Parents are stressed!

A new Surgeon General's Advisory

Welcome to Techno Sapiens! I’m Jacqueline Nesi, a psychologist and professor at Brown University, co-founder of Tech Without Stress, and mom of two young kids. If you like Techno Sapiens, please consider sharing it with a friend today. Thanks for your support!

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5 min read

The Surgeon General released a new advisory late last month highlighting high levels of stress among parents, and the need to better support families. This comes on the heels of recent Surgeon General’s statements on social media and youth mental health and warning labels for social media, which I’ve written about before. I was on vacation with my family when the new advisory came out, and my dad was the one to break the news to me. 

“Wow, the Surgeon General really just keeps putting out statements for you to write about in your newsletter, huh?” he said. 

If this isn’t the ultimate parent point of view—suggesting that the primary goal of the Surgeon General of the United States is to provide content for your daughter’s weekly Substack—I don’t know what is. 

Parents really are the best. 

…which brings us to this advisory

The takeaway is simple: we need to do a better job supporting parents.

Now, let’s talk through the details.

As a reminder, a Surgeon General’s Advisory 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.” This advisory calls attention to high levels of stress among parents, discusses the importance of parent mental health, and offers recommendations for policymakers, communities, and parents themselves.¹²  

Here are some key takeaways.

1. Parents are stressed

This is obvious, I know, but the numbers really are striking: 41% of U.S. parents say most days they are so stressed they cannot function. This is more than double the number of other adults (20%) who say the same thing. 

2. Today’s parents face unique stressors

The report suggests that certain aspects of modern parenting may be contributing to high levels of stress. These include:

Financial strain

In the past decade, child care prices have grown by about 26% in the U.S. And one-in-four parents say there have been times in the past year when they didn’t have enough money for basic needs, like food or paying rent.

Time demands

This is fascinating (and hits a little too close to home). Since 1985, the amount of time parents spend working has increased (+28% for moms, +4% for dads). But somehow, the amount of time they spend engaged in primary child care, like physically caring for kids and playing with them, has also increased a lot (+40% among moms, +154% among dads). According to the report, these demands “have come at the cost of quality time with one’s partner, sleep, and parental leisure time.” You don’t say.³   

Concerns about children

Given rising rates of mental health concerns in recent years, 3-in-4 parents worry that their children will struggle with anxiety or depression. Parents are also worried about children’s safety, with firearm-related injury now the leading cause of death in kids ages 1-19. And as we’re well aware here at Techno Sapiens, concerns about technology and social media are highly prevalent in today’s parents.   

Isolation and loneliness

Lack of social support is a primary contributor to stress. The majority of parents (65%) report experiencing loneliness, compared to 55% of non-parents.  

I know this shouldn’t matter, but I did love the design of this advisory? It had lots of little graphics like this one. So unexpected! Trendy, off-beat, dare I say…fun?

3. Excessive stress can increase risk for mental health problems

Another takeaway from the advisory: when stress is extreme or chronic, it can increase risk for mental illness. In 2021-2022, nearly one-quarter (23.9%) of all U.S. parents had a mental illness. Mental health conditions disproportionately affect certain groups of parents, including those facing poverty, racism, discrimination, and violence. 

4. There are things we can do

The Surgeon General offers four broad recommendations for better supporting parents. These include: (1) “value and respect time spent parenting on par with time spent working a paying job,” (2) recognize that parents should not have to raise children entirely on their own (i.e., they need help!), (3) talk openly about the stress of parenting, and (4) prioritize connection and community among parents.

Here are some of the ways that specific groups can do this: 

• Governments: establish paid family and medical leave, invest in programs and spaces (parks, green spaces) that promote community, increase access to affordable mental health care. 

• Communities: foster open dialogue about parent stress, create opportunities for social connection (including through public spaces like libraries, schools, and faith-based organizations), and strengthen school-based programs for parents

• Health professionals: prioritize preventive care and mental health screening for parents and recognize those at higher risk for mental health conditions 

• Family and friends: connect regularly with the parents and caregivers in your life and offer practical support (like running errands or offering child care)

• Parents: take care of yourself. This includes prioritizing connections with other parents; getting sleep, exercise, and “activities that bring joy” whenever possible; and getting help for mental health when needed.⁴

A final takeaway

When this advisory was released with headlines like “Surgeon general’s new warning: Parents are stressed out,” I imagine the nation’s parents responded with a collective duh. Yes, we are stressed. Is this news to anyone?

But here’s why I think this matters: by issuing an advisory, the Surgeon General recognizes parental stress as a public health issue. So often, the well-being of parents is seen as niche—the topic of parenting newsletters, parenting books, parenting advice—of little relevance to the many other, bigger, more important issues impacting society. Last time I checked, though, every adult contributor to society starts out as a child in need of parenting. Parents’ well-being has far-reaching implications for our kids, our institutions, and our world. 

The Surgeon General sums it up well:    

“Something has to change. It begins with fundamentally shifting how we value parenting, recognizing that the work of raising a child is crucial to the health and well-being of all society.”

Supporting parents benefits all of us. And who knows? One day those parents might be the ones to tell their daughters about the latest Surgeon General’s Advisory.

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1. The advisory also starts out with a dedication, which was not a thing I expected to find in a Surgeon General’s warning, but was also surprisingly moving? It is “dedicated to the millions of parents and caregivers across America” and also notes that “The Office of the Surgeon General would like to recognize our parents and caregivers whose selfless sacrifices and unconditional love made us the people we are.” Why am I crying?

2. For another (excellent) summary of the advisory, check out Dr. Cara Goodwin’s recent post at Parenting Translator. In case you missed it, Cara and I also teamed up two weeks about to write about the latest research on screen time.

3. Back-to-school feels like the perfect time to reflect on the “time demands” associated with parenting. I found myself thinking a lot about this at roughly 9pm last Thursday, while standing in line at CVS to pick up printed photos of my child for school the next day. Something no one told me about parenting is how often I would need to print things.

4. The advisory recommends that parents engage in “activities that bring joy.” It does not specify what those activities should be, but might I suggest subscribing to Techno Sapiens?