Brain Rules for Baby (John Medina) / quote 15 of 91
The loneliness of new parents
Loneliness, painful and ubiquitous, is experienced by as many as 80 percent of new parents. After the birth of a child, couples have only about one-third as much time alone together as they had when they were childless. The thrill of having a child wears off, but the incessant job of parenting does not. Being a mom or dad becomes a duty, then a chore. Night after sleepless night depletes the family energy supply; increasing spousal conflicts exhaust the reserves. These losses cause a couple’s social activities to run out of gas. Mom and dad have trouble maintaining friendships with each other, let alone with acquaintances. Friends stop coming over. Parents find little energy to make new ones. Outside of their spouses, typical new parents have less than 90 minutes per day of contact time with another adult. A whopping 34 percent spend their entire days in isolation. Not surprisingly, many new parents feel trapped. Said one stay-at-home mother, “Some days, I just want to shut myself in my bedroom and talk on the phone with my best friend all day instead of dealing with my children. I love them, but being a stay-at-home mom is not all I dreamt it would be.” Another simply said of the loneliness: “I cry in my car. A lot.”