While modern isolated family is not the natural way, I also don't think these ideas we modern american women have about breaks and getting away and girls' nights out are, either. Rather than being offensive, I thought this author was actually validating how hard it can be to mother day in and day out. It seemed like he appreciated for the first time that was his mother did really did seem parallel to sainthood.

When there were 3 women to each hut and your whole family was in the village...there were also many, many more children per woman, and everything had to be cooked from scratch (and grown, and tended, and harvested), and there were no convenient cleaning methods (washing machines, vacuums, showers, etc etc). I feel like there has been and will always be a very humbling, frustrating and unique aspect to motherhood that very much involves giving up a lot of who you are and most to all of your time.

That said, we DO all need to be reminded to seek out friends, and we do often deserve more interaction with adults then we get.