The Truth Is, I’m Just So Damn Lonely

And I know I’m not the only one

I was trying to get some writing done this morning, but my three-year-old daughter just kept nagging, nagging, nagging. She wanted attention. I needed to work. I could feel the frustration mounting. I knew what we needed to do. We needed to get out: to go somewhere, anywhere. I packed a bag and we headed off to one of our local coffee shops: not the trendy one with the overpriced lattes with flower designs on top, but the hokey one with an open piano, toys for the kids, and hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. 

As soon as we walked through the door, I felt an instant sense of relief. It was crowded, but not too crowded. People were mostly there to chat, not to work. There were a few Gen-Xers with noise-canceling headphones on, plugged into their computers, but mostly it was full of older people. A group of older women was sitting near the entrance, exchanging salad recipes. A group of older men discussed sports. A couple was playing chess. Another elderly man was banging away at the piano - some schmaltzy rendition of a Beatles song - and missing half the notes. It was lovely. 

I ordered two hot chocolates and my daughter and I settled in. She got busy with some of the toys in the corner. I recorded some voice notes on my phone for pieces I want to write and things to include in my book. We were both calm.

I am not entirely sure why I crave spaces like this so much right now. One factor is clearly that my children behave better in communal spaces. I don’t know why. Is it the novelty of it that keeps them entertained? Is it because they know they can’t get away with being terrors in public spaces? Or do they, like me, simply feel relief at the presence of other humans, even complete strangers, happily chatting away?

(Our actual cafe is not nearly this cool FYI)

I am lucky to have work that is flexible, fully-remote, and involves very few meetings, meaning I can do it where and when I want. This is both a blessing and a curse. It allows me to spend more time with my children, for which I am truly grateful, but it also blurs the lines between work, leisure and childcare in a way that can be truly frustrating (especially if you have a deadline). It’s also lonely work. Before I had children, I got dressed up and went to an office every day, and while I wasn’t exactly thick as thieves with my colleagues, I certainly enjoyed the social interaction I got from office life. Even after my job went remote during Covid, I still had weekly catch-ups with a favorite colleague just to shoot the shit and gossip about the execs. It wasn’t quite the same as being in-person, but it filled a need. Pre-kids, weekends involved all kinds of meetups with people who had the time, energy, and initiative it takes to organize group fun. And I had the time, energy, and desire to participate. 

These days, I am lucky if I see someone other than my husband and children once a month. I am not counting school pick-ups and drop-offs which are rushed and mostly meaningless. I mean real, actual catch-ups with friends or family. Part of the problem is that we live in one of the most expensive places on earth (mostly due to my husband’s job); a place that none of my family can afford to live. Another part of it is that I have just not been very effective at seeing friends in this phase of life. It’s not that I don’t have friends. I do. But getting together with anyone, even the ones who live down the street, involves a level of logistical coordination that I am simply not able to pull off on the regs. Here’s one of my favorite posts from @momlife_comics about the impossibility of meeting up with other moms:

Someone is inevitably going to comment: just join a mom group, or go to the library, or the park! My local mom group meets only at times that do not work at all with my schedule. The library is open for literally like 10 hours per week. And yesterday when I took my daughter to the park we were the only ones there. Part of the problem is that everyone else is working during the day (moms are at the office and kids are in daycare). Back in my grandmother’s day it was easy to have the neighborhood moms over to play cards while the kids ran around in the yard, simply because there were a lot fewer moms in the workforce. And don’t even get me started on birthday parties. Never in my life have I had to socialize with so many strangers without so much as a drop of alcohol.

According to research, nearly 40% of moms report feeling lonely most of the time, and this number is as high as 70% for mothers of children with special needs. The cruel irony of it is that the people who are most in need of help and social support are the ones that end up being the most isolated in modern society. Worse: this happens at a time in our lives when our brains have literally rewired themselves in an effort to increase social understanding and connectedness (thanks matrescence). 

Whenever I dig into the hunter-gatherer literature or immerse myself in the research on what motherhood was like for 95% of human history, one thing stands out: the incredibly social nature of daily life in these societies. I am quite literally jealous of the social lives of hunter-gatherer mothers. I wish my daily work involved hiking off into the savannah with a group of four of my closest girlfriends and female relatives - baby on my back, toddler happily playing with friends in camp - to go dig tubers and gossip about who is sleeping with whom (the anthropological literature genuinely suggests that this was the preferred topic of conversation among !Kung women).

I am not really sure what the solution is here. We can’t go back to digging tubers. All I know is: it’s not working for me, and it’s not working for most other moms either. I’m tired of being lonely, and I don’t want to have to wait until I am retired or until my kids are off to college to have a fulfilling social life again.