First off, as a single father of two adorable little children, I applaud your effort.
Now, for the site design. If you do not have very much PHP experience, you could build the rest of your site in html and either link to the forum part from the main page, or even include it in an iframe as I did mine. As far as the forum software is concerned, it depends upon whether you wanna spend money on it or not. If you don't mind buying the forum software, you'll probably want to go with vBulletin, as it seems to have the best technical support and certainly a good set of features. If you prefer a free forum software, I highly recommend the YaBBSE , SMF version. I use it on my site, and it runs really well. It was really easy to set up and configure, has a lot of functionality built-in, and has been very stable ever since I installed it.
Another thing you may want to consider is a content management system, such as Macromedia's Contribute 3.1. It will allow you to build your site, maintain control of the look and feel of the site, and then give access to others to add content without them being able to do anything but that. It would make adding and updating the articles and blogs infinitely easier. Of course, there are lots of other content-management systems available. I just mentioned the Macromedia one because I know its capabilities, ease of use, and security are all right on the mark.

If you would like help with setting your site up, or anything else, please feel free to message me here or on ICQ (1097854), or if you prefer, you can email me. I'll gladly do whatever I can to help you bring a new resource for parents into fruition.

-Smitty

Hi Smittymator, Thank you for your very friendly answer! It took quite a while for anyone to answer this post, so I simply rolled up my sleeves and struggled my way through PHP, html and DW... took me ages but at last my forum is up and running. You're very welcome to have a look, however it's in Swedish so unless you happen to be fluent in this language, all you can do is look at the design and the pictures. (Please look at my profile if you'd like to have a look).
Even if I didn't require your help this time, I was very happy that someone so nice and helpful took the time in the end :-) Best of luck with your offspring!

You may want to take a look at OCPortal. It's fairly new, but looks interesting and developing an in-built forum with some powerful features.

Though I'd be inclined to intergrate SMF with a CMS or portal. A very straighforward one is MKPortal which works well with SMF. It's not as powerful as Mambo, but very easy to integrate with SMF and administer.

HTH

Sure thing Anytime I can help you with an issue, feel free to let me know. I enjoy helping others. I like your site design BTW. I have a friend from Sweden who translated most of it for me

well just a thought the content management system MAMBO is a great CMS to use and will be suitable for your needs since you will be able to post articles, There is a forum mod to intergrate the forum with your website, and also there is a blog mod available (to my knowledege) and you will be able to do what you require on the home page. So i suggest that you check it out and see it is what you want.

Hope i help you

Hi Jorun,

I love your ideas! Parenting communities on the internet can be very lively and active. I can't wait to see your site evolve and develop.

I use a content management system on my site and it has been a life-saver. I would highly recommend it.

Best of luck!

- Alli Ross

1. vBulletin
2. vBJournal
3. Either a regular vB forum with a moderation queue on posts or one of the many article hacks for the great software.