism and embracing more self-compassion.”
With a background as an early childhood educator and as a nanny, Sophie says she had a wonderful time after giving birth to her first child and felt confident in her abilities as a mother. But with welcoming her second child in April 2020 – just as the whole world shut down with Covid – it was more of a fraught time, and a lonely one.
“I found myself: a) Not living up to the extremely high standards I had set for myself, and b) wondering why I was finding it so hard parenting on my own. The more time I spent on my own with my children, the more I felt like it was a really unnatural way to do parenting,” she says.
That, plus the impossible financial reality of returning to work as a teacher while paying for two children to go into daycare, meant that something had to change. So, Sophie went back to studying – completing a diploma in pregnancy, childbirth and early parenthood education at Ara Institute.
“I went into ECE teaching because I wanted to “make a difference” in children’s lives, but was struck by how, ultimately, it’s the parents that have the most impact on their children’s lives. If we can support the parents, we can support the children!”
By the second year of the degree, Imperfectly Sophie became Imperfect Parents, and the first in-person meet-up happened. “I started my first Pregnancy Circle, which was designed to be not a place for education, but a space for sharing and emotional support on the pregnancy journey,” she says. “I ran quite a few of these in that first year, and then started my first postnatal Imperfect Parents support group in July 2022.”
There was a massive gap in the market, Sophie says.
“I felt like all of the offerings for parents were either ‘educational’ (ie. “this is how you should parent”) which add to the information overload that parents already experience, OR activities geared towards babies: swim lessons, music classes, baby sensory classes.” Neither of these are good for connection, she says. “Parents are trying to have awkward small talk conversations in between shaking tambourines and blowing bubbles.”
“I wanted to cater to the parents who wanted more than that; who wanted to have real conversations, who were craving honesty, who wanted to know that they aren’t alone in their experiences, especially if they’re finding things hard.”
The response was immediate – and overwhelmingly positive. Parents were hungry for an inclusive, nonjudgemental place to find help, community and connection; a place where they could take off the mask of social media and revel in the joys and hardship that come with modern parenting. As the tagline on the website reads: ‘It takes a village to raise a child – but how do you find your people?’
“I wanted our groups to have the social aspect of a coffee group, but with a facilitator who ensured that everyone got a chance to speak, who had evidence-based knowledge and could bust a lot of the myths that are out there,” Sophie says. Plus, perhaps the most crucial role: “Someone who could care for the parents while they were attending: feed them, offer them drinks, hold their babies.”
In the years since, the regular meet-ups have expanded to offer meet-ups for antenatal through to school-age children, with time slots both during the week and in the evenings. These gatherings have formed a large Imperfect Parents community who are walking each other through the early years of parenthood. In fact, earlier this year Sophie put a call-out on her Instagram to create a community within Imperfect Parents who are going through separation, to support each other.
“Parenting can be isolating enough, let alone going through a separation with young children. There are so many different aspects that parents are navigating, from emotionally supporting themselves and their children, figuring out the logistics of parenting on their own, navigating legal systems and so much more,” Sophie says. “Seeing the way that they have been able to offer one another compassion, support and advice has been so beautiful.”
It all comes back to the kaupapa of Imperfect Parents, she says. “Our core mission is to create confidence through connection – for parents to find their social support system in our groups, and in turn to feel lighter in their parenting journey. We want them to realise that sometimes parenting is hard – but that is because it is a hard job, not because there is anything wrong with them or their child!”
While the group meetings are currently just in Auckland, Sophie says she has ultimate goals of expanding further – after just welcoming in her third child, there’s a lot to balance in the meantime.
“A key component in this growth is figuring out how to make this financially sustainable, so that we are still able to offer koha spaces and payment plans for anyone who needs them,” she says. “We are still figuring out what this looks like, but it might be things like corporate partnerships, applying for grants, and getting creative in lots of different ways. If someone reading this has lots of money and aren’t sure what to do with it – get in touch!” she laughs.
