The Patriot Post® · Surgeon General Issues Commonsense Warning: Having Kids Is Hard

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has just issued an advisory: Parenting adds a mental health and wellness toll on the parents, which may result in an overall culture of people wanting to skip being a parent altogether.

Murthy also wrote an op-ed for The New York Times explaining, “48 percent of parents say most days their stress is completely overwhelming, compared with 26 percent of other adults who reported the same. They are navigating traditional hardships of parenting — worrying about money and safety, struggling to get enough sleep — as well as new stressors, including omnipresent screens, a youth mental health crisis and widespread fear about the future.”

It’s very telling here that he doesn’t discuss the cultural pressures facing families in the U.S., which has become an increasingly anti-family nation. Whether it’s the hostile look from a barista over the coffee counter giving parents the cue that their kids are unwelcome, or the message from climate activists that kids are a waste of resources, or the fact that the U.S. has an extremely low fertility rate, those external pressures aren’t mentioned.

Then there’s the stress and pressure foisted on parents by a feckless government that’s hostile to families and family values. Schools indoctrinate children with left-wing ideology and fail to properly educate them. Libraries have been promoting “Drag Queen Story Hour” or making inappropriate books available for teens and even younger kids.

Murthy goes on to write: “Compared with just a few decades ago, mothers and fathers spend more time working and more time caring for their children, leaving them less time for rest, leisure and relationships. Stress, loneliness and exhaustion can easily affect people’s mental health and well-being. And we know that the mental health of parents has a direct impact on the mental health of children.”

This is true, but again, it’s mainly caused by pressures outside a family’s control. We live in a time when both mom and dad need to work to pay the bills. In the case of the up-and-coming Gen Zers, owning a home and raising kids in that home isn’t possible. Inflation is a driver of that.

Murthy then presents possible solutions. “Something has to change,” he says. “It begins with fundamentally shifting how we value parenting, recognizing that the work of raising a child is crucial to the health and well-being of all society. This change must extend to policies, programs, and individual actions designed to make this vital work easier.”

The suggestion that, as a society, we should “fundamentally shift” views on parenting is absolutely true. However, the changes he suggests aren’t going to fix the issues.

Murthy has several ideas about how to help mitigate the problem of parenting being challenging. Some are great, like no social media, restricting screen time, and building a community of friends so that you have help when it is needed. But some of his ideas are highly suspect. He suggests, “Having safe, affordable before- and after-school care programs, predictable work schedules that allow parents to plan child care and workplace leadership that understands the complex demands on parents can help immensely.”

More affordable childcare and jobs that facilitate meeting family needs are intriguing, but the question is: How would this be done? Through the government? No thanks. In the case of childcare, how is it going to be paid for? Via increased taxes? And how are they going to convince bosses that family needs come before the company’s bottom line? If the answer is more government intervention, then it’s not a good idea.

The intent of the surgeon general’s warning is to make people who aren’t yet parents aware of the difficulties. But because it is such a commonsense advisory, its issuance could read as fearmongering. If even the surgeon general is warning about parenting being hard, then perhaps it’s not worth the trouble, people might think.

Murthy is very clear, however, that parenting is signing up for a lifetime of both joy and worry. Parenting is a labor of love with many ups and downs, and our current American society sets up roadblocks to parental well-being.

For the most part, Murthy isn’t wrong in encouraging parents to try to take care of themselves. And though many of his suggestions aren’t feasible, those that are really could make a difference. Still, it’s ironic that the U.S. surgeon general felt it necessary to inform us that parenting is hard.