Why Do New Moms Feel Like They're Failing? (It's Not What You Think) | The Village San Jose

Written By Kim Gomez

You Are Not Failing. The Village Just Disappeared.

You sit down at your postpartum visit.

By every measure, you are doing okay. You have a partner. A stable home. Maybe even family nearby.

And still, the first thing out of your mouth is: "I feel like everyone else is doing such a better job than I am."

Dr. Melissa Adrouny, OB-GYN and founder of The Village San Jose, has heard this more times than she can count. And every time, her first question is the same.

"Who is everyone else? Because I'm seeing everyone else. And they're all falling apart just like you."

If you are a new parent in San Jose feeling like you are drowning while the rest of the world swims, this is for you.

 

"I Feel Like Everyone Else Is Doing Better"

This feeling is almost universal in the postpartum period. And it is not a personal failure. It is a predictable result of the world we are living in.

Social media shows you every highlight. Every clean kitchen. Every smiling baby. Every mom who looks like she slept.

What it does not show you is what happens behind that closed door.

Research confirms what Dr. Adrouny sees every day. Social media use during the postpartum period is associated with increased rates of social comparison and lower maternal self-efficacy, particularly in new mothers with limited in-person support networks.¹

You are not comparing yourself to real people. You are comparing yourself to a curated version of someone's best ten seconds.

If You Can't Cry in Your Doctor's Office, Where Can You Go?

Dr. Adrouny asks this question out loud. And it is worth sitting with.

The standard postpartum visit happens at six weeks. One appointment. Often fifteen minutes. A physical check. A depression screening. A wave goodbye.

That is not a support system. That is a checkpoint.

Dr. Adrouny describes the weight of walking into postpartum visit after postpartum visit and watching a patient fall apart. Wanting to help. Knowing the limitations of a clinic appointment. Knowing the model of care was never built for what new parents actually need.

"I want to, and I'm gonna do everything I can to make up for whatever she's needing. You figure out very quickly that's not sustainable."

That honesty is rare. And it is exactly why The Village exists.

How Are We Set Up to Struggle Before Baby Has Even Arrived?

To understand why postpartum is so hard right now, you have to go back further than the delivery room.

You have to go back to how an entire generation was raised.

The "you can do anything" message

We grew up hearing that if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything. That if you are not succeeding, you are not trying hard enough. That the only thing standing between you and the life you want is your own effort.

That message puts all the weight on you. It removes the role of community, circumstance, resources, and support. It says your struggles are your fault.

The "Lean In" era

In 2013, Sheryl Sandberg published Lean In, urging women not just to do it all, but to want to do it all.² The message spread fast: ambitious women do not step back. They push forward. They manage careers and babies and households and relationships. And they do it well.

What that message skipped entirely was the infrastructure required to make that possible. Not everyone has the same resources. Not everyone has the same support. The 24 hours in a day do not look the same for everyone.

That framing left an entire generation of parents holding an impossible standard with no scaffolding underneath it.

Where Has The Village Is Gone? Here Is What Happened to It:

There is a reason we talk about "it takes a village to raise a child." For most of human history, that was not a metaphor. It was a description.

Neighbors watched each other's kids. Extended family lived close. If a parent needed to run an errand, they knocked on a door. Someone answered.

That infrastructure has quietly collapsed.

Parents feel responsible for everything

Dr. Adrouny describes what she sees now: parents who will not leave their children with anyone. Not because they are overprotective by nature, but because they have been conditioned to feel that asking for help is somehow failing. That needing a break means you are not enough.

"My parents hired whatever babysitter they could find. They certainly weren't screening them. I have friends that don't leave their kids with anybody because they don't trust other people or they've been conditioned to feel that if they're doing that, somehow they're failing."

The nuclear family has moved away

Millions of parents in the South Bay area are raising children far from their own families. No parent nearby to call when the baby will not stop crying. No sibling to take the baby for two hours so you can sleep. No grandmother to drop off dinner without being asked.

Research shows that geographic distance from family is one of the strongest predictors of postpartum social isolation.³

Grandparents have changed

Even when grandparents are nearby, the role looks different now. Dr. Adrouny names it plainly: there is a generation of grandparents who do not engage with new babies the way grandparents once did. Who think coming over to help means holding the baby for an hour while the parent still handles everything else.

"We've got a generation of grandparents that are not interested in being active participants in the traditional way that grandparents used to be. So now you don't even have that nuclear family support anymore."

This is not about blame. It is about reality. And it is a reality that no one warned new parents about before they delivered.

