Jessica Grose
Appearances
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
I mean, I think we have to look at things right at the individual level and then the larger societal level. And with the individual level, you know, really trying to help moms with connections. Connection is the antidote to loneliness, right? So I think... It's the first step, getting a mom or a dad, whoever is feeling the loneliness, to do that first step, like join the music class.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
And then finding those people that are your people that you connect with. You know, doing something where you're going to see the same people kind of on a regular basis over and over and over. And that's how you form those relationships. So it's those frequency of encounters.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
And then at the societal level, you know, like we don't have these amazing policies where we are working and then we have a baby and we get a year off to spend with the baby. So we don't have the policies and the framework, I think, in the United States to really support parents. We could have such better policies on returning to work or sick day care or flexible work schedules.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
But even just being less judgmental, I think we could all serve to say that being less judgmental to parents matters. You know, you never know what the parent's doing. I definitely have times where I'm like, man, if anyone ever saw me like right now, they would be like, she's not doing a good job being a parent. You know, and we all have those moments.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
And it's just kind of giving everybody the slack there and then just kind of building our systems and our relationships. policies to make it more parent and family friendly, I think could do a lot as far as helping those pieces of loneliness.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
Oh, yes, absolutely. It was probably the worst with my first. I had a daughter, and I was the first out of my family, out of my friends, you know, to have kids. And so nobody could really relate to me. And I think, you know, it's your first time around anyway, so you're kind of navigating that role change and that, you know, major life change.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
And I will say that those first six months were so hard. I didn't have any mom friends. I didn't really know any of the resources yet that were available. And I remember one of my friends saying to me, you need to find some mommy friends. And I was like, I don't know how.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
Yeah. And so then we decided when my daughter was about one that we were going to move. And so I enlisted us in a music class in that community. And I remember thinking to myself, this is not about my daughter. It's about me. It's about me so I can find some friends. And actually, that did work.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
And a lot of that loneliness went away because I had people to talk to that were experiencing the same things. And I will say that I feel like it was life-changing because... From doing everything on your own and, like, occasionally, like, calling my mom or, you know, something like that to having people to bounce things off of that were experiencing things in real time.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
Like, it's different than having a spouse, right? It's that kind of connection is just different. So it was very life-changing to kind of build that support network there.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
You know, even I have friends now where maybe they have a very certain thing they're dealing with. So they have a child with ADHD, for example. And I think it can be really hard for her to relate to other people when other people aren't dealing with those same challenges.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
And I think that in itself, you know, having a child maybe with a special need or something like that also can contribute greatly to feeling that loneliness.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
You know, I think mothers also carry this weight of the household right on their shoulders. So they are the ones that attend to the physical, the emotional needs, you know, often not only of the children but of the spouses as well. And, you know, feeling that kind of weight can be very isolating and feel lonely sometimes.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
This just reminds me when I had just my first kid and I was mostly staying at home and my husband would go to work. And then if I was going to go do anything, he'd always be like, well, I have to babysit tonight. I'm like, you're not babysitting. It is your own child. Yeah. You know, so there's just like a different type of mentality when it comes to, you know, parenting.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
And I think we're starting to see a shift with that as more dads stay home. But I do think that's kind of where these rates look different between moms and dads.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
My body of work really is around parental burnout. And we did the study on loneliness where we found really a very high association between parental burnout and loneliness. So the lonelier the parent was, the higher the burnout was in the parent. And I like to think about, and I often reference this study. It was done by Isabel Rotham, and she looked at parents across 42 countries.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
And Europe, United States have this what she calls like an individualistic society.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
So it's this social framework where individuals are expected to really just take care of themselves and their immediate family versus many of the other societies are in this collectivism type of framework, which is really this tightly knit framework in society where individuals are integrated into these strong extended family cohesive groups.
It's Been a Minute
The acute loneliness of moms
And so burnout is decreased in a lot of these countries that have this more of this collectivism framework. And so this study only looked at burnout. But because burnout and loneliness are so closely linked, I would guess that loneliness is higher in these individualistic societies.