It's a Lonely Job

I had a friend for dinner recently and she asked about my transition to being a stay at home mom. I am closing in on my one year anniversary of my last day at work. I told her that I found staying home isolating. She was confused. She knows I live in a neighborhood with lots of other Moms who are home during the day. She knows many of my close friends are also home with their kids. She knows I have family close by. So she asked me, "Why do you feel isolated if you are surrounded by people?" and at the time I couldn't give her a good answer.

I mulled this question all week and here is my answer: The children are the reason I feel so isolated. Ever tried to have a conversation with a 3 year old and a nearly 2 year old running around? It is pretty much impossible to have a conversation and maintain the level of viligence required to keep your kids from flushing an unknown object down the toilet.

It is even worse if you try to have that conversation at a park. Your conversation consists of a single sentence, punctuated (in my case) by, "Maggie get off that" or "La Nina, you just went". As Moms will tell you, we are very good at fragmented conversations. Most of these conversations include frequent "as I/you was/were saying"...., but somehow the emotional connection is lost in the nose, hand and butt wipes that transpire during a visit.

So, go out at night, right? Now this is possible, plausible, even a darn good idea, but again a challenge. Why? Simple: exhaustion. If you have little kids, you are tired. You crave sleep. You want to be home in bed. Alone. Sleeping. You aren't sipping chardonnay and gabbing with friends about the experience of staying home when you have little kids. If you are out with other Moms, this is the only chance you may have to get some expert advice. You want to know about things like potty training, breaking bad sleep habits and dressing your obstinant two year old. And you want the readers' digest version. 'Just give me the solutions, ladies, skip the frills. I need to get home and get to sleep, thank you.'

So, life with little kids is isolating. It isn't a surprise and it is really to be expected when you consider the completely normal ego-centric nature of little kids. The good news is the little ones do grow up, and then we all complain about how lonely the house feels once they are gone.