What Happens When the Support System Fails

Dr. Adrouny is still actively following one patient who is several months postpartum. Not because of a clinical complication. Because this patient is still processing the grief of realizing that the support system she planned on does not exist. Her parents are not showing up the way she expected. Her partner's parents are not either.

And so together, they are figuring out how to get through one day at a time.

That is not a failure of the patient. That is a failure of a system that never built the infrastructure new parents need. And it is a failure that falls hardest on parents with the least access to backup resources.

According to the CDC, 1 in 5 new mothers experiences postpartum depression or anxiety.⁴ Rates are significantly higher in populations with less social support, lower income, and limited access to mental health resources. Postpartum isolation is not just uncomfortable. It has real clinical consequences.

You Were Never Supposed to Do This Alone

The phrase "it takes a village" exists because it is true.

Human children have the longest developmental dependency of any species. Parents were never biologically or socially designed to do this without a community around them.⁵

The loneliness so many new parents feel in San Jose and across the South Bay is not a personal weakness. It is the logical result of raising a child in a culture that dismantled the village and told everyone to figure it out themselves.

You are not doing a bad job.

You are doing an impossible job without the support that was supposed to be there.

This Is What The Village San Jose Was Built For

The Village San Jose exists because Dr. Adrouny kept walking into postpartum visits and seeing the same thing. Capable, loving parents completely alone in a transition that was never meant to be handled alone.

She built the Village to be the infrastructure that is missing.

Root to Rise is a five-part prenatal class series that prepares you for birth, postpartum, and the fourth trimester before your baby arrives. It is the preparation and the community at the same time.

Labor Lounge is a weekly prenatal exercise class designed for labor preparation and recovery. You move your body and you are surrounded by people going through exactly what you are going through.



If you are in San Jose, Campbell, Los Gatos, Willow Glen, or anywhere in the South Bay and you are trying to figure out how to build a support system before or after your baby arrives, the Village was built for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Because the standard you are holding yourself to was never realistic. A generation of messaging told parents they could and should do it all on their own. Social media reinforces that message every day. When you see only other people's highlights and none of their hard moments, it looks like everyone else is managing better. They are not. Dr. Adrouny sees everyone. And they are all struggling too.

  • Yes, and it is extremely common, especially in the South Bay where many new parents live far from extended family. Postpartum isolation is one of the leading contributors to postpartum depression and anxiety. Feeling alone after baby does not mean something is wrong with you. It means you are missing the community support that new parents have always needed.

  • Geographic distance from family is one of the strongest predictors of postpartum social isolation. When there is no one to take the baby for two hours, to drop off food without being asked, or to sit with you when you are struggling, everything falls on the parent. That weight is real. And it is cumulative.

  • The fourth trimester refers to the first three months after birth. It is a period of intense physical and emotional change for the parent, and equally intense developmental need for the baby. Standard medical care offers a single six-week visit during this window. Many new parents describe that gap as one of the loneliest periods of their lives. The Village San Jose was built specifically to fill it.

  • The Village San Jose at 2998 S. Bascom Ave offers postpartum support through classes, community events, and a dedicated care team including doulas and an OB-GYN. Root to Rise prepares you before baby. Labor Lounge keeps you connected during pregnancy. And postpartum support services continue well past the six-week visit. Learn more at thevillagesanjose.com/postpartum-support-san-jose.

  • Root to Rise is a five-part prenatal class series at The Village San Jose. It covers birth preparation, postpartum planning, infant care, and the fourth trimester. It runs 90 minutes per session and is designed to give expectant parents both the knowledge and the community they need before baby arrives. Learn more at thevillagesanjose.com/root-to-rise-prenatal-class-series.

CITATIONS

  1. Coyne SM, Liechty T, Collier KM, et al. "The Effect of Social Media on Body Image Concerns Among Young Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis." Clinical Psychology Review. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2020.101898

  2. Sandberg S. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. New York: Knopf, 2013.

  3. Negron R, Martin A, Almog M, Balbierz A, Howell EA. "Social Support During the Postpartum Period: Mothers' Views on Needs, Expectations, and Mobilization of Support." Maternal and Child Health Journal. 2013;17(4):616–623. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-012-1037-4

  4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Depression Among Women." Updated 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/depression/index.htm

  5. Hrdy SB. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2009.

Kim Gomez
Next

What Your OB-GYN Was Never Trained to Do — And How Dr. Adrouny Built Prenatal Classes in San Jose to Fill That Gap