Surgeon General highlights parents' vital role
“The stresses parents and caregivers have today are being passed to children in direct and indirect ways, impacting families and communities across America. Yet in modern society, parenting is often portrayed as a less important, less valued pursuit. Nothing could be further from the truth."
U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy
Surgeon General highlights parents' vital role
I have met with countless families who have told me derivations of the following:
“I’m unhappy in my family life.”
“I never knew raising kids would be this hard.”
“I am stressed and overwhelmed and I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job.”
The U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy recently published an advisory on the mental health & well-being of parents. One of the most salient messages he outlines is that parenting and raising children is one of the most important jobs we can do. As he writes in the New York Times, “the work of raising a child is crucial to the health and well-being of all society.” This is something I have been saying for a long time, and I’m guessing many of you as parents have been feeling as well. It’s great that the work parents do is being validated.
While this work is so important, it is also one of the hardest jobs we will do. Dr. Murthy admits this sentiment himself in raising his own young children. Parents feel more stress, loneliness and financial constraints than other adults. Research conducted by the American Psychological Association shows that 48% of parents report that most days their stress is completely overwhelming, and 60% say stress makes it hard for them to focus. In addition, 46% of parents report that financial strain in their household has increased and 58% report that money is a cause of a lot of fights or tension in their family. These numbers are all quite larger than what other non-parent adults report.
If you are feeling any of the above, you are not alone.
Because it is rare to talk about the struggles we are having as parents, often we raise our kids in a silo thinking that we are the only ones who feel challenged, stressed and overwhelmed. Societal messages often lead us to believe that raising a child should come naturally and we should know what to do at any given moment. This leads us to believe that there must be something wrong with us if, say for example, our child won’t go easily through their bedtime routine and fall peacefully and immediately to sleep. So we struggle in silence and shame, not wanting to let others know we don’t know how to “manage” our disrespectful teenager or prevent our toddler’s aggression or public meltdowns.
Yet, no one taught us anything about child development or what can help our children and teens through their challenging emotions (which to us may feel blown out of proportion for the situation at hand). And if we were raised in a way where emotions weren’t to be tolerated or children were to be “seen and not heard,” then our children’s emotions can be particularly hard for us to tolerate and support.
If we add on to this the stress of financial hardship, raising children as a single parent, mental health struggles, past trauma, an unsupportive workplace, societal discrimination, or little access to community supports; or if we are raising a child with learning differences, disabilities, health issues or a marginalized identity, the stress and overwhelm can go even higher.
We love our kids so much and having them in our lives brings so much joy. Yet the stressors in life and of being a parent can lead to impatience and an inability to tolerate their not-fully-developed body, brain and skills and the incapabilities that come with this lack of development. The resulting challenges we find ourselves in with our children and teens can fracture the relationship when all we were hoping for was connection.
What parents need is more time and space to allow for not only this positive connection, but also the ability to work through the challenging times wisely while also teaching their children skills. Parents need to feel supported, so they can take care of themselves and thus in turn be better able to take care of their children. As I always say to parents, in times of challenging interactions, don’t go to your child first. Go to yourself. What is it that you need, so you can give your kids what they need? In other words, do what it takes to regulate your emotions first. And we all know that our own emotional regulation goes out the window when we are feeling stressed, just as it does for our kids. As Dr. Murthy says, “we know that the well-being of parents and caregivers is directly linked to the well-being of their children.”
So what are we to do? The Surgeon General outlines several policies and community supports for parents that are too lengthy to include in this column. Some of them include placing true value on the work parents do in raising their children and communicating openly about the “stress and struggles” inherent to parenting; fostering a “culture of connection” and support among parents while also creating community programing and societal policies that “invest in the health, education, and safety of children”.
More specifically his ideas include safe and affordable childcare, tax credits, a national paid family and medical leave program, and increased access to mental health resources. Importantly he notes that parents need others – family, friends, neighbors – to simply reach out.
I would add subsidized or free community-based parent education to this list. Research conducted by the Wilder Foundation found several benefits of parent education including improvements in child behavior, parent-child communication and interactions, a parent’s sense of empowerment and competency, and parental mental health and well-being; increases in positive parenting practices and social connections among parents; and decreases in the use of corporal punishment and risk of child abuse. The Minnesotan model of Early Childhood Family Education, where parent education is embedded in every school district, is a great one to follow
Community-based parent education programs that start early and are available to all can teach parents skills, help them understand and attune to the needs of their developing child and build a supportive empowering community. In addition to easing societal stressors, what better way to support parents and help them feel good not only about raising healthy children, but also healthy selves.
It’s time we place more value on the work parents do in raising their children, and we need to give them more support in this work. As Dr. Murthy says, “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.”
After all, without healthy children we will not have a healthy society, and without healthy parents, we will not have healthy children.
Rachel works as a parent coach and educator. She was trained at the University of Minnesota under the model of Early Childhood Family Education. You can find her at https://www.growinggreatfamilies.com.
