Parental stress levels focus of U.S. Surgeon General advisory

Stress levels among modern-day parents appear to be growing at an alarming rate — so much so that U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently issued an advisory calling parental stress an urgent public health issue (Source: “Why are so many parents ‘so stressed they cannot function’?,” The Hill, Sept. 11).   
 
Parents in 2024 are handling the traditional challenges of child care while dealing with stressors “previous generations didn’t have to consider,” Murthy, who is a father himself, said in the advisory. 
 
As a result, 41% of the country’s 63 million parents with kids younger than 18 feel “so stressed they cannot function,” and another 48% say their stress is “completely overwhelming,” according to the advisory.   
 
Murthy noted in the advisory that, among other challenges, parents now grapple with the “complexity of managing social media … concerns about the youth mental health crisis, and an epidemic of loneliness that disproportionately affects young people.”