Most people don’t fear children; instead, they fear the loneliness that will come when they have children.

Parents give up a lot when they bring children into the world. Social interactions as a mom or dad lack spontaneity. A parent’s coming and going is limited by childcare options or the commotion of getting a baby ready and happy for an outing. A new mother up with her infant through the night can’t very well catch a 10 p.m. showing of a three-hour movie with her friends. If these are the activities of a parent’s social setting, parenthood can feel like just about the most isolating thing one can do.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Plenty of people, myself included, feel no such isolation in motherhood. And this is not just due to a “village” of willing helpers and listening ears. It is also due to the kinds of social interactions I have in a community where childbearing in your 20s is the norm. In this arena, no one asks me to meet them for an evening cocktail at 11 p.m., so I never get the chance to feel left out that I can’t go. Instead, my social interactions consist of 10 a.m. strawberry picking and playdates worked around naptimes. Working social events around the constraints of young parenthood is, for me, as normal as working around a 9-to-5 job is for an urban single.

It’s understandable why parental loneliness is such a massive concern among many groups of parents. In modern friendships, you’re a pariah if you do the up-until-recently-very-normal thing of getting hitched and having a baby. Your friends may very well be happy for you, but they have no idea what it looks like to be your friend now that a tiny human relies on you for his every physical need.

A Reddit thread titled, “Why is parenting so lonely,” provides a window into how parents in the modern age are dealing with this life change.

“My husband … feels lonely,” one says. “None of his friends have children and he feels confined by having to stick to a routine/family schedule. Going out for appetizers and drinks spontaneously on a Wednesday night can’t really happen anymore. We can’t do spur of the moment trips either.”

“Father of 2 in the Silicon Valley. My home town where all of my friends and family are is about 2 hours away,” another wrote. “It’s hard to find ‘normal’ people to be friends with in this area. I don’t fit the overwhelming demographic and the tech community isn’t [sic] great for raising kids. Everyday I dream of leaving since I have no reason to stay here other than my wife doesn’t want to move.”

This man is on to something. Trying to raise kids in a big city sounds nearly impossible, not only for the safety and space constraints, but because the city is created for work, not family life. Community in a city is centered around a far different schedule than the one parents are working around. If at all possible, parents should move far from the city, where they can build their community for their new life with children, not in spite of it.

Parents would do well not to cling to their old life. While old friendships can of course be sustained, making these friendships your main source of community will end in disaster. The feeling of constantly being left out, of watching people live a life you no longer have, would make even the happiest of parents feel resentful. Instead of focusing on the life left behind by parenthood, friendships in a context where children, and all their idiosyncrasies, are a given will do more to buoy the spirits of a new mom, for instance, than a night out pretending she is still living her old life.

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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

Image Credit: Freerange Stock