When I think about my mom in the ‘90s, one of the things I remember most is how many friends she had and how much time she spent with them. Not in a she-was-always-ignoring-me way, but in a fond and, honestly, jealous way. My mom was often on the phone with friends in the evening as she cooked dinner. On Saturdays, she’d ask me if I wanted to go with her to her best friend’s house, and they’d play Scrabble and drink coffee and talk on the back porch for hours. We would meet up with friends at the local sports bar for wings and karaoke, she’d go after work to grab drinks, she made friends with all of our softball team parents — she just had tons of social buckets and a million friends.
I… do not have that same life.
I’m not alone, either; you can look in any local Facebook group or on social media reels to find tons of moms just like me who feel they aren’t spending enough time with friends. You can also look at the science. Whereas Americans once spent 6.5 hours a week with friends, that number dropped to just four hours per week between 2014 and 2019 (yes, well before the pandemic), according to Harvard Kennedy School. Studies have found that, on average, we are spending more time alone in social isolation, jumping up 24 minutes per day from 2003 to 2019, which comes out to about 146 extra hours per year of being alone.
And while we can joke about how much we love canceled plans and how there’s “never enough” alone time, we all know the truth: We need socialization.
It makes sense that there’s a dip, right? Those jokes come from somewhere, and it’s not that we’re actually so much busier than we were two decades ago. Those jokes come from truth — we have changed our priorities. At least partly, this is our own doing.
And society has changed, too.
The number of people who refuse to volunteer at their kids’ schools, who “don’t like small talk” at soccer practice, who are suddenly scared of phone calls and inviting people over — it’s an epidemic. We talk about loneliness, but we don’t talk about the fact that so many of us (especially moms) don’t have the friendships our moms did because we aren’t putting in the work.
Of course, we also don’t have the same resources, the same free spaces, and the same opportunities to make friends as moms did 20 years ago.
It’s tough to figure out how when we’re already so burned out. Moms 20 years ago didn’t have social media hammering away at their emotional capabilities. Moms 20 years ago didn’t feel the judgment we do today. Moms 20 years ago still had a bit of that ‘90s vibe hanging in, where the only option to meet someone was to actually go out and say hi and show up — not just like each other’s Instagram stories.
But it’s important that we adapt. If we’re too burned out to meet our friend for coffee, we need to figure out why. If we just can’t handle someone coming over for an hour to chat, we need to figure out why. If we don’t know our neighbors and can’t ask them to join us on a walk, we need to figure out why.
Because it’s not just that everyone is socializing less — it’s that there are a lot of people who aren’t socializing at all. The data analysis found that in 2024, just 1 in 3 Americans socialized at all on a given day.
All of this analysis predates COVID and the rise of Gen Z, but there are a lot of factors at play. We’re scared to take our baby into a brewery to meet with friends because social media makes us sound like bad moms when we do. We have social anxiety about reaching out to fellow kindergarten moms because we’ve all seen 800 TikToks calling that type of behavior “cringe.” We are anxious about our kids acting up in public, anxious about leaving them with a sitter, anxious about being judged.
It’s not that we don’t want friends; it’s that the social structures that used to give us those relationships are disappearing. Whether it’s social anxiety, relying on online services, or simply not wanting to put in the time and effort, our socialization skills are in jeopardy.
So, maybe we start slow.
If you want to socialize more and make those connections, don’t assume it all has to be the best! hangout! ever! Or that your new friend has to immediately become your best friend. A neighbor you see once a week for a 30-minute walk still counts. A friend who can come over for a game of Scrabble and cocktails still counts. A friend you can just sit near at the playground while your kids throw woodchips at each other still counts.
I think of my own mom, who made friends quickly. She made it look so easy — and I know it’s partly because she didn’t overthink her friendships. Now, you can find a million reels and videos and posts about what a true friend is, what it looks like to have a “real” village, what it really means if you don’t respond to someone’s text for a day. But back then, they were all just her friends. There was no hierarchy. If someone didn’t answer the phone when she called, she didn’t think they ghosted her.
She just called again next Saturday.
Maybe it really could be that simple again.
