Surgeon General Warns That Parents In The US Are In Crisis — ‘They Are Struggling In Silence And Alone’
In recent years, it seems both parents and caregivers alike are struggling to make time for themselves outside of taking care of their kids.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A | Shutterstock Parenting is a journey filled with many ups and downs. It's not an easy feat, and parents and caregivers alike often face an immense amount of pressure, stress, and overwhelm while caring for either one child or a household of kids. In recent years, parental burnout has been steadily on the rise, and the pandemic did nothing but make it worse.
Whether you're a working parent or a stay-at-home parent, you face different hurdles and battles. However, the number of parents in this country who've admitted to being lost and exhausted has become exponential, at least according to Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, who wrote for the New York Times that he was issuing a warning about the state of parenting.
Dr. Murthy issued an advisory to call attention to the burnout and stress that parents are facing today.
Just like workplace burnout or social burnout, parental burnout is a real phenomenon that often goes unseen. Parents sometimes strive for perfection, putting pressure on themselves to rise above their own exhaustion for the sake of their children, but the consequences can be far-reaching.
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We as a society can sometimes put unfair expectations on parents as well, whether that's giving them dirty looks when their child starts having a very normal tantrum or refusing to offer support when we see that they're clearly struggling to hold it together. Parents can feel pushed to the brink, which is why it shouldn't be shocking that they're facing a crisis point.
"That’s why I am issuing a surgeon general’s advisory to call attention to the stress and mental health concerns facing parents and caregivers and to lay out what we can do to address them," Dr. Murthy wrote for the Times.
A study by the American Psychological Association revealed that 48% of parents say most days their stress is completely overwhelming, compared to 26% of other adults who reported the same.
According to Dr. Murthy, most parents are navigating the traditional hardships of parenting like worrying about money and safety, struggling to get enough sleep — as well as new stressors, including technology and social media, a youth mental health crisis, and widespread fears about the future.
Parents are struggling immensely when it comes to providing financially for their children.
According to a LendingTree survey of more than 2,000 adult consumers from the U.S., even as the high cost of living slowly starts to ebb, the cost of everything related to childcare, like strollers, diapers, and formula, has hiked for the current generation of parents. Three out of four people with a child report having and raising their kid was "far more expensive than expected."
"Too often we hear the rhetoric, 'If you can’t afford kids, don’t have them,'" Julie Kashen, a senior fellow and director for women’s economic justice at The Century Foundation, told Fortune. "But having children isn’t like buying an in-home sauna or a fancy car, and it certainly should not be reserved for the wealthy."
Almost half (45%) of parents reported feeling like they need to overspend on their kids to keep up appearances. Some (55%) dipped into their savings and have entered the negatives to cover child-raising-related costs, though most of those folks don’t regret doing so.
Nearly 80% of parents report making financial sacrifices for their kids, with the most common lifestyle changes being reducing their spending on themselves, followed by pushing back retirement or personal investments and forgoing their own career or educational opportunities.
The strain of having children has meant people are less inclined to start a family.
Thirty-one percent of parents surveyed by LendingTree say they’ve had fewer kids due to their current finances. A separate report from the Pew Research Center shows that the number of young adults who say they’re not likely to have children has increased from 37% to 44% from 2018 to 2022.
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Especially among millennials and Gen Zers, who, aside from the financial and external problems of starting a family, don't want kids and instead want to focus on themselves to explore lifestyles outside of just being parents. The state of the world certainly doesn't help and with burnout and stress among older parents at such an all-time high, it's no wonder that younger generations are instead choosing to put themselves first.
Compared to childfree adults, parents and caregivers are more likely to report feelings of loneliness.
KFF Health Tracking polls found that adults in households with children were more likely to report negative mental health impacts than adults in households without children and that, in general, mothers were more likely than fathers to experience mental health issues.
About 65% of parents and guardians are classified as lonely, a 10-point gap compared to non-parents (55%). They also report a strong sense of feeling left out, as 42% of lonely parents always feel this way compared to 24% of lonely non-parents.
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Despite the setbacks and concerns that parenting can have. There is joy in being able to start a family, raise children, and be a loving and compassionate parent. Getting to see all of their milestones and achievements is something that can make this entire parenting journey worth it. On the other hand, it's important that parents put the same energy into themselves that they put into their kids because you can't take care of another person if you're not taking care of yourself.
"My friend was right about the joy and the worry. Given the responsibility it entails, raising children is never going to be without worry. But reorienting our priorities in order to give parents and caregivers the support they need would do a lot to ensure the balance skews toward joy," Dr. Murthy insisted.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.