Published on August 29, 2024, 1:00 am

Identifying mental health as a crucial issue, Joe Biden’s attorney general has taken steps to make it a government priority. This act promises potential benefits amidst looming risks. Mental illnesses such as depression, obsessive-compulsive behavior, addiction, impulse control issues like gambling, and serious problems including eating disorders and schizophrenia are increasingly prevalent in America. But does parenting fall under this category?

According to U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, parenting can be detrimental to mental health leading to depression, overwhelming stress levels, and marked loneliness. Citing the American Psychological Association’s survey findings reported by the Wall Street Journal, “half of parents report overwhelming stress most days, versus 26% of other adults”.

There is an increasing trend to label various situations and behaviors as “mental illnesses”. Parenting by nature involves high-stress situations; however does any demographic not endure stress? Isolated elderly folks struggle with loneliness and stress as do single men or women. College students suffer from flourishing loneliness within their confined campus environment while Gen X moms juggle multiple roles plagued with anxiety and loneliness.

This ubiquitous epidemic of loneliness and stress induces adverse impacts on our mental and physical wellbeing according to Dr Murthy point noted in a prior advisory. However his explicit warning regarding parenting barely addresses the root causes.

In recent years there has been a steady decline in individuals opting for parenthood due to concurrent professional aspirations or other factors rendering childbearing unfeasible for others. Politicians like JD Vance place significant emphasis on the domain of parenting whereas others deem it inappropriate to discuss its inherent stressors openly.

Dr Murthy attributes parental loneliness to bearing complete responsibility for another human life but many dispute this concept irrelevant because parenting is simply more than having accountability for your children.

Parenthood instigates shared experiences that are unmatched in every sense despite intermittent fear-inducing instances such witnessing your child take first steps or uttering incomprehensible words emulating adult chatter.

Dr Murthy communicated to WSJ columnist Julie Jargon advising parenting to be approached as a team endeavor as opposed to an individual sporting event. “Parents require the support of family, friends, and neighbors,” he mentioned.

Such was the norm years ago when neighborhoods rallied for collective child rearing within their immediate communities. The question arises whether such community-fostered parenting can resurface paving way for organic familial structures that independent of governmental intervention.

Dr Murthy proposed potential aid from government agencies, employers and healthcare professionals comprising nationwide paid family and medical time off schemes along with workplace programs supporting working parents, aiming to equip employers in identifying signs of parental stress. Furthermore encouraging paediatricians to conduct mental health screening for during routine checkups.

Whilst this proposition awaits implementation should it occur ever, parents are advised by Dr Murthy to establish a support network inclusive of friends, relatives and neighbors which ironically could add an additional stressor on their already high-stress life.

Asking the government to facilitate our lives more often than not complicates things furthermore introducing amplified problems that parents deal with presently such as cyberbullying and the oversexualization of societies that has proliferated alarmingly in recent decades.

The fundamental query being what extent can governmental power extend without imposing political biases much like shutting down unwelcome pornographic sites based on public opinion? Would using such rights facilitate shutting down conflicting political views too?

Solitude, depression and stress should be dealt with individually by inculcating self-sufficiency among our offspring thus fostering stronger future generations and individuals which is seemingly the real news as we discern trusted news from a Christian worldview.