Surgeon General’s Warning: Being a Parent is Bad for Your Health

In the news recently, the US Surgeon General shared that based on extensive research, parenting is bad for your health.

This apparently was news to some people in the world?!?

Part of me must question how on Earth this was something that had to be studied. There are exhausted mothers and fathers walking around all day, every day.

From the moment a child is born, their parents are consumed with worry. Will they breast or bottle feed? Are they attaching enough to the baby? Will they ever sleep through the night? If I let the baby cry it out to learn to sleep alone, will they become a raging lunatic later?

Newsflash – the range of worries only grows in depth and breadth over the years. As a mom of three teenagers, I still worry just as much but the topics now range from driving safely to career preparation and ensuring each child is a healthy and happy adult at the other side of their high school and college years.

For much too long, I have told myself that putting my children before all my own needs is what a “good mom” does. By nature, I do put others before myself, but no one ever asked me to suffer in the endeavor of being a selfless parent, and especially not my precious children. When I was expecting my first child, a dear friend gave me a gift card for a massage, and at the time, I thought it was a nice even if odd gift. I fully understand now that this lovely friend in her infinite wisdom understood what I was about to face and that a few hours alone focused on self-care is exactly what I need.

Parenting in current times is not for the faint of heart. I have written before about how as a society we seem to have lost our minds  when it comes to our children’s activities and sports. And there is a lot of judgment (online and in person) as to how each one of us chooses to raise our children. I was personally susceptible to that judgment when I was the mother of younger children. The good news is that with aging, I truly have gotten to the point that I simply do not care what opinions others may carry about myself or my family.

But the pace in which we live and how we seem to place a heavy emphasis that successful parenting is based on successful children – visibly perfect children with a perfect resume and a perfect future – will indeed do serious damage to our collective health. There is little room to put ourselves first and just accept that our one and only singular job as a parent is to enable our children to feel safe and loved.

Nothing else truly matters. The pressure to provide the best of everything and ensure that a child pushes for excellence and is involved in every possible extracurricular – let alone the lack of support we culturally have in the US for families – and no wonder our health is failing.

I challenge each of us to examine how we can best be a parent – but without pushing ourselves to the brink of physical and emotional exhaustion.

And the next time some researchers want to understand how hard it is to be a parent, maybe stop by the pickup line at any sport or activity around 6:30 PM on a Tuesday at their local school. I promise a long line of parents will be happy to share their trials and tribulations.