Post #4309727

New at The Barbed Wire: Eight years ago, a moment of humor shared between two women blossomed into a movement for weirdos in North #Texas. In 2018, Haley Ballenger had just moved to Fort Worth from Houston, where her husband had family ties and deep roots but she didn’t know anyone. Casting about for a new social circle, the mother of two joined a book club and hit it off with another mom there like herself. “We were joking one night,” Ballenger recalled. “Yeah, we're not regular moms, we're cool moms. We were like, yeah, we've got piercings and we've got tattoos and we say bad words. We're not even cool moms, we're weird moms – and it just stuck, right?” Today, the Fort Worth Weird Moms Club group on Facebook has over 3,000 members, and Ballenger (and her team of volunteer administrators and moderators) have created a space where oddballs, iconoclasts and outcasts can build community ties with one another, and exercise their voices on the political stage. Every member gets to be a “Weird Mom” or just a “Weirdo” regardless of their gender. The Weird Moms host multiple events a year, including the highly anticipated annual ‘Weird Mom Prom’ and a youth Pride Prom, and they’ve just become a formal nonprofit with big plans for the future. Read more: https://www.thebarbedwire.com/meet-the-weird-moms-of-fort-worth-who-embrace-diversity-acceptance-joy-in-north-texas/ #NorthTexas #weird #culture #women #LGBTQIA #LGBTQ #SocialMedia #parenting