I Retreated from the World When Having a Baby, But That Isn’t Sustainable

I’ve been living under a rock for the last year but it’s almost time to re-emerge.

I’ve been living under a rock like this. Photo by on

As I brought a baby into the world, I retreated from it.

It started when I was pregnant — suddenly I didn’t want to hear about news or politics anymore. I’ve always been quite a politically engaged and (I like to think) well informed person. I went from closely following and discussing current affairs and writing about politics and volunteering in my spare time to studiously avoiding headlines.

The pregnancy hormones made me sensitive and I was trying to minimise stress for the sake of the tiny baby growing inside me.

I just couldn’t cope with a lot of the horrible news about the state of the world. I felt things more keenly. That news story about an earthquake and emergency services pulling children out of the rubble made me so upset. I was fatigued with news about climate disaster and political corruption. So I tuned it all out and looked inward.

Another part of it was just being consumed with wanting to spend all my time devouring content related to pregnancy, babies and parenthood. I had this enormous life change brewing and it was all I could think about. I wanted to learn as…