I think Iâve felt this way about every season of motherhood Iâve been in. I feel like I have no real-life friends, like no one understands, and those that understand arenât in my vicinity.
Iâm a full-time working mom. Iâm not the mom in the cul-de-sac at 3:30 watching my kids play, Iâm the mom getting home at 5:30, walking my dog and cooking dinner. I donât have time for bullshit or cliques, either you like me or you donât, but itâs still hard feeling like youâre on the outside looking in.
When youâre a new mom itâs lonely. In the United States you get 6 weeks maternity leave, if youâre lucky. Even then itâs considered a disability and you only get paid 60% of your salary. Let me say that again⊠itâs considered a disability. Pregnancy in the United States in 2019 is seen as a disability. And if the company youâre working for (like my former employer) has a hidden clause in there about having to be employed with them for a year before your disability pay is approved, you get nothing⊠zero. Unbeknownst to me, I took nine weeks of UNPAID maternity leave. It took us 18 months to catch up from that.
You get home from the hospital with a newborn that you have no idea how to care for yet. Youâre stressed because youâre not contributing financially, while bringing home a baby that takes up even more financial resources to care for. Your husband (or partner, or sister, or mom) goes back to work or their own life, and youâre alone⊠alone with a baby that doesnât want to be put down, wonât sleep when their supposed to, and traps you on the couch without your phone. Itâs lonely.
Itâs lonely going back to work, because no one understands why youâre crying at your desk after leaving your newborn at daycare. No one understands how hard the working-while-pumping life is, and how physically draining it can be. No one understands the pressure of not getting sleep, not being able to consume mass amounts of caffeine, dressing your post-partum body professionally, and dealing with all the hormones while still trying to meet deadlines. I tried talking with other women, and they were either the victims or heroes in their own stories â meanwhile, I just needed a friend that understood how freaking hard the work-life balance had become seemingly overnight. I needed a friend.
Youâre lonely with baby⊠a few months older and that personality is starting to shine through. But your whole life has turned into working and then going home to feed, bathe, and get that baby to sleep â and on the weekends youâre just trying to soak up as much time as you can. You donât have time for friends or for going out, and you donât want to invite your friends into a house you havenât cleaned for 6 months, so what do you do?
Then you have another baby and the cycle starts over⊠but now you have the never-ending weekend nap cycle. Baby #2 goes down for a nap and then wakes up, you feed both children and then lay #1 down for a nap while you play with #2, #1 wakes up and you feed both children again, and then lay #2 down for their nap. By the time #2 wakes up from their nap you may get a few minutes of play time with both before you need to start dinner. Anyone elseâs weekends look like this? Or maybe itâs every day. Either way⊠itâs lonely. Youâre trapped in the house with no adult conversation and only social media to keep you company. Play dates are like that dream you hope for, but never materializes.
I try to relate to the stay at home momâs in my neighborhood, but itâs hard. Their houses are clean, their yards are perfect, and their kids all play together after school. Meanwhile, my kids play with their friends at daycare while waiting for me to come pick them up, and ask every day if they can play outside⊠but when we get home, the other kids are already eating dinner. So I think my kids are lonely too.
Please donât get me wrong⊠I LOVE my job and the ability I have to write for a living, apart from this blog. I LOVE the company I work for. Iâm not built to be a stay at home mom, I just wish I had friends in real life that understood the balance. I just wish I didnât feel alone.
I donât have a solution other than to ask you to be friendly to those momâs outside your group. The momâs that are busy, the momâs that are new, the momâs that are working â we need you. We need your ability to commiserate and laugh, to share a glass of wine and whine. To create space in the mess and leave all judgement at the door. I need a hug.
Girl… I know I have been around for a lot of these struggles, but I know that I just can’t truly relate (no matter how hectic life can get with a dog and a lot of other things going on, haha). You are such a strong woman, and an amazing mom, despite how it may feel sometimes. I have no solutions, other than to offer a rare ladies night out when I’m in town next. Keep doing you, cause you are inspirational. And give me a few years, maybe I’ll be able to relate then, haha.
Thanks Em. Your struggles are not any less impactful than mine, they’re just different. And yes! Girls night when you’re back in town for sure!
Itâs been a few years, but I remember TOO WELL being lonely like that Rachel. Consider yourself HUGGED a long time – youâre doing a fantastic job as a FT working Mom, as a Mom in general.
Thanks Tonya, I really appreciate that, and consider yourself hugged back!
Thanks for sharing this. I can totally relate and sometime even envy those stay at home moms. For most of my sons first year, I cried because I couldnât spend my whole day with him. Itâs gotten better but the struggle is real.
Same here. I cried so much my daughter’s first year because I felt I was missing out on everything. We found a great in home daycare, so I knew she was well cared for, but I always feared she would end up calling her nanny “mom.” Hugs girl.
The grass isnât always greener. Being a mom is hard, having kids is hard, and it can all be so lonely, stay at home mom or working mom. Being a stay at home mom, I often feel like my only friend is a 3yo who wonât stop touching me and asking the same questions on repeat. I miss out on field trips if I canât find a babysitter for my youngest, while my working mom friends take the day off of work and leave their younger babies at their normal daycare to join their older kids on a field trip. My kids ask to join flyers because all of their friends are there and they want to play with them after school. What I provide at home isnât as exciting to them as what their friends might be doing at flyers.
When I see my working mom neighbors together, I want to say hi, but wonder if Iâll say something foolish… is all I have to talk about kids while they have intellectual conversations about big projects they are working on or places theyâve traveled to lately for important meetings?
Itâs easy to feel anxious and lonely as a mom… I feel it all the time!
Long story short, I hear you, you are not alone and the grass certainly isnât greener!! Stay at home moms probably feel the same way as you and feel like they are on the outside looking into your life of work, social time at the office, coffee breaks and lunch breaks with co-workers who talk about things other than kids.
PS, my house and yard arenât clean or neat all the time. I have a 3 year old shadow who makes that near impossible. When I invite people over I spend 30 minutes speed cleaning my house while my kids watch TV đ
Liz, thanks for your perspective! I love what stay at home mom’s are able to provide and do, and by no means want to diminish your contribution. I’m such an extrovert that I really love talking with everyone about everything. I tried to be a stay at home mom for a while and couldn’t do it, so please know that I hear you! The field trips are a hard balance here too, because I can’t always get my PTO approved… so I feel like I’m missing out on even more than I already do. I think we all have it rough, just in different ways. I think loneliness affects us all, and to hear your kids perspective warms my heart to know we’re not alone in feeling like we’re all missing out on something. One of my SAHM friends gave me a great piece of advice and said, “Maybe it just requires stepping outside of your comfort zone to find someone you click with.” And I think that’s true. I think my anxiety and socially awkward ways trip me up, and I forget that instead of waiting for an invite I can just reach out. Feel free to waive and say hi… I’ll chat with you đ
YES!! All these things. It was so hard for me to got back to work after my son was born. I felt like everyone else had it together and I was losing my mind. Thank you for writing this!