What What?
I am someone who likes — actually needs — a lot of time alone, which isn’t to say that I don’t get lonely. I do, especially when a social event comes with a plus-1 and I realize that I don’t have someone to bring with me who would enjoy it. Or I see a bunch of friends getting together without me due to social media. I get lonely, despite really liking time alone.
So I was reading an article on the difference between loneliness and aloneness when I tripped over this sentence, and it was like a needle being dragged across a record:
“Perhaps that’s why children are sent to their rooms to be alone as punishment. And adults without families are automatically pitied.”
There is no further clarification about these universally pitied adults. Are they single people who are unmarried? Because once you’re married, there are two of you, and two is a family. Are they couples who have lost all parents and siblings (if there were any to begin with)? Or… are they a single adult or a couple who doesn’t have children? Because coming on the heels of that first sentence, that’s how I read it.
I know this isn’t the point of the article, and I’m sure it went on to make some lovely points, but I stopped reading because (1) no one assigns a feeling to me without knowing me and (2) there is nothing to pity about adults without children.
No. No. A thousand times, no.
6 comments
Weird – I would assume that meant adults without parents, siblings, or spouses…even though that might include someone with a very large friend group who is never alone unless they choose to be. And while I wouldn’t automatically pity them, it would give me some feelings, I think. I’m just not sure what they are.
Hmm. Yeah, I don’t agree that “adults without families are automatically pitied.” My BFF of 20+ years is, like me, in her mid-40s, but unlike me, is unmarried and childless. She is quite content with her life as is and rarely lonely. (She is an outgoing introvert with plenty of friends who has long ago accepted the notion of not having children of her own.)
I honestly hear more women with children complaining of loneliness than I do single people who live alone. I suppose that’s because there is nothing worse than living with other people and still feeling disconnected or like you are not understood or don’t belong.
Even that first sentence is a bit suspect– we generally send our kids to their rooms not so they are hurt by feeling lonely (that sounds so cruel!), but because when they’re acting up, we need a break. Natural consequences.
Punishment? Pity?
Based on this small excerpt, I’m not a fan of this writer’s vocabulary.
I’m not a fan of the language used, but I’ve certainly encountered it. I’m married, but otherwise pretty much without family. My husband and I are both only children. My mom died 12 years ago. His a few months later. His father had died when he was so little he doesn’t really remember him. My father and I have what can at best be described as a complicated relationship and have never been close. And there ends the family. (To be completely fair I did cut off my father’s family the minute I turned 18, but I’d only met his sister once so I don’t really count that as “family” and it had to be done) But, the reality is, we get that pity a lot. Fortunately, I have a soul sister who I’ve know since we were in 2nd grade, and she and her family are now mine- family isn’t always blood- just ask my nieces and nephew, all of whom know who their aunt is. Sure, pity me that my mom is gone (I pity that daily) but do not pity me for not having a family. I have one. We built it out of patch work and it’s wonderful.
I’ve read the article. It raises a few good points, but ultimately doesn’t say much, and really misses the mark. I thought children were sent to their bedroom to a) remove themselves from the parent/siblings/issues, and b) give them time alone to calm down/have a think?
The whole article is in fact rather judgey about the lonely. They also – towards the end – seem to confuse boredom with loneliness. I’m rarely bored, and I’ve been self-employed for 16 years now, working from home, for most of that time not having anyone home during the day. Like you, I’m very comfortable being alone. But loneliness is something I worry about – and occasionally feel.
But I do think that most people automatically feel pity for those without families. I don’t like it, but I know they feel pity. (Though I think that says more about them than it does about me.) By “without families” most people seem to think this means “without children” but perhaps also includes “without partners.” Even if I disagree with this definition. A friend of mine without children was shocked recently to be asked “if she had a family” by a number of elderly people at a function. “Yes,” she replied, “I have a very close family. But I don’t have children.”
But I’m also on a Fbk group of people ageing without children, and I can tell you there are many people there who are desperately lonely. They’re making the best of their solitude, and they are certainly not bored, but they are still lonely.