How to cope without a village when raising young kids
Losing your primary social support system while raising young children leaves you with no time or energy to make new friends, making it nearly impossible to maintain your sanity or find someone to help you carry the load. Without a trusted network or outlet, the compounding exhaustion of isolation and heavy responsibilities leads to deep grief over the life you built.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Trying to put yourself out there and making an effort to build a new village through messy toddler afternoons and doing things for others.
- 2venting during Friday vent threads
- 3closing the office door and pretending to be on a webinar to take a mental break
- 4seeking advice or connection in online professional subreddits
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I’m grieving this life we have built and not sure how to do this alone without a village.”source ↗
“I’ve had a really hard time trying to make any friends here and with a medically complex infant and a 2.5 year old I don’t really have the time or energy to make new friends.”source ↗
“Does anyone out there have tips for maintaining their sanity while not having any friends they can see IRL?”source ↗
“I am the hr manager. I’m at a loss because I’m expected to listen to everyone else’s issues and struggles, help them with it etc and I do!! But who helps me with mine?”source ↗
“I bring things up to the CEO, mostly to vent to get something off my chest because I feel it’s unprofessional to do it with my subordinates, and he just tells me he doesn’t want to hear it.. I’m exhausted.”source ↗
Where this came up
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