Loneliness is a Four Letter Word

There are 7 people in our house. Seven people, 1 dog, 1 cat and 4 budgies. It is noisy and busy and noisy... and busy. If you come to our house to stay, you will never be alone again. In fact, you will most likely have constant physical contact with some kind of being - human or animal.

Let me stress... You Will NEVER Be Alone.

And yet, in the midst of our chaos and mayhem. In the midst of twins climbing all over me. In the midst of brothers playing together. In the midst of family dinners... there is loneliness. We all feel it at one time or another.

This morning, 6 year old A, started crying at the breakfast table. K & J had left the table and he was sitting there alone. Now, A cries easily so I rolled my eyes at him before asking if there was something I could help with.

His response stopped me in my tracks. "I'm lonely, Mom. I hate it when K & J go play without me because I worry that they'll forget I'm their brother too. They don't like me and it makes me sad."

And isn't that the way of it? A deep need for connection to help us feel safe and secure.

I know that when Dave and I are at odds, and the sense of connection is broken, I'm a wreck. That sense of being alone in the world overwhelms me and colours how I behave. I become tough and moody... on a warpath to conquer life. Any gentleness and humility inside me gets shoved out of the way for my "I can do it myself" attitude. And this only serves to increase the dis-connection gap between us. It's a vicious cycle.

So if I as an adult feel disconnection and am so keenly affected by it's absence, how then are my littles going to respond when they feel dis-connected.

It breaks them apart. It shatters their illusion of safety and security. They feel alone. And scared.

In her book, Connecting with our Children, Dr. Roberta M. Gilbert talks about all the resources that parents have at their fingertips for raising our kids... and then she says this... "Considering all that is available to parents, I have come to believe that what is usually left out of the planning may bet he most significant thing of all: relationships."

She goes on to say that "Parents are the hope of civilization."

I hope you're as intimidated as I am. Maintaining healthy relationships can be a big job. But we crave connection, we depend on it. It gives us life and hope and joy. Loneliness is not supposed to be part of us.

So while I might be intimidated at being considered any kind of hope for civilization, I am also motivated to connect with my husband and my kiddos in a way that banishes loneliness. In that, I am teaching my kids how to connect in healthy ways, which they pass on to their kids... and so on. And also, we learn how to connect with neighbours and friends and slowly, slowly, turn this era of dis-connect around.

Ever so slowly, loneliness becomes a thing that we know about but don't have to experience.

Now being alone for a few hours... I'll happily take a dose of that, thank you very much.