My first introduction to Dr. Vivek Murthy, our Surgeon General, was a few years ago at an Association of American Medical Colleges annual conference. He was the Keynote speaker at a plenary session on the negative effects of loneliness on mental health. And by the end of his time on stage, there wasn’t a single dry eye in an audience full of physicians. I texted my husband: “If this guy ever runs for…well, anything…I’m voting for him.”
Fast forward a number of years. Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, Dr. Murthy’s book on the loneliness epidemic, was my husband’s plane reading during our trip to France this past summer. France, a country where I learned from my friend who has two little kids, that aftercare at her kids’ school costs 1 Euro per day. (Yep, that’s about $1.05.) Then, just this past week, Dr. Vivek Murthy’s name filled my social media feeds. Why? He released a document that speaks to the very essence of what I’ve cared about for the past more-than-decade: well-being in parenthood.
What exactly is a “Surgeon General’s Advisory” like the one he issued? I don’t know about you, but when I think of the Surgeon General publishing a warning about something, I usually consider that issue to be a pretty significant health problem. I still remember watching videos in the 1980’s in elementary school of Dr. C. Everett Coop. He was the Surgeon General with the deep voice and bushy grey beard who warned us about the hazards of nicotine. And that’s the point. To get our attention about something serious.
The advisory itself articulates its purpose: “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. Advisories are reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action.” As the Advisory states, “the well-being of parents and caregivers is a critical and underappreciated public health priority.” Amen to that.
The advisory that came out last week is called Parents Under Pressure: The U.S. Surgeon General Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents. Dr. Murthy also published an excellent Op Ed in the New York Times: Surgeon General: Parents are At Their Wits’ End. We Can Do Better. Both documents are worth a read. (I know, in all your spare time…)
So, What Did the Surgeon General’s Advisory Say?
Here are the Cliff notes. First, there’s a fundamental problem in society’s not valuing the work of parenthood. And second, SO many of us are stressed past our ability to cope. Almost half of all parents (48%) say that “most days, our stress is completely overwhelming.” That’s compared to 26% of all adults.
What causes us to be so stressed out, you ask? The report outlines 7 categories of stressors:
- Financial Stressors (Childcare costs have gone up by 26% in the past decade…and they were already high before that! A full quarter of us haven’t had enough money for basic needs.)
- Time Stressors (We’re working more hours for pay AND working more childcare hours without pay than ever before. This comes at the expense of three things: time with our partners, sleep, and leisure.)
- Children’s Health Stressors (This includes both physical and mental health challenges. Did you know one if every five children has a special health care need in the U.S.?)
- Children’s Safety Stressors (School shootings are a significant source of stress for 74% of us. Firearm-related injuries are now the leading cause of death for kids.)
- Cultural Pressures + Stresses Related to Children’s Futures (The modern practice of time-intensive parenting and expectations around what our children are “supposed” to achieve are stressful.)
- Parental Isolation and Loneliness Stressors (Not having people we can talk to about all of these stressors increases our stress.)
- Technology & Social Media Stressors (Trying to figure out how to stay mindful and keep our kids connected to humans is a 24/7 task.)
If those are the stressors, who winds up being affected by them? The report includes a LONG list of those disproportionately affected by mental health conditions. It includes those affected by family and community violence, poverty, racism, job instability and unemployment, racial and ethnic minorities, sexual and gender minorities, divorce, being in the military, having chronic medical problems or experiencing trauma…the list goes on.
And what happens to our kiddos when we are stressed? It turns out that if a primary caregiver reports poor mental health, their children are 4x as likely to have poor general health. They are also 2x as likely to have mental, behavioral, or developmental disorders. So yes, the kids suffer, too.
What can we do about all this serious parental stress? The report sets out a roadmap of four things our society needs to get straight. Then it goes on to assign tasks to different groups.
Here are the 4 beliefs we need to adopt:
- Time spent parenting is just as important as time spent in a paying job.
- Parents and caregivers shouldn’t have to do this all on their own.
- We need to TALK about the stresses that come with parenting.
- Caregivers need care too.
Here are the advisory’s assignments, by category of actor:
- National, Territorial, State, Local, and Tribal Governments: more funding for programs that support families; national paid family and sick leave; invest in social infrastructure; address economic and social barriers to health; ensure access to affordable high-quality mental health care; encourage visitation programs between incarcerated parents and their families.
- Employers: expand policies and programs that support parent and caregiver well-being; train managers about mental health and work-life challenges; include parents in leadership roles; provide access to affordable and high-quality mental health care.
- Communities, Community Organizations, and Schools: convene culturally-appropriate conversations about parental stress and well-being; connect parents and caregivers to resources and to one another.
- Health and Social Service Systems: focus on preventive care; screen parents and caregivers for mental health conditions; connect parents with community organizations; encourage partnerships between primary care and mental health providers.
- Researchers: conduct studies on parental mental health; develop parent-specific standards for measuring mental health; collect more data on mental health; prioritize diverse parent and caregiver populations and family structures in new research.
- Family and Friends: offer practical support (e.g., just show up!); connect with parents; educate yourself on the mental health challenges parents and caregivers may face.
- Parents and Caregivers: remember that caring for ourselves is key to caring for our families; connect with other parents and caregivers; seek insurance; learn about mental health care resources; recognize signs of problems and seek help when we need it.
My Take on the New Advisory
After the report came out, one of our Mindful Return alumni forwarded me a screen shot of the Skimm’s opinion of the report. It announced, “The Surgeon General just issued a new warning: Parents are stressed out. In other words, the sky is blue.”
I get it. Yes, it was a “sky is blue” report for me and likely for anyone who’s been living with these stresses on a day-to-day-basis. I don’t think I learned any specific new fact from reading the report cover to cover. For the past 10 years, I’ve been working to connect working parents with one another through our Mindful Return cohorts, to combat the exact loneliness the Surgeon General is describing. I’ve been helping employers stand up working parent groups and train managers.
And yet.
In the past on this blog, I’ve talked about what I believe is imposter syndrome’s cousin: the fact that you know things that other people don’t. True, I was talking about the “nothing new here” syndrome in a different context, before. Then, I was encouraging working parents not to believe they have nothing to add to a conversation or situation. The same applies here, I think. What is obvious to us from inside of an experience isn’t necessarily obvious to those outside of our lived reality.
Yes, we all know we’re stressed as parents, and we all know that this stress is a problem. I suspect a lot of people knew that cigarettes caused health problems, too, before the Surgeon General started making a fuss about it. But even so, I find there to be something incredibly validating about having a high-ranking and respected leader call attention to our plight.
I also appreciate that the advisory was short and actionable. Maybe, just maybe, this report will get cited when a paid leave bill gets proposed. Or when a professor trying to get tenure at a university decides to dig into parental mental health as a research topic. Or when a neighbor stops by a parent’s house just to check in and give the parents a short reprieve.
If we believe, as a society, that parental stress and crappy parental mental health are inevitable, foregone conclusions, won’t do anything to change our situations. The Surgeon General’s report says to me, “This isn’t how it has to be. There’s another, more sustainable, way to do this parenthood thing.” And I’ll take that glimmer of hope and run with it every day, for the rest of my career.
Want more practical tips on working parenthood? Check out my book, Back to Work After Baby: How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return from Maternity Leave
