Parenting: An Urgent Public Health Crisis The Surgeon General has issued a rare advisory highlighting the alarming stress levels of today’s parents, indicating that parenting has evolved into an urgent public health crisis. Unlike previous eras, where parenting brought both joy and challenge, the current landscape is characterized by a phenomenon known as intensive parenting, which involves significantly higher investments of time and resources in child-rearing compared to past generations. This trend is seen as a contributing factor to the heightened stress experienced by parents today. Transcript: Michael Barbaro All right, maybe you win. So I want to start by asking you to describe what our Surgeon General just said about parents and parenting. Not a subject we tend to think of as a classic question of public health and the Surgeon General. Claire Cain Miller So the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy put out an advisory. These are rare warnings. Past ones have been for things like cigarettes or gun violence. And this time, what he’s saying is that today’s parents are not OK. They’re too stressed, not the normal amount of stress. But what he’s saying is that parenting has become so difficult that it’s become an urgent public health crisis. Michael Barbaro Huh. Basically slapping a warning on the business of parenting. Right. And why? Exactly. I mean, I’m sure he has a very good explanation, but just on his face, parenting’s never been easy. It will never be easy. Claire Cain Miller That’s right. And he does say parenting has always been something that brings both joy and challenge at the same time. But what’s really different now is that we have entered this new era of parenting. Social scientists call it intensive parenting. Basically, what it means is that we spend a lot more time and money on our children than previous generations did. Intensive parenting was first described by a sociologist named Sharon Hayes, and this is how she said it. (Time 0:01:45)
The New Reality: Optimize or Fall Behind Children born in the early 1980s experience a shift in the American dream, where the likelihood of surpassing their parents’ financial success is now equal to falling behind. This change has bred anxiety among parents regarding their children’s future, leading to an intense focus on education and enrichment. College admissions have become more competitive, fueling the necessity of a college degree for achieving a middle-class lifestyle. Societal pressures compel parents to continuously optimize their children’s qualifications and experiences, a stark contrast to previous generations who did not feel such intense stress about their children’s future. Transcript: Claire Cain Miller So a lot of things began to change around the time that we began to do this. One is that kids born in the early 80s, when you and I were both born, are the first generation of kids in America to have just as much of a chance of doing better than their parents financially As worse. Before, it was sort of a definition of the American dream that each generation did a little bit better. And that is no longer a guarantee. So there’s this anxiety that kids won’t do well, that they will fall out of their class, that they need to really have the utmost education and enrichment in order to succeed as adults. One way that that started to show up was that college became a lot more competitive and much more necessary for achieving this middle-class wage. What the social scientists I talk to say is that our society has become so worried about the importance of a college degree, about this fear that your kids will grow up to be unsuccessful Adults and not be able to support themselves. And how that filters down is that we feel this pressure to sort of be optimizing our kids all the time, optimizing their resumes, preparing them for college, preparing them for this Future in a way that parents really didn’t feel that stress before. (Time 0:05:59)
Intensive Parenting: A Response to Economic Insecurity Intensive parenting emerges as a response to economic insecurity, driven by parental hopes for better outcomes for their children amidst prevailing uncertainty. This style reflects societal shifts where norms dictate increased involvement in children’s lives, producing pressure to ensure their success. Historically, parenting approaches have evolved, with changes since the 1970s intensifying demands on parents, transitioning parenting from a noun to a verb, and transforming how parents engage with their children from providing autonomy to directing their activities for success. Transcript: Michael Barbaro So intensive parenting should be viewed as a kind of striving parenting driven by economic insecurity, like a kind of guarantor of, people hope, a better outcome for their children At a time when there are very few assurances that their children will do as well or better than them. That’s fascinating. Claire Cain Miller That’s exactly it. And, you know, as norms change, you look around and you see other people doing it. And so even for parents who this might not be top of mind, it sort of just gets in the air that we breathe that our kids need to do all these things in order to succeed. Hmm. Michael Barbaro You started, Claire, to hint at this idea that intensive parenting is a break from what came before it. And I think it would be useful to situate this new form of parenting that the Surgeon General has just identified as problematic in a larger history of how parents in this country have Parented. Claire Cain Miller Right. So the way that we parent changes a lot over the decades. And in recent years, every change has increased the pressure on parents. If we go back to the 70s, that’s when parent was still a noun. No one used it as a verb. It was something we were, not something we did. Parents, by and large, did adult things when their children just occupied themselves. (Time 0:07:16)
Parental Influence Shapes Early Development Adverse childhood experiences can lead to long-term challenges, highlighting the importance of positive interactions in early life. Responsive parenting, such as smiling back at an infant, builds neural pathways related to emotions. Early exposure to education and a rich language environment significantly influences a child’s vocabulary and reading skills later on. While some parents may feel immense pressure to shape their child’s future through every interaction, it is crucial to balance influence with the understanding that outcomes are not solely the result of parental input. Transcript: Claire Cain Miller Talk about adverse childhood experiences when kids are exposed to trauma or severe stress that that can cause problems later on. Did you know that the pathways in your infant’s brain that deal with emotions are built and strengthened when you respond day after day to your baby’s smiles by smiling back or picking Him up? We also learned that when kids are exposed to education and enrichment early on, that that can mold their brains in a certain way. We get this research about the number of words that kids hear before they’re a certain age and how this can impact their vocabularies and reading comprehension later on. This is when we got baby Mozart, this idea that you would play classical music outside your belly when your baby was in utero because there was this science that suggested that this molded Their brain in certain ways. Michael Barbaro You know, at this moment in the episode, we have to play baby Mozart. Claire Cain Miller I’m excited to hear it. But some parents take this to an extreme with this idea that parental inputs entirely shape a child’s outcomes and what they become. And what that does to parents is makes them feel like at every turn, at every moment, it’s their responsibility to be shaping their children’s future outcomes. (Time 0:16:22)