I correctly anticipated motherhood would be a challenge before I had children. But I naively believed my love for my children would overshadow the overwhelm I felt when things got hard. Shortly after I gave birth to my first child, I learned that no amount of love can get rid of the loneliness that comes with bringing a new human home when they seem so fragile you could break them. Everyone assumes you’ll learn what to do, too. But I didn’t feel ready.
As years passed and one child became two, my fears shifted from breaking their bodies to breaking their minds and spirits. I still don’t understand how we’ve gotten so comfortable with parents, especially mothers, struggling their way through as they rear the next generation. There was a message: My children’s future rested on my husband and my capacity to anticipate and address all our children’s needs regardless of our traumas and the limited resources at our disposal.
I remember feeling trapped in a matrix, constantly on the verge of breakdown and burnout and holding the silent expectation that I couldn’t express my frustrations or I’d be deemed ungrateful or weak. I didn’t know the stress I felt was hidden in plain sight for most of the parents in my life.
A new report from the Surgeon General’s office gives me hope that the culture of silence is slowly changing, and we’re finally ready to shed light on the impact of parental stress.
Earlier this month, the Surgeon General issued an advisory titled Parents Under Pressure: The U.S. Surgeon General Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents, naming the impact of parental stress on parents, families, and communities. The advisory offers a working definition of stress—a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation—and notes how everyday pressures like work, financial, and family demands alongside internal pressures like comparison and self-doubt compound struggles. Most importantly, it’s noted that this state of worry can intensify the mental health challenges, or other issues, that we already experience as we try to raise our children.
Data from the American Psychological Association finds that 48 percent of parents with children under 18 say their stress is completely overwhelming on most days, compared with 26 percent of other adults who reported the same. Further, parents were more likely to say other things like “No one understands how stressed out I am,” “Stress makes it hard for me to focus,” or “I am so stressed I feel numb.” Parents Under Pressure notes that demands on our time, concerns about our children’s health and safety, and feelings of isolation and loneliness often combine with cultural pressures and a desire to prepare our children for the future.
Mercedes Samudio, DSW, LCSW, author, and mental health consultant, says Black and brown parents are not only navigating their parental identity—who they are becoming as they raise children—but also managing their racial identity. “As the Surgeon General’s report highlights, these parents must address concerns like physical well-being, daily responsibilities, and the consistent care their children need,” she explains. “But on top of that, they face the additional burden of managing the impacts of discrimination, racism, and oppression, along with how society perceives their existence.”
She notes “racial battle fatigue,” a condition leading to both mental and physical exhaustion, as a developing area of study that impacts Black parents. Hearing her words and the report resonated with me. My pre-parenting plan to raise children with a healthy racial identity didn’t align with the real challenges of raising children who entered the world “young, gifted, and Black” with few structural supports. I put additional pressure on myself to get things right on top of what the world expected. Comparing myself to the clean image of momfluencers, the strength of prior generations, and the linear career growth of my child-free friends each brought its own weight. The biggest was a disconnect from my kids.
Like most parents, I struggled to hold my needs and my children’s needs and model healthy coping mechanisms when stressed and burnt out. Samudio notes research highlights how burnout presents as hypervigilance, depersonalization (where a person emotionally detaches from others), emotional exhaustion, fear or sense of failure, and increased irritability in Black and brown parents. She describes physical symptoms such as insomnia, headaches, or stomach problems as signs, too.
Parents Under Pressure highlighted how parental stress impacts mental health and one’s capacity for emotional responsiveness. “Parental mental health can influence the emotional climate, responsiveness, and consistency of caregiving at home,” it says. Shortly put, when parents battle depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions alone, they’re unable to support themselves and their children. Our ability to connect with our children shapes their attachment to us, themselves, and the larger world. Research demonstrates that insecure attachment can contribute to anxiety, difficulties regulating emotions, and interacting competently with peers. Others note burnout influences the likelihood we’d show violence or neglect toward children, even when those behaviors go against our parenting philosophies.
Thankfully, the report outlines hope in mitigating the impact of stress on parents through supportive social networks and positive parenting behaviors, particularly with access to resources to address mental health concerns and the stressors and causes of their overwhelm. Still, Samudio notes numerous structural factors like rightful mistrust of health care, cultural stigmas surrounding mental health, and financial barriers limiting access to care for Black and brown parents.
“Effectively addressing parental burnout includes interventions that must be culturally responsive, tackling the structural inequities and cultural strengths within these communities. Culturally relevant coping strategies, like acknowledging and addressing the unique racial stressors these parents face, are essential,” she says. “Community engagement with mental health education and resources, reducing mental health stigma, and ensuring access to affordable, culturally competent care are all crucial steps toward improving mental health outcomes for Black and brown parents.”
Of course, a cultural shift is needed for parents, especially mothers, to receive the support we need. When reading Parents Under Pressure, I saw a call away from the culture of individualism we’ve normalized in parenthood toward a more collective model. The suggestions acknowledge the value and importance of parents’ work, view child-rearing as a collective responsibility, call out the need to develop more spaces to discuss the stress and overwhelm of parenting, and to stop normalizing loneliness in parenthood. There’s room for change at each level, and we all have a role to play.
My role is to ensure mamas know there’s more to them than motherhood—that work starts at home by watching when I exhibit the signs of burnout. The report affirms my belief that we’re passing messages to our children when we accept parenting as a place of mandatory struggle. If we don’t take time to connect with ourselves, we won’t have the capacity to connect with them.
“Acknowledging burnout is the first step toward healing,” Samudio says. “Awareness is a powerful starting point in making changes that improve your well-being and your family’s.”
