Motherhood is meant to be all about the village. Why then, did I feel so lonely?

When I became a first-time mum, I was prepared for sleep deprivation. I was ready for the spit-up. I had the onesies, the wraps, the white noise machine. I knew the warning signs of postnatal depression and mastitis.

But what I wasn’t prepared for, what crept in the door slowly without me even noticing it, was loneliness.

It started with a sense of drifting further away from the person I knew who’d worked in the city and lived a child-free life. The isolation of nap time meant I was home more with my baby. Then there was the “witching hour” (or hours), walking the streets alone with my baby in his pram.

I remember one Melbourne Cup Day watching people spill out of a pub, laughing and chatting. Pushing my pram past, I felt invisible.

Then it hit me one night, bathing my baby in my small apartment on my own, again. I realised how lonely being a mum was. And I remember thinking: “This isn’t what I pictured motherhood would be like.”

I began to wonder: How many mums are in this apartment block right at this moment bathing their babies alone? How many mums on the street? In the suburb? All of us alone. Of course, I wasn’t totally alone. I had a gorgeous baby, I had family and friends and a lovely husband (who left at 7am and was home by 7pm), but it was a long day in the field with a baby who hadn’t exactly mastered the art of conversation.

Where is the village?

I felt a bit robbed. I’d grown up hearing stories about the village my mum had. I was a little kid in the 1980s, a time when there weren’t fences between our yard and the neighbours. If you wanted to jump on the trampoline or swim in a pool, you went down the street to the house that had them.

My second word after “mum” was my neighbour’s name: Phoebe. “Pee-bee”. Everyone mucking in, kids running barefoot through each other’s backyards. The kind of village where someone would show up and hold the baby while you had a cup of tea. That village? It was gone.

I felt like I was doing it alone, and I had a sneaking feeling I wasn’t the only mum who felt that way.

The truth is, many of us feel more lonely than ever. Even in the middle of busy homes, bustling schools, kids with every single weekday scheduled, and constant digital connection, we’re experiencing a kind of quiet, creeping disconnection.

And it’s not just a few of us. It’s a lot of us.

A 2021 survey highlighted by the US Surgeon General reveals that 65 per cent of parents reported feeling lonely, compared to 55 per cent of non-parents. These numbers are much higher for rural mums where the barriers to connection are greater.

And it’s not just the mums.

Many dads hide their loneliness away. Few have grown up being encouraged to discuss their feelings or to seek out emotional support from friends. Vulnerability hasn’t been modelled for many men.

The reality is, plenty of men parent without the emotional scaffolding women often, but not always, build through friendships and online communities. They work. They parent. And they carry a huge mental load, often silently. They also carry the juggle of work-life balance, the worries around raising great kids and increasing stress and financial pressure, especially in a cost-of-living crisis.

What are we to do?

I decided to take action and called my personal trainer from my old, pre-kids life. “Would you be willing to train eight to 10 mums with babies in prams?”

He said yes. And we did it.

If the babies cried, we used them as weights. Sometimes we ran with prams. Sometimes we barely exercised at all.

But we got out, once a week, we went for coffee after. And it made a difference. We were moving our bodies, but more importantly, we were getting out of the house and connecting. And if your baby cried the whole session, and you’d had a tough night, someone would give you a hand.

That one small group was for me – and I think the other mums who joined – an anchor. A fixed day in the schedule where you’d be guaranteed to feel part of something, even if only for a couple of hours a week. It made a difference.

Because we are a social species, we are wired for connection and we weren’t meant to do this – any of it – alone.

What can we do to combat loneliness?

Name it. You’re not a “Nigel no friends” and you are not a “loser”. Naming loneliness gives it less power. It’s just an emotion, no better no worse than joy, sadness or anger. Part of being human.

From there start small. Connection doesn’t have to mean deep heart-to-hearts every day. It can be a text, a wave at the school gate, a chat with a neighbour, a barista who knows your name and your usual, a walk with a friend, a fitness class for parents and babies, kids’ hour at the library, volunteering at the school fair, a team sport.

The key to true connection and friendship is a triangle of proximity, shared experiences and low-pressure interactions, the kind that build trust slowly over time.

Above all, be kind to yourself. Those internal conversations may be the most important of all.

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