Parenting is hazardous to your health, the surgeon general warns

An advisory issued Wednesday by Dr. Vivek Murthy, the nation’s doctor, said parents in particular are under dangerous levels of stress.

The report cites the American Psychological Association, saying nearly half of parents report overwhelming stress most days, compared with 26% of other adults. They’re lonelier, too, according to cited data from health insurer Cigna. In a 2021 survey, 65% of parents said they were lonely, compared with 55% of those without kids.

I think I speak for a lot of parents when I say I feel seen. As a working mom of three, I feel the stress.

But who isn’t feeling that way? Elderly people are lonely and stressed. Single men are lonely and stressed. College students are lonely and stressed. Gen X moms are lonely and stressed. There’s an epidemic of loneliness and stress in this country and it’s bad for our mental and physical health, which Murthy pointed out in a previous advisory.

His stark warning doesn’t necessarily help with the real problem. Fewer people are choosing not to have children, some because they can’t—or can’t see a way to attain professional ambitions along with family ones. Politicians like JD Vance are outspoken on the primacy of parenthood, and lots of people feel the job is so sacred that it’s wrong to even talk about this.

Murthy, recently dubbed America’s “first chief wellness officer," has made mental health a priority of his office. But cures are often less concrete than, say, quitting smoking or getting on blood-pressure medication. And his laundry list of proposed solutions might just put even more burden on parents and parents-to-be.

Helpless and alone

Murthy describes parents’ loneliness as a unique kind that comes from being fully and solely responsible for another human being. Maybe powerless is a better way to describe it.

Murthy, age 47, described to me how he and his wife have felt that powerlessness firsthand.

Years ago, when they first relocated from Boston to Washington, D.C., their infant son had a bad cold and difficulty breathing. He knew what to do—suction the baby’s nose, turn on all the showers for humidity. But sitting there with his wife, holding a sick baby in a new town with no friends or family around, he felt helpless. And alone.

“Being a parent has really opened my eyes not only to how challenging it is, but to how uncertain it is," Murthy says.

So this is where we are? The very act of propagating the human race is bad for…the human race?

Murthy isn’t suggesting people quit having children. “There are so many joys and benefits that can come with parenting," he says. “They can coexist with the stress parents feel."

Instead, he’s issuing a call to action for anyone—especially lawmakers and bosses—with the power to lessen the load on parents. That load has grown heavier with the rising cost of child care, longer working hours and new threats, from school shootings to social media.

Murthy prescribes a mix of institutional actions such as child income-tax credits and workplace management training on one hand, and individual action such as seeking more mindfulness and self-care on the other.

Parenting as a solo sport

Almost everyone who signs up to have kids knows it’s a hard job, even if they don’t fully grasp that until they’re in it. Still, how did parenting become so tough that the surgeon general felt compelled to issue an advisory?

“Somehow, over time, we came to see parenting as an individual sport, not as a team sport," Murthy told me. “Parents need the support of family members, friends and neighbors."

While previous generations have also faced worries and financial stressors, parents now have new things to worry about, he says.

“Struggles like how to manage the harms of social media, how to deal with gun violence in communities and the youth mental-health crisis are newer issues that the current generation of parents are dealing with and they need to be a priority," Murthy says.

Digital-age dangers

With kids spending so much time online, parental duties extend beyond any physical boundary. It isn’t enough to have grandparents nearby to babysit or neighbors to keep an eye on kids as they ride around on bikes (if they ever do).

Even the most vigilant parents can’t keep up with everything kids see and do online. Tech companies need to make their platforms safer, because we all know by now that parental controls don’t work. And that’s before we get to the sextortion scams and AI-generated nudes. Legislators have proposed laws to protect teens from online harm.

Unrestricted internet access and online bullying have contributed to a spike in adolescent anxiety. Murthy has described the youth mental-health crisis as the defining public-health challenge of our time, last year issuing an advisory on social media’s effects on adolescents.

In his latest advisory, he cites Pew Research data showing that parents of adolescents are worried about social media’s harms and feel ill equipped to manage it.

Again, powerlessness. We don’t know how to help our kids navigate an online world in which we ourselves didn’t grow up.

Stress is contagious

When parents aren’t OK, kids suffer. Murthy mentioned studies showing that children of parents with poor mental health are more likely to have depression and anxiety as well as behavioral and academic problems.

So now what?

Murthy lists things government agencies, employers and healthcare professionals can do to support parents. He wants a national paid family and medical leave program. He recommends expanded programs to support parents in the workplace—such as training employers to recognize signs of stress. He wants pediatricians to provide more mental-health screenings for parents when they bring in their kids.

And while we wait for those institutions to do their part—if they ever do—he says parents need to build and nurture their own support network of friends, neighbors and relatives.

Honestly, that sounds like more stress.

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Write to Julie Jargon at Julie.Jargon@wsj.com