Mommies Unite

Moms have very little trouble networking with other moms. An online mother's group in San Francisco boasts almost four thousand members. By attending various playgroups and mothers' groups, I've met at least a hundred other new moms (and a few new dads) in the last twelve months.

Moms understand the perils of remaining isolated when you have an infant on your hands. The learning curve for new moms is very steep, and relentless; and there's no way to get all the information you need from books. For one thing--sometimes the main piece of advice in one book will be diametrically opposed to the advice in the next book you read on the subject. Regarding sleep training, feeding babies solids, when to give your child juice, and so many other things, the experts clearly do not agree. Sometimes it's much easier to talk to five different moms about what they're doing, then make up your own mind. For another: sometimes the general, cultural wisdom on a particular baby-raising issue changes while you're raising your baby. For instance, it seems that many doctors and dentists are now saying that mothers should not give their babies and toddlers any juice whatsoever. (I just heard that one yesterday.)

So mothers develop a talent for meeting other mothers (and caregivers) and discussing the ins and outs of baby care with them. This does not mean, however, that mothers are not still, in the end, isolated creatures. The really hard stuff still happens when one is alone in the house or car with one's baby. The screaming, tantrums, sleepless nights, falls, accidents, sicknesses, weird excretions and other major and minor catastrophes still occur behind closed doors, for the most part. No one should be deluded into thinking that motherhood is not, still, a lonely business.

However--even in those brief encounters at mothers' groups and playgroups--even if it's just a quick word with a mother about one's sleepless night, or about the baby's latest quirky or unpleasant habit, or about how hard it is to get anything of a personal nature done these days--one feels the weight of that loneliness lift, for at least a few hours.

But it comes crashing down again when I remember that the vast majority of these relationships with the other mothers are transitory--born of a deep necessity, and completely worthwhile, but born of a particular moment in my life, and not based on any common interests other than babies and child-rearing. This is when I also remember how important it is to carve out a life based on something, a few things, OTHER THAN raising a child. (To re-carve, because I dimly remember having had such a life before the kid came along.)