Needham Getting its Parenting Expedited

For parents with questions about their kids, your answers are about to be expedited. 

Dara Epstein Obbard and Naomi Goldstein are two Needham residents who launched Parenting Expedited a little under two weeks ago. The site launched with a message board, and currently has about 50 current users, 70 who have been invited to join.

Patch met up with the Team to learn more about the site and its story. 

Members have to go through a vetting process which includes a questionnaire, to guarantee that the members of the network are parents in Needham, and not spam 'bots or random vendors. To get into the boards, there also is a $12 annual membership fee, taken through PayPal.

Members of the Parent Talk network get in free.

Some of the current discussions on the site cover things like book recommendations for early readers, and birthday party "thank you" note etiquette; questions like whether they are necessary, and whether they should be hand-written or electronic.

The duo met through a similar parenting resource: Parent Talk is an organization which puts together parenting events for families with young children. Goldstein noticed that after 5 years old, there are few resources for parents, and posted an ad on the site. Obbard answered that ad, and they began work on Parenting Expedited. 

In fact, they have heard from a number of friends and fellow Parent Talk members that a lot of parents keep their Parent Talk account after their kids "outgrow" that network, because they want access to the message board there.

Having spoken with fellow parents, they feel that what parents are looking for is information edited down, so that users don't have to spend hours researching the answer to one simple question.

Because of some of the policies in place at Needham's schools, there is information that parents have a hard time sharing with each other. For example, Goldstein said she couldn't find information about the Girl Scouts, and asked around. It wasn't until she was throwing out a local paper when she noticed a small blurb about the Scouts with the information.

"We're okay with that because it gives us a reason to be," Obbard said.

She said that in each town, there are hidden secrets. They hope to be that friend who knows what all of those secrets are.

Currently, the site features a message board. Although Goldstein and Obbard hope to expand to events listings, articles on parenting and a number of other features, as well as expanding the site to other towns in the area. 

The Parenting Expedited site is live now, and membership is $12 a year.