Participant ID: P13
Pseudonym: Margaret
Age: 41
Gender: Woman
Occupation: Two part-time jobs (administrative assistant by day, restaurant server by evening)
Living situation: Single parent of two children (ages 8 and 14); rents an apartment in Surrey
Relevant context: Divorced 5 years ago; ex-husband inconsistent with child support; no family in BC
Interview date: 2025-11-26
Interview length: 29 minutes
Interviewer: R1
Location: Margaret's apartment, after the kids' bedtime

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I: Thanks for making time after a long day, Margaret. Tell me about yourself.

P: Yeah, no problem. So I'm 41, I have two kids, Ava is 14, Liam is 8. I work two jobs. My ex is — let's just say he's not reliable. My family is all in Saskatchewan. I've lived in Surrey for twelve years. And I'm, like, tired. That's the main feature of my life right now. I'm just very, very tired.

I: When I say loneliness, what comes to mind?

P: [laughs, a little bitter] Honestly? I think it's the wrong question for me. Because my problem isn't loneliness, it's that I never get a minute by myself. I work, I come home, I make dinner, I help with homework, I do the laundry, I crash. The idea of being lonely is, like, an aspirational problem for me. Other people have time to be lonely. I don't.

I: Okay, that's important. Has there been a time when you did feel lonely, in your own definition of it?

P: [pause] Yeah, actually. Now that I think about it. Yeah. After the kids go to bed. Like, the moment of silence after I close Liam's door at 9 p.m. And the apartment goes quiet. That moment, every night, is — yeah. That's what loneliness is for me. Because I've been "on" all day for them, and I'm exhausted, and there's nobody — there's nobody to sit on the couch with. There's nobody who's going to ask how my day was. So I just sit on the couch and scroll until I fall asleep with my phone on my face. Which I'm aware is bad.

I: How does it feel physically?

P: My back hurts all the time. I grind my teeth. I haven't had a full sleep in, like, ten years. My doctor told me my blood pressure is creeping up. I think it's all the same thing. The loneliness and the stress and the body. They're not separate.

I: Is it different from being alone?

P: I'm not alone, that's the thing. I'm with the kids all the time. So my loneliness isn't aloneness, it's — it's being the only adult in charge. There's no one to consult with. There's no one to share the load with. If Ava is acting out at school, I have to figure that out. If the rent goes up, I have to figure that out. If I get sick, I have to figure that out. So it's the loneliness of decision-making. Of being the only adult in the room.

I: Have you found things that help?

P: I have a friend, Lisa, she's also a single mom, she lives down the hall. We have a thing where if one of us has the kids out, the other one can drop her kid off and have an hour. Like once every couple weeks. That's huge for me. Lisa has saved my sanity. She's — she's the thing that makes this survivable.

I: What didn't work?

P: I tried dating. Briefly. About two years ago. It was a disaster. I have no time, I have no energy, my house is a mess, my body is, like, not what it was. And the guys I met — they wanted me to be a girlfriend, and I am a mom first. I can't compete with childless women in their twenties. So I gave up. I don't think I'm going to date again until Liam is, like, 16. Which is fine.

I: Have you sought help?

P: I went to a free counsellor through a community service a couple years ago. She was nice but the wait list got me, like, six sessions and that was it. I can't afford private. The EAP through my main job is, like, three sessions. So I've kind of just — coped. Coping is the strategy.

I: What does your loneliness tell you?

P: That this isn't sustainable. That at some point my body is going to break or my mood is going to break and the consequences will be bad. I know it. I just don't know how to change it. The math doesn't add up. I work two jobs and we are barely making it. I cannot work less. So the loneliness is, like, a luxury I can't address right now.

I: Do you think of yourself as a lonely person?

P: I think I'm a person whose loneliness is buried under everything else. If I cleared everything else away I would find a really lonely person there. But right now I can't see her because she's under all the stuff.

I: Anything that helped that surprised you?

P: My daughter, Ava. She's 14 and she's, like, a really impressive person. She'll sometimes just come sit on the couch with me and watch terrible reality TV. And we don't talk about anything important. And she has no idea how much that means to me. She thinks she's just watching Love Island. But for me it's, like, a whole human being is choosing to be in the room with me for free.

I: If you could change one thing?

P: Childcare. Make childcare actually affordable. Half of my loneliness would go away if I could go to a class or a yoga thing or just out for a drink with Lisa without paying $20 an hour for a sitter we can't afford. The financial squeeze on single moms is what isolates us. The loneliness is downstream of the money.

I: Anything I haven't asked?

P: Just — I want to say, single moms are sometimes treated like we're sad cases, or we made bad choices, or whatever. I'm proud of what I'm doing. I'm raising two kids alone in this city on $50,000 a year and they're both kind people. That's not a failure. The loneliness is real but it's the price of a thing I'm doing well.
