Now i’m not writing this for sympathy or to feel sorry for myself, just as one of the down sides to the numerous upsides of motherhood. 

I’m not sure if this is everyones experience but I have an inkling it’s a common phenomena after googling “lonely moms” and getting 31,000,000 hits with titles ranging from “why are moms so lonely” to “motherhood feels lonelier than ever'. 

We’ve all seen the headlines that loneliness and social isolation can be bad for our health. So what is this lack of connection doing to our mothers? 

Although you’re rarely ever alone when you’re a mother (there’s usually a little being watching you pee and shower on the reg) some days you realize you’ve been talking to a baby for 6 hours straight and haven’t engaged with an adult in what seems like ages. As I eagerly wait like a border collie for my husband to get home so I can ask him all about the world out there. “What happened at work today?! Any juicy news? He said what to who?!”

As much as my marriage is rich and full of interesting conversations and engaging ideas I believe our hyper-social species needs a community outside of our romantic partnerships for true social enrichment and satisfaction.

I have found this to be quite a challenge in this era of motherhood, while my baby is still a baby and needs me at almost all times.

In my personal experience, the loneliness started in pregnancy.

 I was the first and only person in my inner circle that had been pregnant. I felt very disconnected from everyone. I should add that I live across an ocean from all of my loved ones and had just moved to a new city. Knowing no one except for my husband in our new city , feeling sick as a dog (not really up to hit the local speak easy and meet some new pals) and feeling like the people in my life didn’t understand what I was going through.

My closest friends went MIA and just stopped showing up. Stopped messaging , never called and the most I got from them was a like or a comment on my Instagram posts or a meme sent back and forth. I’m sure I wasn’t the easiest to stay in touch with as i was 6 hours ahead and puking when I was awake but the effort wasn’t there none the less.

The friends that did remain were amazing and understanding but they could only connect to me on a certain level. I felt like I was in a weird cocoon that was operating with one food in the world and the other on some other plane of existence.

Building a human was hard.

I slowly started to meet women in the community in my city but they either all had older children and were already established in their mom-hood or were single and going out to bars. And my constant lack of energy in pregnancy didn’t exactly make me want to reach out and hangout with someone I wasn’t totally comfortable with yet.

Once I had my baby there was a few amazing women around me that brought food and checked in to make sure everything was good. But the newborn days and other people’s excitement is short lived and soon people have their lives to go back to.

But there you are, day after day, sleep deprived, probably haven’t showered in five days and haven’t talked to a friend in a while. Not that I’d want to anyways. The last thing I feel like doing after a night of no sleep is picking up the phone and calling a girlfriend to chat about diapers and my baby’s sleep patterns and what food he tried yesterday.

Because in reality that is what is new and exciting to me in this season of life. My baby’s first words that aren’t really words yet. And the fact that my baby can stand up for about 12 seconds without falling. And that he started blowing kisses with his hands recently and I think it’s the cutest thing in the world.

This motherhood thing is so rewarding but can be isolating. And the truth is mothers isolate themselves a lot of the time. When I do get free time, trying to engage in a new relationship seems like too much energy for me to exert. I would rather do some thing I consider self-care like go to the gym, give myself a facial or work on a new business idea. Plus, postpartum has left me socially awkward and scattered. I see how I am when I have the chance to interact with a potentially new friend but my baby is there too and I have to have 7 second fragmented conversations because he’s either doing something so special to me or he’s about to eat a rock and I need to stop him. Meeting new people and maintaining relationships, what seemingly used to be easy for me before having children, is now a Goliath of a task for my nervous system. 

I remember being on the other end of those types of conversations with women before having a kid and thinking, “Jeeze this lady is chaotic, just pay attention to our conversation for one minute.” But now I see that it is biologically impossible. When my son is in the room, especially when he is not able to take care of himself yet, I will always pay attention to him over anyone else. And I’m not sorry for it. Just lonely.

At 28 years old, being a stay at home mom with a one year old and trying to create new friendships and community seems like a daunting task. Some days I’m quite apathetic about it. I convince myself this isn’t the season for friendships (and maybe it isn’t). But I also don’t want my son to grow up and see me without close relationships. I think it’s important for our children to see us have these intimate non-romantic relationships that they can mirror as they get older. I don’t want him to feel bad for me or think that I’m lonely. I think I owe it to him and myself to at least be open.

So I say if we’re going down we won’t go down without a fight. And that is not me saying I will accept breadcrumbs in the form of friendships. But as mothers we can’t rely on others to understand how we feel or reach out or build those friendships. We have to do it ourselves. No matter how tired we are or how distracted we are. We need to consider it as a form of self care.

Yes you may get hurt.

Someone may not want to be your friend in return.

You may have to cancel friend dates last minute.

But when you find true friendships and connections, those people will understand and they will try just as hard as you.

So don’t give up the good fight yet mama. Your people are out there. It may take a while to find them but you’re not alone.

Welcome to the Lonely Moms Club.