The Surgeon General’s warning on parents’ mental health fails to mention one major stressor

Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, just issued a major warning about the well-being of modern parents. Spoiler alert: Parents are weighed down and burned out. Basically, things could be better. A lot better.

In the new report, called Parents Under Pressure, Murthy outlines the current state of parental stress: “41% of parents say that most days they are so stressed they cannot function, and 48% say that most days their stress is completely overwhelming compared to other adults (20% and 26%, respectively),” Murthy writes.

It’s evident that the Surgeon General sees parental burnout as one of the most urgent issues of our time, and he’s pushing for a major shift. “Parents have a profound impact on the health of our children and the health of society,” he writes. “Yet parents and caregivers today face tremendous pressures, from familiar stressors, such as worrying about their kids’ health and safety and financial concerns, to new challenges like navigating technology and social media, a youth mental health crisis, an epidemic of loneliness that has hit young people the hardest. As a father of two kids, I feel these pressures too.”

Unsurprisingly, financial stress, which is crushing among American parents, is one of the major concerns highlighted in the report. In 2023, 66% of parents said they were “consumed” by financial stress, but only 39% of other adults felt the same. It also pointed out that at least one in four parents didn’t have the money to pay for basic needs at some point over the past year. And you can’t talk about financial stress for parents without mentioning childcare—Murthy writes that the cost of childcare has grown by an astounding 26% in the past decade.

Still, financial strains don’t impact parents evenly across the U.S. Money and resources change the game. Murthy asserts that crushing stress disproportionately impacts marginalized communities, which means those with fewer resources experience higher levels of stress—and that mental health conditions hit those populations the hardest and the most frequently.

Murthy also asserts that social media creates big struggles for children, and it makes parenting more stressful. “Nearly 70% of parents say parenting is now more difficult than it was 20 years ago, with children’s use of technology and social media as the top two cited reasons,” he writes.

The surgeon general calls for policy changes, like national paid family and medical leave, and other ways leaders can better support parents. But he also asserts that parents need to be vocal about their struggles, and that individuals and communities need to embrace parents more fully.

Parenting can be a full-time job—on top of another job

It’s exceptionally easy to see how stressed parents are as fall starts. Everywhere you look, there is a stressed-out parent in a car, trying to remember how they ever managed to get their kids to school on time. There are new teachers and back-to-school nights and meetings, and making sure you have food to pack for lunch every day (and the money to afford it), as well as sports and activities ripping into your weekends like a tornado.

Still, while the Surgeon General’s warning hit on a lot of important factors that are stressing parents out, most of them relate entirely to the tasks of caring for children. Those tasks are plentiful; but for many, parenting is not all they have on their plates.

In about 67% of two-parent families, both parents also are employed, which Murthy neglected to mention in the warning. While parenting can be stressful for a variety of reasons, balancing work, which most modern-day parents are doing, often feels like a practically impossible feat that many of us are somehow (not always gracefully) pulling off, only because we have no choice.

All parents might be stressed, but working parents have their work cut out for them, Maryland-based therapist Nathalie Savell tells Fast Company. Savell, who specializes in family issues, says that’s particularly true for working-class parents for whom it feels “impossible to get ahead.” Despite working just as hard, if not harder than previous generations, they aren’t able to hit the same milestones, like home ownership. “It’s much harder to make it past a certain point if there is not intergenerational support, both financial and/or logistical,” she says.

Savell agrees with Murthy’s assessment that parents deserve more from their communities and on a federal level, and says that working parents in particular need to be acknowledged. “The system does nothing to support the efforts folks are making to get ahead,” she says, and that “in some cases, the system works against them, such as free health insurance only if you’re below a certain income.”

A 24/7 balancing act

As a single parent who works full-time—keeps my kids fed and clothed and drives them to school and activities, doctor’s appointments, and lessons—doing it all often feels like the most extraordinary kind of balancing act. It’s like being one of those acrobats with seven Hula Hoops spinning nonstop, three of which are on fire. But the truth is, I’m one of the lucky ones because I have a flexible career. That’s not the case for many working parents.

Those who do manual labor, work late hours, or have to constantly scramble to find rides for their kids because their jobs are entirely inflexible have a much harsher reality. Likewise, for some, the 9-to-5 no longer exists, as they’re expected to be constantly engaged with work, or at least available, even during hours that used to be reserved for home life and parenting.

It’s not just parents who feel the stress of the balancing act, either. Kids do, too. A 2023 study from the University of Illinois demonstrated how children who have parents who struggle with stress from work have lower rates of socioemotional competency by the ages of four or five.

As the Surgeon General’s warning makes clear, parental stress needs to be put in focus, and policy changes that, at minimum, ensure parents can take off work to care for their babies should be at the forefront of our conversations about family. In a country where so many can scarcely afford to buy groceries let alone a home, we don’t just need to talk about the stress of parenting itself, but how impossible it feels to hold down a job at the same time.