I’m Polish.
I’ve lived in three different countries.
And I’ve been a parent in two of them.
London first. Then back to Poland with my first baby — which sounds comforting, because it’s technically home, but didn’t really feel like it after years away. And then Italy, just near the Swiss border, pregnant again, with a toddler in tow, starting from zero… again.
People love to romanticise life abroad.
The adventure. The culture. The food. The “wow, how brave.”
They talk much less about the quiet loneliness that creeps in — especially once you become a mother.
And no one really prepares you for that part.
Being a foreigner doesn’t stop when you give birth
One of the hardest things about mothering abroad is that you’re not just learning how to be a mum.
You’re doing it inside a culture that isn’t yours.
Different rules.
Different habits.
Different expectations.
Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes it’s obvious.
Sometimes it’s just a feeling you can’t fully explain — that no matter how long you live somewhere, you’ll still always be the foreign one.
There can be bias. Not always aggressive, but present.
Different traditions. Different ways of raising kids. Different unspoken rules about what’s polite, what’s “normal,” what’s acceptable.
And when you’re already exhausted, hormonal, sleep-deprived… those differences land heavier than they should.
“Friends,” but with a calendar invite
This one still makes me smile — because if I don’t, I’ll cry.
I once spoke to an Italian mum living in the Netherlands who told me the hardest part wasn’t the language or the weather — it was how scheduled everything was.
Coffee with another family?
Start time. End time.
Playdate?
Start time. End time.
Dinner together?
You guessed it. Start time. End time.
Everyone arrives exactly on time. Everyone leaves exactly on time.
No lingering. No chaos. No “let’s see how it goes.”
For some people, that structure feels safe.
For others, it feels… strangely cold.
When you’re used to spontaneous visits, loud kitchens, kids running around while adults talk for too long — it can feel like friendship with a stopwatch.
And you quietly start wondering: Is it me? Am I too much?
Starting from zero — every single time
When you live in your home country, friendships often come with history.
School friends. Family friends. People who’ve known you forever.
Abroad, none of that exists.
Every friendship takes effort. Courage. Energy you don’t always have.
You scan playgrounds. Kindergartens. Facebook groups. Hoping to spot your people.
But not everyone is open.
Not everyone wants new friends.
Not everyone has the emotional space.
And if you don’t know where to look — or you’re introverted, tired, overwhelmed — it’s incredibly easy to end up isolated without even realising how deep it’s getting.
No grandparents. No safety net.
This is the part that hurts the most.
Parenting abroad means no built-in help.
No grandparents popping in. No “just drop them off for an hour.”
No emergency backup who already knows your child.
Yes, family visits happen sometimes.
One week. Two weeks. Maybe a bit longer if you’re lucky.
But most of the time?
It’s just you.
You learn to push through sickness, exhaustion, overwhelm — because there’s no one else to tap in.
Babysitters need to be found, trusted, paid for.
Breaks have to be planned, not assumed.
And watching others have support you don’t can quietly break your heart.
Food, routines, and the tiny shocks that add up
People underestimate how much everyday differences matter.
In Poland, I grew up eating breakfast, then a big dinner around 4pm, and supper in the evening.
In Italy? Lunch at 12. Sometimes 2.
Between 2pm and 7pm?
Good luck finding food. Everything is closed.
That adjustment sounds small — until you’re postpartum, hungry, emotional, standing in front of a closed shop wondering why this feels so hard.
Shopping hours. Meal times. School schedules.
Even how long you’re “allowed” to sit at a café with kids.
All these tiny things stack up.
And suddenly, you feel constantly out of sync with the world around you.
What I didn’t realise I was building along the way
Somewhere around 2020 — right before the world shut down — my husband and I started building something online.
At the time, it wasn’t a big mission or a grand plan.
We were nutritionists and trainers, living abroad ourselves, working with expat mums who were exhausted, disconnected from their bodies, and running on empty.
On paper, we were helping with health, fitness, energy, weight.
But in reality, that was never the biggest thing.
What mattered most was that these women finally felt like they could make it — even without the support they didn’t have. No grandparents. No village. No safety net.
Something unexpected kept happening.
Mums started finding each other.
Women from the same countries connected.
Local friendships formed around walks, workouts, coffee, shared chaos.
Little microcosms of support grew — families supporting families, mums holding other mums up.
And that slowly became one of the things I care about most.
Especially now, when so many of the women we connect with live in Switzerland, near Zurich — close to where we live too — I see how powerful it is when you stop feeling like you’re doing this alone.
If this is you — you’re not broken
If you feel lonely as a mum abroad, there is nothing wrong with you.
You’re not ungrateful.
You’re not weak.
You’re not failing at “integration.”
You’re doing one of the hardest things there is:
Raising children far from everything familiar, while trying to build a life from scratch.
Loneliness in motherhood abroad is incredibly common — even if no one talks about it out loud.
So if you’re reading this and thinking, “This sounds like me” — I see you.
You’re not alone. Even when it feels like you are.
And sometimes, just knowing that… is enough to breathe a little easier.
With love- Paulina