Last month, the British government appointed a Minister for Loneliness. The new role was created to look at strategies for dealing with what health professionals around the world are calling an ?epidemic? of isolation and disconnection?an issue widely attributed to an aging population and rising rates of people choosing to live alone in countries like the United Kingdom, United States and Canada.
But what about that other commonplace but largely overlooked form of loneliness: the one that afflicts those of us who have chosen to live with more people, not less" The loneliness of new parenthood (I will use the term ?mother? in this piece as a catch-all for anyone, male or female, tasked with the duty of full-time child care) is very real and, for those of us who?ve experienced it, deeply unexpected. It comes as a great surprise to many new mothers that the business of bonding with your baby coincides with a severe disconnect in other arenas of life, including your relationship with your partner. There isn?t much in-depth research on new parents and loneliness, but a recent UK survey of more than 2,000 mothers by the online mothers? networking group Channel Mums found that 90 percent of mothers feel lonely since having children and 54 percent felt ?friendless? after giving birth.
We would do well to pay attention to this phenomenon because long-term loneliness is dangerous. In recent years, it has been linked to increased rates of hypertension, sleep disturbances...