Female Friendship Novel in the Era of the Group Chat

Just before giving birth in the summer of 2024, I joined a citywide “moms” group chat in Berlin. It was a digital confessional for the discussion of gestational sciatica or the inability to touch one’s toes, for descriptions of vaginal tearing during birth and photos of children’s inexplicable rashes. Complete strangers fought over used baby furniture (with Parent 1 calling out Parent 2 for selling a baby crib that she had given to her for free). The conversation was entertaining, yet the passive-aggressive jabs began to bore me, and I concluded that I had nothing in common with these other moms besides the year that we had a baby.