LONELINESS…

‘It takes a village’ they say, and I’m pretty sure that they are right. 

However, many of us don’t have a village. We are perhaps surrounded by people every day… but very much alone.

Loneliness can be a day to day experience for many but for the pregnant mother it can be born out of physical change, shifting responsibility and the huge unknown of motherhood.

This is why we need the village. Not just for sleep or ‘holding the baby’ but to just talk, hang out, share experiences. Know deep in your core that you are not alone.

To have your craziest problems affirmed as normal and your darkest worries brought into the light, shared and diminished.

This change in direction and role can flatten you. A busy office, nights out and lie-ins replaced by broken sleep, repetition and problems that just seem unsolvable and relentless.

Over the past year the mum and baby groups, the bump groups, the music & movement classes, the coffee shops have all at some point been paused and closed. Antenatal classes have had to move online and no longer in person. Even for the most organised, meeting other new parents has become increasingly difficult. It can seem the equivalent of trying to talk through troublesome, personal emotions over a 6ft high garden fence.

There are apps and online clubs of course, the Peanut App that helps you to find your ‘bump buddy’ in the same way that dating sites find your ideal partner, but you have to somehow know that these things exist. And it is in your baby community that you usually hear about such things. It can be a frustratingly lonesome cycle.

Of course this stretch of isolation and mask wearing cannot last forever and if you prepare as much as possible in advance then you can carve out a group of friends that will work for you.

But this pregnancy and new born time is fleeting and precious. It isn’t fair that this is where we are. I wonder what new parents are losing right now? Where is the camaraderie and what effect will this have over the following months and years.

As one young mum said to me recently, ‘I was meant to be meeting other women, drinking coffee and sharing stories, now I’m just home alone all the time and it’s horrible. I know it seems stupid but I almost feel cheated.’

I don’t have the answers I’m afraid other than downloading the apps, reaching out, joining the virtual groups and putting the leg work in. This will pass but don’t wait. Find your friends now. 

You see… it really does take a village. 

xx