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SALT LAKE CITY — Parents are increasingly on a hamster wheel of stress and guilt and more stress, according to a new advisory on parental stress and mental health issued this week by the U.S. surgeon general.
There is a clear bidirectional relationship between parental mental health and the outcomes that children experience, per the notice.
Dr. Vivek Murthy's advisory notes the importance of reducing parental stress and protecting their mental health. It calls for "thoughtful policy changes and expanded community programs" to help parents meet challenges, including those that provide time off to care for a child who's sick, affordable child care, access to "reliable mental health care" and other tools that "support social connection and community."
An advisory, according to the definition included in this one, "is a public statement that calls the American people's attention to an urgent public health issue and provides recommendations for how it should be addressed. Advisories are reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation's immediate awareness and action."
Murthy, who calls raising children "sacred work," writes that "as technological and economic forces have reshaped the world at a dizzying pace, it has also become harder for parents to prepare children for a future that is difficult to understand or predict." Parents want their kids to be happy and successful, but they worry they won't be able to give their kids what they need — "from safe neighborhoods to admission to the right schools to stable housing."
The more they think their efforts fall short, the bigger the scramble to try to get it right, he said.
In his conversations with parents and caregivers, "I have found guilt and shame have become pervasive, often leading them to hide their struggles, which perpetuates a vicious cycle where stress leads to guilt which leads to more stress," Murthy reports.
"As a father of two young children, I know the joys of parenting — but I also know the stress, loneliness & uncertainty of parentings in a rapidly changing world," Murthy posted on social platform X. And in an outline of the advisory for the New York Times, he said that "parents are at their wits' end. We can do better."
What parents face
About 63 million parents live with minor children in the U.S., in addition to other adults who have the main responsibility for caring for children, the advisory notes.
Among parental challenges:
- In 2023, 33% of parents reported high levels of stress in the past month, compared to 20% of other adults.
- Forty-one percent of parents reported that most days "they are so stressed they cannot function." The report notes that stress was already high before the pandemic, which piled on even more stress.
- Financial worries are substantial; 66% of parents say they are "consumed by worry" over money, compared to 39% of other adults.
- One in four parents report times in the past year when they could not afford to meet basic needs. The report notes a significant association between food insecurity and symptoms of parental depression, anxiety and stress.
- Work hours and time spent on primary child care have both increased, creating a time crunch. Primary child care includes physical care, education-related activities, reading to/with kids and other activities.
Parents also contend with health issues, both their own and those of their children. In the U.S., the report says just shy of 1 in 5 children ages 0 to 17 have a special health care need. The most commonly reported were allergies, ADD/ADHD, behavior/conduct conditions, asthma, anxiety, learning disabilities and developmental delay.
Other issues for parents noted in the advisory were parental isolation and loneliness (65% of parents and guardians, but rises to 77% of single parents), challenges provided by children's use of technology and social media and cultural pressures to meet societal expectations of parenting. Children's safety is also a considerable worry for parents.
What stress can do
"Chronic or excessive stress, coupled with other complex environmental and biological factors, can increase the risk of mental health conditions for individuals," per the advisory. It cites 2021-2022 data showing that among parents, 23.9% (20.3 million) had a mental illness and 5.7% (4.8 million) had a serious mental illness.
The report noted that women generally have a higher prevalence of mental health conditions, driven in part by postpartum depression. But the report adds that mental health in fathers has been under-studied.
Parental mental health not only affects the family directly but increases health care costs and can reduce economic productivity, according to the advisory. Mental health impacts how parents function, how well they care for their children and whether children have adverse childhood experiences that can dog them across their lifespan.
While the impact of a parent's mental health challenge can loom large in a child's life, it doesn't have to. If a child's sense of safety, stability, support and bonding with parents and caregivers isn't impacted, the child may not be negatively affected, per the report.
