Parenting can be exciting, but often very difficult and emotionally straining.
Inexperienced parents are especially nervous about raising their first child.

Public Agenda, a nonprofit research group in New York City, recently conducted a poll of parents and found that 78% thought parenting is much harder than ever. The number of people who have one child, or are parenting their first, is the highest it's ever been. There were 16.2 million families with one child in 2000, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. By definition, parents of first children are novices. They're more likely to take notes, ask questions, and worry about their kids.

Parenting stress includes subjective experiences of distress such as emotional pain and anxiety. It also includes parents’ thoughts, beliefs, and attributions - expectations about what is “normal,” perceived lack of control and violations of those expectations, and self-doubt.

Fortunately, for most parents, parenting is a fulfilling and positive experience. A number of longitudinal studies have shown that as the months pass after a child’s birth, mothers typically feel warmer toward and more positive about their infants. They posted pictures of their children eating different types of food, wearing various outfits, or meeting family and friends. They also posted milestone pictures that highlighted their child’s development.

Our survey discovered that parents generally found parenting quiet stressful (4 out of scale of 1 to 6). Results showed that time management was one of the biggest stress factor. Parents also found themselves self doubting and wondering if they are doing what is best for their kid(s). Things never went as planned and sometimes they needed time away from being parents and be alone.

We delved into these topics further during our interview. It turned out that the amount of time needed to care for a baby can be unexpected for new parents. This sometimes caused them to quit their passions or even their job altogether, hence slowly losing their identity as who they originally were and become a "parent". However, as they become more experienced, they seemed to find ways to deal with these situations. A lot of novice parents sought for advice from those who have more experience parenting. Being senior parents who knows what others in their first few years are going through, they were more willing to help and empathize with the novice parents.

A lot of parents find help from people they know like their own parents or friends who had their baby first. However, this depends heavily on their social circle and their situation can be very different from that of peers'. This is why many parents go online to look for information and experiences shared by others.

But not everyone is comfortable sharing and retrieving information on the web. Parents find online information very generalized and unrelatabe. Also, the idea of thousands, if not millions, of people viewing what they post stops them from sharing their own experience.

Although it could be intimidating, internet can be a great space to find fellow parents who truly knows what you are going through. Reassurance is only heartfelt when it's coming from somone who is similar to you. Parenting is not standardized experience. For example, an experience of a single parent would be completely distinct from that of a parent with partner. Factors like location, marriage status, occupation, parenting style and financial capability can greatly impact each individual's parenting life. For this reason, our team took the factors into consideration and envisioned two personas who are in drastically different situations.

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By diving the parent community into Nests, the small groups, of parents in a similar situation, we can achieve a stronger bond between individuals. When the Nest community becomes active through this engaging opportunity, it can encourage the users to generate more sharable contents that is valuable to the entire parent community, the Plaza.