Why do parents seem more overwhelmed / anxious / struggling with parenting these days?

[Gagamama2]

Looking for help really as I feel so overwhelmed by life as a parent and from speaking to other mums about it they then open up and say they feel the same. I know quite a few people on anti depressants because of the stress of general everyday life - no big traumatic event or anything you can really pin down as being the cause of it.

Have parents always felt like this? Did the previous generations hide it better or has something changed to make it harder these days?

particularly interested in hearing from grandparents who can compare their parenting years with how their children are bringing up their kids today.

I’m doing my absolute best to cope, am a (I think) strong and intelligent person who isn’t using anxiety as a pass for benefits or help with anything. It is a genuine situation for me that I want to get to the bottom of and try to solve as it’s ruining the best years of bringing up my kids.

I think there’s a lot of over analysing everything and getting caught up in every small decision. Everyone seems so highly strung and anxious about things. I have friends that over the years have agonised about what pram/car seat, how to feed, sleep schedules etc. to fast forward A level choices and whether to private tutor ad infinitum. I come away thinking, that was a bit dull, and gosh, should I be worrying about all this?’ Obviously, I do to a certain extent and have three children to think about and am invested in. I then see the parental anxiety then becomes anxiety/uncertainty in the child and then they start manifesting that anxiety as school refusal, behavioural problems or something else. Which then goes on to create even more parental anxiety and tension in the house.

I work with children in a stressful environment (medical) and see how anxious parents cause anxious children every day. Without over generalising, relaxed parents tend to have resilient children who cope with the things I am asking of them and you see directly how the child feeds off the parental mood and is able to cope with things because they have confidence and boundaries. It enables them to do the hard things that I need them to do. The parents that are beside themselves tend to have children that I metaphorically have to peel off the ceiling to provide them with the care that they need.

As previous posters have intimated, I think parental input/the village helps. I have a mum who was a single parent of four children and worked full time. She didn’t have the time or means to worry about every small thing. I take a lot of advice from her and it’s helped me relax and enjoy my children rather than fret about everything. I see a refusal from my generation to take any advice from the last generation of parents as we all definitely know better and have the internet and research to look at. That’s all fine but there’s nothing like having a role model who tucks your kid into a pram and forces you out for the day to get you out of your own head about nap schedules.

I think parenting has always been stressful. Think about the ‘mother’s little helpers’ of the post-war era. Mums who didn’t even have the added stress of having to balance work outside the home were popping benzos just to cope with the stress and boredom.

I would say my mum found being a parent much more challenging that I have. And she actually had help. My grandparents did all the school runs, all the childcare starting when I was 3 months old, fed me dinner every night. It was like having a free nanny and because they were free, no added financial strain of childcare costs.

In comparison, I’ve had to do everything myself. No family help, working, affording childcare (because mine was in nursery before funded hours and tax free childcare), and I haven’t found it as stressful as my parents did, I don’t think. In our case, I think it’s down to better mental health and better resilience. I’m able to cope with tough stuff better than my parents were.

But I also think some of it is greater openness about struggling. Realistically, we may open up on here or on social media about finding parenting hard, but how often do you go knock at your neighbour’s door and tell her you’re struggling with parenting your child? Probably never. In the 60s, 70s, 80s, people didn’t talk about mental health the way we do now, probably because there were limited outlets to do it that were socially acceptable. So people suffered in silence a lot more. I think that gives the appearance of finding things easier, but really it’s just stuffing it all down, keep calm and carry on, and I don’t know that that was really better for anyone.

Yes, some parents have always felt like this. You discuss antidepressants, when I was growing up it was "mother's little helpers" - Diazepam - that it was an open secret that some mothers took. There is even a song about it back in the 60s where a mother is 'not really ill, there's a little yellow pill".

Many mothers who had all the supposed village of supportive adults people discuss these days still used diazepam, alcohol, weed, and other drugs to self medicate just a they do now. Sometimes the village can be a major part of the stress, even more than the kids. People have always discussed parenting being shite and the judgement of the village being shite as well.

