We are taught from a young age that we can do anything we set our minds to. Women can have it all: career, family, and a loving partner. What we don’t get taught is how hard it is to have it all. Climbing the career ladder is hard. Finding a loving, equitable partnership is hard. And raising children without a village is hard. But we’re given this script that when we have children, we need to be everything for that child. We need to know everything there is to know about bottle feeding and chestfeeding and which is better and why pacifiers are bad but why they might also be good, and why daycare is bad for your kid but also if you stay at home you’re not a good role model for your kids, and that you need to buy all the right toys to engage your newborn but your house needs to be spotless. It’s an impossible goal to aim for. And the reason you feel like you’re running yourself ragged is simple: the standard for modern motherhood is physically and logistically unsustainable.

You’ve had your baby. You’re in the thick of the newborn haze, soaking in the snuggles, healing your body. But your house is also a wreck, you’ve been eating takeout for weeks, and you don’t know the last time you showered. Perhaps your partner has returned to paid work (if they were able to get any time off at all) and you are spending hours alone, caring for a newborn. You might be wondering, at this point: “Where the heck is my village?”

Having a baby should be the happiest time of your life, right? After 9-10 long months, several hours of labor, to say nothing of the planning you may have gone through to even get pregnant, your bundle of joy is finally here. But you feel…lonely. Why is that? And why does no one talk about it?