Parental Stress Is an Underappreciated Drag on the Economy
Every generation thinks they have it harder when it comes to raising a child, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
It really is getting tougher to be a parent.
Photographer: Seth Herald/Getty Images
It’s official. Parenting is difficult. So much so that US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has issued an advisory about the stress and mental health issues parenting creates. Parenting joins social media for children, health-care worker burnout and firearm violence as issues the Department of Health and Human Services felt it needed to formally address.
The surgeon general is a politically appointed position, so a warning of this kind naturally evokes some skepticism. This is just another way to push for Democrat priorities like more funding for child care! These millennials are soft and need to stop complaining! Who are they to say parenting is harder now? In the grand tradition of being right and wrong at the same time, maybe prior generations did have it harder, but there is nothing to gain by withholding help to today’s parents.