Is Parenting the New Smoking?

Source: zinkevych/123RF

Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, released an advisory last year on parental stress. Now, you don’t need a medical degree to know that parenting is stressful. It always has been. But when the nation’s top doctor feels compelled to issue an official warning about it, you know things have escalated. It’s as if society just realized, en masse, that sleep deprivation combined with the responsibility of keeping small humans alive might actually take a toll on a person’s mental and physical health. Who knew?

What’s in the Surgeon General’s Report?

Murthy’s advisory highlights what every parent already knows in their soul: Modern parenting is exhausting, isolating, and in some cases, unsustainable. The report outlines the increasing pressures on parents, from financial stress to lack of social support, and calls for systemic changes to alleviate these burdens. But does it contain any real, practical solutions for parents? Is the federal government about to swoop in with policies that make parenting easier?

Spoiler alert: not really.

While the advisory acknowledges the crisis, the actual solutions are...underwhelming. There’s a nod to workplace flexibility (which many employers still resist), an emphasis on mental health resources (but good luck getting insurance to cover therapy), and a general call for community support (which is vague at best). No one’s handing out federally funded spa days for parents. No one’s mandating universal day care. No one’s ensuring that parents can afford to take a sick day without financial ruin or inordinate stress to make up the time at night.

What Should We Be Doing?

If we’re serious about tackling the parental stress epidemic, we need more than sympathetic nods from policymakers. Here are some real, tangible changes that could make a difference:

1. Insurance Should Cover Therapy for Parents—No Questions Asked. Mental health claims are often denied based on "medical necessity." Here’s an idea: If you’re raising a child, that is medical necessity. Parents should automatically qualify for therapy because the stress of parenting isn’t just theoretical, it’s a proven risk factor for anxiety, depression, and burnout.

2. Funding for Parenting Classes and Support Groups. Low-cost interventions like parenting classes and support groups should be widely available and covered by public health initiatives. There’s solid research showing that peer support helps reduce parental stress, and yet these resources are often inaccessible or costly.

3. Better Funding for Day Care and Corporate Incentives. The U.S. is one of the few developed nations that doesn’t treat childcare as a societal investment. Well-funded day care should be the norm, not the exception.

Even corporations should be on board with this: Offering on-site day care or subsidized childcare would reduce absenteeism, improve employee retention, and even boost morale. A mother who can nurse her baby during a break rather than stress-pump in a supply closet is going to be a more present and productive employee. A father who isn’t constantly worried about day care costs is going to have more bandwidth to focus on his job. It’s a win-win. (For more on managing the mental load as a working parent, click here.)

Why Parenting Is Especially Hard for Post-Traumatic Parents

Now, let’s talk about why parenting stress hits even harder for post-traumatic parents. It’s simple: Adulting is hard. Adulting is even harder if you never child-ed. And parenting? That’s adulting on steroids.

For parents who grew up in environments filled with chaos, neglect, or trauma, raising children can feel like re-entering the battlefield without armor. Parenting triggers unresolved wounds, bringing up feelings of inadequacy, fear, and deep exhaustion. When you weren’t nurtured, figuring out how to nurture someone else is an enormous task. And yet, we expect these parents to ‘figure it out’ with little to no support.

If we actually invested in parental mental health, if we acknowledged that parenting is exponentially harder when you’re still healing from your own childhood, we could fundamentally change the game. More awareness, more support, and fewer stigmas would mean less stress—and ultimately, better outcomes for kids.

The Unique Pressures on Today’s Parents

Beyond the traditional stressors of parenting, today’s parents face a unique layer of pressure from social media. Never before have parents had access to so much information about parenting, child psychology, and attachment theory. While this can be valuable, it also creates an impossible standard. Parents are inundated with curated images of perfect playrooms, organic meals, and joyful moments—all while juggling careers, economic concerns, and personal well-being.

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Social media functions as a modern "village," but without the practical support real communities used to provide. Instead of neighbors stepping in to help, parents now measure themselves against the highlight reels of influencers. The pressure to be a perfectly regulated, always-patient parent is unrealistic. If we recognized this added mental load and shifted our expectations, we could alleviate some of the stress modern parents face. (For more on self-care, click here.)

The Bottom Line

Parenting stress isn’t just an individual problem; it’s a societal one. If we keep acting like it’s every parent’s personal burden to bear, we’re ignoring the structural issues making it worse. The Surgeon General’s report is a step in the right direction, but unless it leads to meaningful change—better insurance coverage, accessible day care, mental health support—it’s just another reminder of what we already know: parenting is the hardest job in the world, and it shouldn’t have to be this hard.

So, will the federal government step in and actually help parents in a practical way anytime soon? Unlikely. But in the meantime, let’s at least acknowledge the crisis for what it is—and push for the kind of support that parents need.