Pregnancy and Community
My wife is down to a mere 8 weeks before her due date, and this weekend we spent Saturday at an all day birthing class. The class was helpful and made both of us feel better about the preparation. There was probably about 15 couples in total, and the social dynamic in the group was fasinating. Or to be more accurate, the near total lack of social connection.
Typically after 8 hours of closed room interaction a sense of connection is built among the group. People meet, chat, join up for lunch, and perhaps even exchange contact info for the future. This typically spans business and non-business events.
Yesterday, however, our group had absolutely no social connection whatsoever. At least 6-7 couples went to the same lunch spot and not one couple made an effort to eat with or even talk to the other couples. I was watching (hey, it’s what I do) to see if anyone talked to each other and literally I was the only person introducing myself to others. Sure, there wasn’t as much need for that social connection since everyone there came partnered up. Considering this was a class of people wanting to learn, you’d figure there’d be at least some group support system being created.
I loved reading Max’s thoughts on pregnancy and community recently. He points out the vast amounts of content online for the pregnancy process, from podcasts to forums to sites. Between the wealth of information online and our friends and family’s willingness absolutely anything they can think to share, it almost seems weird when other pregnant people don’t want to connect.
