Lonely parents: How can you feel alone with a baby in your arms?

Think you might be experiencing parental isolation?

You may have no clue about what’s going on in the outside world, when you used to be so hot on following popular culture and keeping up with the news. It might have been days since you’ve had any proper adult conversation. (How do you find the time when your sole focus is on keeping this little human alive?) Your life may feel so different now to how it did pre-parenthood that you feel completely detached from who you are.

How can it feel that parenting is lonely if you’re doing it with a partner?

People can often have fairy tale ideals of parenthood, after all what can be more romantic than creating new life with the person you love the most? However, when the realities of caring for baby and financially supporting your family set in, you may find that you don’t actually get to see your partner very much. Often couples take a divide and conquer approach to parenting, with one working and the other looking after baby. Although you’re both very much focused on the same end goal, it can feel like parenting is lonely with a lack of companionship.

If there is one partner who is working, they may feel cut off from daily family life and worry that they’re missing out on key stages in baby’s development. Equally, if there’s a partner at home with baby, they may feel resentment that they’ve had to make such huge adjustments to their life and they’re not able to go out to work. This can lead to both partners experiencing parental isolation and feeling distanced from one another.

Tackling parental isolation with shared parenting

Although dads are much more involved in parenting responsibilities than they used to be, in most countries around the world it’s still the mom who’s at home looking after the baby in the weeks after birth and experiencing the highest levels of loneliness. In China, for example, it’s tradition for new moms and their babies to undergo a one-month postnatal confinement—they don’t leave the house, see visitors, or even shower. The idea is to protect them from getting ill after birth when their immunity may be low. However, some experts are concerned about the effect this could have on new moms’ mental health and an increase of loneliness in motherhood. And this can perhaps be seen in 37% of Chinese moms saying that it’s easy to feel lonely, despite living in a hyper connected world.

In Nigeria, where there are low levels of shared parenting, nearly half of new moms (47%) say it’s easy to feel lonely with a baby in your arms. This is in contrast to Spain, where parenting is more equally shared with the length of paternity leave now matching maternity leave, and only 20% of parents relating to feeling lonely.

What effect can loneliness in motherhood have?

When left to our own devices, niggling self-doubts can get the better of us, making us feel more detached and heightening our feelings that parenting is lonely. 

Feel like you’re bearing most of the parenting burden? Lonely parents may feel so unsupported, overwhelmed, and exhausted by the task that it can lead to complete burnout. 

Of course, nothing beats meeting up in real life with other parents to combat loneliness. For tips on getting out there, read our checklist on lonely mom activities. Seeing some equally shellshocked but understanding faces will remind you that you’re definitely not alone.