Parents feel the pressure

On August 28, 2024, United States surgeon general Vivek Murthy issued an advisory titled ‘Parents Under Pressure’, which addressed how parents and caregivers are facing enormous stress and mental health challenges and what can be done to support them. This advisory allowed so many parents to feel seen, understood and, in turn, experience solidarity as they realised they are not the only ones struggling.
A 39-year-old male client tells me, “I spend about 10 to 11 hours every day at work and spend all my weekend with the children trying to listen to them, engage them, see that they develop extra-curricular skills. At the end of it all, I’m tired and completely drained. I feel I have no time for myself, and still feel that I don’t do enough for my kids. My wife feels the same. We have no family in the city, and I feel I’m failing everyone. My kids and wife deserve better, not this anxious version of me that they get.”
More and more parents are reaching out to talk about how they feel stretched when it comes to demands made by the workplace. There is a noticeable pattern where the number of hours spent at the workplace have significantly increased. Even when there is remote or hybrid working – the time that is invested in responding to calls, messages, mails and attending to work has shifted massively since the pandemic. A lot of clients who are parents talk about how sometimes they compromise sleep, workouts, their own downtime so that they can make more time for deep work, which their job requires. What also has changed in the last few years in urban cities is the change in the average age of the parents. A lot of people are making a choice to be parents at an older age and sometimes even before they become parents, struggles around conceiving, seeking multiple fertility treatments already adds to the stress.
The male client I mentioned earlier, told me how as parents they want their children to excel in music, sports, academics and communication so a significant time is spent in coordinating classes, finding the right tutors and as a result money, energy, efforts is directed towards overall growth. It was sociologist Sharon Hays who originally had talked about ‘intensive mothering’. She defined it as “child-centred, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labour intensive and financially expensive”. In the last decade I have seen a significant shift towards this style of intensive parenting and how it leads to an environment of perfection, anxiety at home for everyone, including the parents.
The narratives of downward social comparison, due to technology and social media seem to cast a shadow on parents’ mental health. Parents also feel stretched trying to navigate children’s exposure to devices, their screen time and impact of technology and social media on their children’s lives. The lack of resources, social support systems and ecosystems that can provide support and the continuous demands on their personal resources has added to this feeling of stress.
Given this understanding, we as a society need to think about how parents and caregivers can be given spaces that provide psychological safety and flexibility. It also requires a close examination from parents themselves to identify beliefs that are coming in the way of their own self-care and substitute them with beliefs that allow a family to experience lightness, fun and grow together. At a structural level, better child care support, policies at work, access to playgrounds, libraries and support programmes that help parents deal with their own stress are crucial. As Dr Murthy says in the advisory, “Raising children is sacred work. It should matter to all of us. And the health and well-being of those who are caring for our children should matter to us as well.”