SojiwaCommunity & Connection · Journaling
A New Parent Finds Company in Sojiwa's Anonymous Community
On unpaid leave with a baby, Mei finds other parents in Sojiwa's anonymous feed. What the community did, and what it didn't.
Written by the Sojiwa editorial team with AI assistance. Not medical advice.
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Mei is 34, on unpaid leave from her job, and home most of the week with a five-month-old. At 2am on Monday she is in the armchair by the window, baby latched on one side, phone held one-handed above the cushion. She opens Sojiwa's community feed. This is the anonymous mental health community app Singapore parents keep mentioning in group chats, and tonight she just wants to read without anyone knowing it's her.
The feed doesn't ask who she is
The Feed is a scroll of short posts. One is from a parent whose baby wakes every two hours and hasn't slept more than three in a row since March. Mei taps a reaction. There is no name attached to the post, no photo of a face, just a mood tag and a line of text. That's what surprises her first: the anonymity. She can read a post about someone's worst night and not wonder who wrote it, not worry about bumping into them at the playground and saying the wrong thing. She reads four more, then puts the phone down when the baby unlatches.
Tuesday: she writes one herself
By Tuesday afternoon she has read enough that the silence starts to feel strange. During the baby's nap she opens a topic Group for parents, the kind where posts are grouped by what they're about rather than who's posting. She types a few lines about the fourth wake-up, tags the mood Anxious, and adds a hashtag for her baby's age. She posts anonymously.
The comments come back within the day. Not "hang in there" and not "it gets better." One person writes that the four-month regression turned their whole week upside down and they started keeping a note of which wake-up was worst so they could see it wasn't every one. Another asks whether she's tried feeding lying down. They are strangers and they are specific, and that is what lands. Generic sympathy is easy to ignore. A stranger naming the exact 3am hour is not.
Wednesday: a journal entry and a prompt she didn't expect
Wednesday evening she writes one line in the journal, because the day was long and she wants somewhere to put it that isn't a message to her husband, who is asleep. She picks the mood Tired.
At the bottom of the writing box there's a reflection prompt, a question already written for her. She taps "Another prompt" once, out of curiosity, to see what else it would ask. The new question is easier, so she writes three lines and saves the entry. The prompt is doing a small job: it gives her a starting line when the page is blank and she has nothing to say except that she's tired.
Thursday: answering someone else
On Thursday she's back in the Group. Someone has posted about a baby who won't settle unless they're walked up and down the corridor, and Mei replies. She writes the one thing that worked for her, which is putting the baby down for a minute when her arms ache and picking them up again, rather than pushing through. It's a small tip and she almost doesn't send it.
A couple of reactions come in. What she notices is that replying makes her feel less alone than the comments she received on Tuesday. Being on the giving end, even about something this small, moves her out of the corner of her own night.
Friday: reading instead of posting
Friday night she opens the feed again before bed. A new post carries the same hashtag she used on Tuesday, the one for her baby's age. She taps into it and reads the thread instead of writing anything. There are four replies, all from people she'll never meet, all describing the same week she's having. She stays in the thread for a while and doesn't add to it. Reading is enough tonight.
What the feed doesn't do
It hasn't replaced her friend who used to call on the way home from work. That call was a back-and-forth, a voice, someone who remembered what she said last week and asked about it. The community moves slower than that. A post might sit for a few hours before anyone answers. The feed is quieter, and it's worth saying plainly that it doesn't fill the same space. What it does fill is the gap between one real conversation and the next.
One practical thing: there's no App Store app. On an iPhone, Sojiwa runs in the browser at app.sojiwa.com, so Mei keeps a tab pinned on her home screen instead of an icon. It works fine one-handed.
Try this today
When you open the journal and the page feels too blank to start, look at the reflection prompt at the bottom of the writing box and tap "Another prompt" once for a different question. Use whichever version you can answer in a sentence.
What did today ask of you that you didn't have to give?
The prompt works because a question does the first bit of thinking for you. It narrows a whole day down to one line you can actually write while a baby sleeps on your chest.
Cheer someone on today
Share anonymously, respond with kindness or join a small group.
Back in the group, without asking for anything
On Saturday Mei opens the parent Group again and posts, this time not asking for help. She writes an ordinary moment from the week: the baby grabbed the spoon and got porridge on the wall, and she laughed for the first time in days. She picks a mood to go with it, leaves the feed open on the table instead of closing it, and goes to warm a bottle. If you want the same thing, post one small moment of your week in a Group and leave the tab open. The replies can arrive while you're doing something else. Sojiwa is free and needs an account, and you can read the feed for a while before you write anything at all.
