The Real Reason the UES Mommas Group Disappeared — and Came Back (2025)

Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos Getty Images

Last Friday, in an online drama that felt ripped out of the Gossip Girl era (the original, of course), the infamous — and yet also beloved — Facebook group UES Mommas abruptly disappeared. The group was founded in 2011, in the heyday of online mom communities, and has made headlines multiple times since then — once for a fight over a children’s book called P Is for Palestine, once for allegedly silencing posts of women of color, and once when a novelist mined the group for comedic material. There are thousands of mom groups on Facebook, but none that contains quite as much drama, power, wealth, candor, and longevity as this one.

Its 43,000 members use the feed as both a modern-day Yellow Pages (expertly vetted recommendations on everything from baby music classes to private-school-admissions consultants) and as a source of nonstop entertainment (stories of nannies wearing their employers’ lingerie, debates on whether to leave cheating husbands). And when the group ceased to exist, they immediately took notice. Minutes later, rampant speculation about why it had been disbanded (permanently, all assumed) started up in rival NYC moms groups. Everyone had the same theory: Justice had finally come for the moderator who had rejected them, Tiffany Ma.

“Can we talk about the shuttering down of UES mommas fb group?!” an anonymous member wrote in Moms of the Upper East Side (MUES). Hundreds of commentsblanketed the section underneath, all filled with theories, most circling the idea that Facebook had finally had enough of the invasive entrance requirements that Ma, a lawyer, had inflicted upon UES Mommas’s would-be members. Ma was named an admin of the group in 2020, in the wake of a different controversy in which her predecessor was accused of racist moderation tactics.

“Tiffany was absolutely nuts. sorry not sorry,” wrote one anonymous member of MUES. “She asked me for a photo of my lease, where my husband worked, a sonogram photo, and a photo of me in the hospital with my newborn.” “OMG!!” another wrote. “I had to send an ultrasound photo in 2021, and when I did they replied that they couldn’t line up enough of my personal info with what they could find about me online and asked me to send more… I was just looking for a baby nurse!”

But then, on April 30, just as suddenly as it left, UES Mommas came back online. No one knew what to think. Fortunately, moderator Tiffany Ma took my call.

“Everyone targeting me has it all wrong,” Ma told me from her law office in midtown. “The reason this happened is not because of our strict membership policy. It’s because we took a step back from our screening policy. Many members noticed the change immediately. It is exactly when we relaxed standards that more people started joining the group who really didn’t belong here, and that showed in the daily posts.”

When the group was shut down, Ma didn’t get any information from Facebook’s parent company, Meta, as to why. A few members of UES Mommas who are Meta employees offered to do some digging. One employee submitted an internal ticket for information with the company.“She received a response back saying that the group had been deleted due to posts that ‘encouraged the purchasing, sale, or gifting of firearms,’” says Ma. In other words, the group’s disappearance had nothing to do with Ma’s screening methods.

Neither Ma nor any of the super-active members she contacted saw the offending post or posts; the group was taken down too swiftly for that to happen. She believes that Meta reinstated UES Mommas after inquiries from the employee as well as the New York Post. Per the Post, Meta said that the group was deleted in error.

So why did all of the uptown-mom internet jump to assume that Meta was cracking down on Ma’s extreme group standards? My theory: Maybe after having to “apply” for everything in their lives, from half-day nursery schools to expensive private kindergartens to selective public schools to travel soccer teams, these women have simply had enough. “I’m glad I ‘got in’ before they were asking for personal info,” said another anonymous poster on MUES. “Getting in” is a common phrase heard at mom get-togethers on the Upper East Side, though usually not in the context of Facebook groups.

Ma admits she has high standards for who she lets into UES Mommas. The criteria for admission, according to members, include: pictures of you pregnant, social-media announcements of your pregnancy, your hospital-discharge paperwork, a sonogram, a screenshot from your OB/GYN’s online portal, a screenshot of your maternity-leave paperwork, or an email from your child’s school or camp provider addressed to your name as the mother. Ma says that her admissions criteria keep the group free and clear of ne’er-do-wells: bots, people selling goods, men monitoring their exes, people selling bogus tickets and committing other types of fraud. Moms, she says, tend to be a law-abiding bunch.

“If you’re really a mom, what’s the likelihood that you’re joining this group to commit fraud?” she asked me. “This group is an incredible resource for its members, and I want to keep it that way.” She told me she’s ramping up entry requirements again. “Someone got through the cracks and must have posted about selling guns. Do you think that was a mom?” she asked.

Current members are relieved to have UES Mommas back. “I received so much valuable advice from this group,” says Pam Mbatani. She joined UES Mommas “many years ago … no one asked me for proof,” she adds.

As for me, a real-life Upper East Side mom, I requested to join after I was assigned this story. I still have my 9-year-old’s sonogram pictures folded up in my wallet, but it wasn’t necessary; I was let in seconds after submitting my name. It helps to have friends in high places.

Tags:

• hard paywall
• parenting
• motherhood
• facebook
• new york city
• self
• niche drama
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