The Isolation of Young Moms

Not long ago I had lunch with some former students. Now in their thirties, they are busy moms—one has five children ages 13-2 and the other has three children aged three and under.  I asked, “How’s motherhood?”

Sarah, the one with three little ones, the one with a Stanford law degree, replied, “It is incredibly demanding: this one is crying, the other needs a bottle, and it’s all on you to help them. And, at the same time, it’s incredibly boring.”

Yes. That’s the way I remember it.

I remember one day when my oldest was just about 6 months old. While my husband taught at the University, I had spent the day tending to our daughter's needs, feeding and changing and comforting her. Whatever time wasn’t directly involved in her care was spent on the house and in the kitchen, alone. I remember standing at the sink, listening to her cry, and thinking, “For this I have a master’s degree?” I felt cheated that the very things I had worked so hard to learn were useless to me. I felt unprepared and alone.

This is the isolation of the modern stay-at-home mom. Her husband leaves for work and she is alone. The sweet and ceaseless demands of children can be overwhelming.

When one of my daughters was home with her first baby, she would put him in the stroller and walk the neighborhood, stopping at the homes of other moms and hoping to be invited in.

When I search “lonely stay at home mom,” I get 576,000 results in .57 seconds--most from blogs written by those same lonely moms.

Here are some examples:

“I was not prepared for this loneliness thing.  When I envisioned my life as a stay-at-home mom I saw myself carting the kids to and from playgroups and playdates, chatting it up on the park bench while the children slid down the slides.  There is some of that, but not nearly enough” (Alisha, at Stratejoy)

 “I know being a stay-at-home mom is . . . isolating and lonely, painfully lonely. I mean, you are never physically alone. You share every meal and every moment with your little munchkin. Every trip to the bathroom becomes a full-on family potty party, but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel alone.” (Kimberly Zapata)

 “There are over 5 million stay-at-home mothers in the U.S.and you probably couldn't find one who hasn't stood in the middle of a noisy, toy-strewn living room and wished for a few blessed hours of companionable adult conversation.” (My Daily Moment)

And that loneliness can have serious consequences. According to Metroparent, a Gallup analysis of 60,000 US women interviews shows that “28 percent of stay-at-home moms reported depression a lot of the day when asked how they were feeling the day before, but only 17 percent of employed moms did. Of the group, 26 percent of SAHMs said they experienced depression, vs. just 16 percent of working moms” (Brianna Valleskey, Metroparent.com 

Yeah. It’s hard. Really hard and really lonely. Never any doubt about that.

So what to do?

Most of those blogs I found in my search include things moms can do. Start play groups, shower every day, get out of the house, join a club.

We know that. But mainly I think it boils down to deciding we are not victims but heroes, as my smart daughter-in-law reminded me.

You are the hero who comforts the crying child, who bravely soldiers on with little sleep to remain cheerful, who drags herself back to the kitchen to load the dishwasher after putting the last child to bed, who faces another day of cleaning and feeding and washing because she sees the higher goal.

I remember when I was a young mom. My mother-in-law was visiting and we were sitting in the family room which was awash in the flotsam and jetsam of childhood: toys, shoes, clothes, paper, books. I said, “I know it’s a mess, but what can I do?” Lydia didn’t say a word. She just got down on her knees and started picking up.

So, if the house is a mess, you heroically start picking up.  If you need some alone time, you institute quiet time in your family—while the baby naps, all the other kids need to play by themselves quietly while mom gets to do what she wants. If baby won’t sleep at night, you research methods for helping her. If you miss being with friends, you start a playgroup where the moms talk while the kids play. My daughter calls this a “work meeting” with her mom colleagues.

You won’t be able to take away all the loneliness, but you will at least feel less like a victim.

But there is more that the rest of us can do. As a society and as families we need to cheer for these mom-heroes. Once when I taught a church class on motherhood, I had all the young moms in the room stand and the rest of us applauded them. We need to think of more ways to do this.

When we see a mom with little children in the grocery story, we can say “Thanks for raising the people who will be running the world in a few years. Thanks for teaching them to work hard and to love learning and to help others.” Or if it's too weird to say that out loud, at least we can think it.

When there is a new baby in the neighborhood, we can bring by a casserole for dinner and stay to hold the baby while the mom gets some rest.

We can do better at calling and texting moms we know and telling them they are doing great work.

We can all remember that, whether we work for pay elsewhere or not, the time spent caring for our homes and the people who live there is in many ways the most important work being done on the planet.

A few years ago I read a book that taught me that: Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life, by Margaret Kim Peterson. In this book, Peterson compares the ministry of the mother and homemaker to the ministry of  Christ:

 “So what really matters? Well, housework, among other things. It is not the only thing that matters, but it does matter. It matters that people have somewhere to come home to and that there be beds and meals and space and order available there. . . . As we thus obey and imitate Christ in caring for people . . ., we remember him and his ministry and presence among humans, and we anticipate the day when we will see him face to face.”

We are not only heroes as we care for home and children, we are sanctified. The work is lonely, but saints are often lonely. And, of course, we are not alone in this holy work. Our children have another parent who is by our side as we care for them. As we remember His presence, we will, perhaps, not feel quite so lonely.

 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

 Matthew 25:40

Photo Credit: Mark Hedengren. In the photo book, Three Mormon Towns, available at Amazon.com.