How To Find Your Village - Sophie Moskowitz

At Viva La Vulva, we believe that no one should walk the postpartum path alone. But in today’s world, many parents find themselves doing just that, parenting in isolation. In this honest and powerful blog, our Expert Sophie Moskowitz (Imperfect Parents) reflects on her own search for a village during the early years of motherhood and shares how to find yours, and why community care is not a luxury, it’s essential! We agree! 

“This is not how we were meant to do this!” That was the thought that permeated my brain as I was home alone with a baby and a toddler through weeks upon weeks of lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. With years of childcare experience under my belt as a nanny and then an Early Childhood teacher, I could not understand why I was finding it so difficult to look after my two children on my own for the eight hours each day that my partner was at work. I was using all the tools in my wellbeing book: morning dance parties in the kitchen, sitting outside under the trees, going for regular walks… but the isolation of lockdown weighed on me, and without regular contact with my friends and other parents - but watching everyone else’s highlight reels of activities and cooking marathons on social media, I felt like I was the only one who was finding things so hard.

“Why is this so hard for me? What is wrong with me? Isn’t this what I always wanted? Why can’t I be grateful and just enjoy this precious time while my children are young and at home with me?” The harder I found things, the more my self-criticism escalated. It didn’t help that, after breezing through the first couple of years with a first child who was a ‘unicorn’ sleeper, I now found myself with a very wakeful baby and a toddler who seemed to have had a personality transplant the moment she became a big sister. 

The baby and the toddler were just doing their thing though - being babies and toddlers the way they were meant to… I knew that for the most part I was meeting all of their needs - but I just wasn’t meeting my own. Why was I so ungrateful? We had a safe, warm home, healthy children, supportive whānau around us… but every lockdown saw me feeling isolated and irrationally angry, overwhelmed, and restless.

I put it all down to the social isolation. When I had my first baby, I was lucky enough to have a couple of other close friends who had babies at the same time, and we would meet up multiple times a week, even if it was just to sit on each other’s couches, fold one another’s laundry, and gasbag while we looked after our babies. This was the “village”. I got to experience firsthand the difference between parenting alongside others, with their social and moral support, compared with doing it in isolation, and this hammered home to me just how vital this social connection is for parents. 

You don’t have to take my word for it. Researchers are finally beginning to recognise that modern parents (or mothers, as most of the research focuses on them  since they are traditionally the ones at home) are lonely! The way that Western society has separated us into our nuclear families, has left us feeling isolated, disconnected, and doubting ourselves, and turning to social media for connection can (depending on who we’re following) often exacerbate these feelings. This isn’t how we evolved to parent! For most of human history, we lived in social groups, where childcare, food gathering, ‘housework’, and social activities were shared with a ‘tribe’. 

The Helen Clark Foundation’s 2022 report on perinatal mental health is literally titled “It takes a village”, and suggests increased social support as a protective factor against mental illness…But not everyone has family and friends around them while they’re home on parental leave - so then what?! How are we supposed to find this “village” if they’re not showing up on our doorstep with dishes of lasagne? Are we supposed to strike up conversations with other parents as we pass each other on the footpath? As we sing nursery rhymes at the library? Post on community facebook pages? For the more extroverted among us, those strategies may work, but what about the rest of us. If you’re already feeling isolated and uncertain, reaching out can be harder than ever. 

This is where Imperfect Parents comes in. We created our services (antenatal education, parent support groups, and nature playgroups) with the primary goal of helping parents find connection and community. Our groups all have specially trained facilitators, with different professional and personal backgrounds (think, midwife, teacher, occupational therapist…), who are there to guide conversations beyond the small talk, bust the pervasive myths that parents are exposed to, and help parents feel safe to be their honest selves - which is the recipe for very real connection.

But Imperfect Parents is only in Auckland! So far, yes. Our dream is to expand our groups throughout, but until then if you’re outside of Auckland there are also options like Space and Playcentre, and some other providers offering parent support groups.

Whatever the method, finding a group where you can gather with other parents at a similar stage of parenting, share honest accounts of your experiences (the good and the hard!), can provide sanity-saving reassurance, connection, and reduce those feelings of loneliness and isolation. And it can provide you with friendships that may well follow you through the rest of your life!

Sophie Moskowitz - Learn more about Imperfect Parents

Your feelings are valid. And you deserve support. Whether it's through a local parent group, or just knowing you're not alone in this wild ride, we hope Sophie’s words remind you that your village can be found, join us on Instagram  to be an important part of our village of mamas 💖

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