A new report from the Surgeon General’s office reveals that parents in America are fighting through extremely high stress levels just to make it through each day.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s advisory shows that 41% of the nation’s parents say that they’re experiencing so much stress they cannot function.
Meanwhile nearly half of all respondents – 48% – say the stress they deal with daily is “completely overwhelming.”
Among the factors creating such a difficult environment for raising children: financial shortfalls, and not enough time in the day to juggle work and home life, and a lack of a support system to help them not just manage their kids but for their own mental health, too.
“Parents also report being lonelier than other people as well,” ABC’s Cheri Preston told WBEN. “They put all their time into their kids. The rest of their day is spent doing things only for them and they say, ‘You know what? I’m a little bit lonely.’ It’s something we’ve heard a lot over the past four or five years.”
Additionally, parents report having safety concerns about their children’s schools in the wake of so many mass shootings on school campuses and other forms of violence.
And if all that’s not enough on their plates, many parents are also serving as caregivers to their own parents along with caring for their children, adding another level of difficult responsibilities to their daily lives.
So what can someone do if they’re at the end of their rope? The first step is finding a trusted ear to bend.
“Talk to your friends about it,” Preston said. “Talk to your family members about it. Talk to your employers about it and reach out if you need help.”