I do think expectations shifted in many places and children became more isolated from each other from the early to mid-00s. It was and in some places still the norm for kids to go out and largely amuse themselves once school age or a bit older, now in many places it's largely unacceptable to the point people will get police involved and so more of the pressure to be the entertainment that their peers would have been and create an environment the local neighbourhood would have had is on now on parents.

There is also a lot of conflicting information around parenting with modern technology that we're all making up as we go along and hitting the road bumps for as well as even more constant rhetoric over what we're doing wrong that adds on top of the parenting is a society that's changing and moving goalposts of what kids 'should' have for a 'good' childhood.

Why would a stranger need to chastise a child?

I dunno, I remember frequently being told off by random adults as a child. I wasn’t a hooligan or even particularly naughty, but because of the relative freedom allowed to children in the 80s and 90s I remember being unsupervised with friends at the ages where children still make bad decisions - climbing on stuff that wasn’t safe, going into a strangers garden to retrieve a ball, things like that - and being told off for it by adults we didn’t know. That just seemed a normal part of my childhood. That’s part of what “the village” means to me, but seems to have broken down these days.

The biggest factor in most people's lives is that you need exponentially more income to buy /rent a home than you did in previous generations, hence more pressure to work more hours, more stress about paying for and logistics of the childcare, plus other costs of living.

There will be many other factors affecting mental health but I think this is the broadest and most impactful.

Not, it literally means random strangers - although the people living in the street and surrounding streets were often not strangers; people knew most of their neighbours.
Children would go down the street to the playground by themselves, no adult supervision.
If they messed about, e.g. touching other people's cars, or the flowers in their front gardens, it was absolutely fine for ANY adult to give the child a right good telling off, shouting at full blast.
If the child went home crying to their parent, the parent would give them a second right good telling off, not go and have words with the adult.

Adults backed each other up, even strangers. If your child did something that annoyed another adult, you gave them a telling off, and had no problem with the other adult telling them, even if you didn't know them.

It is a very modern idea that other people are not supposed to tell off your child.

I have friends that over the years have agonised about what pram/car seat, how to feed, sleep schedules etc

1 - far more choice on the pram/car seat and far more money at stake. I agree this is a bit needless but it's a big purchase and you don't want to find you can't fold up the buggy etc.
2 - how to feed - the internet has brought a lot of conflicting advice and often kids don't follow what they're supposed to do

so I would say these two things are largely a result of having more to compare and people to compare with, giving their opinion. In the 90s and before we'd only know what our parents and in-laws thought, mostly, let alone everyone on MN, influencers, your second cousin on FB, etc!

3 - sleep schedules - now here is something I'm thankful for all the information there is. Lack of sleep absolutely killed me and I wanted any and all advice on how to get the baby to sleep better (so I could) - and sticking to fairly consistent sleep schedules is how we cracked it. So I will always defend people prioritising this for the early months/years so they can get their sleep because it's debilitating going without it - not to mention the added pressure of work in my previous post.

Because they are literally required to be in two places at once at all times. When I was growing up my mum didn't have to work. A normal family could exist on a single income. We were 'poor' by today's standards: no car, no phone, and for quite a while no TV, no fridge or washing machine. But lots of other people were similarly off, so it didn't feel bad. This meant my mum never had the stress of dropping us off and rushing to work or the stress of having to leave work on time to collect us, or the horrendous stress of what to do if we were sick and off school, or what to do in the holidays.

Added to this it was entirely normal for children to play unattended for hours at a time. To walk to primary school together with no adult. No parent was frowned upon if their child went missing because they'd been allowed out to play alone, aged 3/4/5/6 until dusk. It was seen as the child's fault for straying. (Not saying this is right, just saying it relieved the parent from that stress and guilt.) The few mothers in our street who did work gave their DC keys on ribbons which they wore around their necks. They were called latchkey kids - pitied a bit by adults, admired by other kids, but it was completely normal to just walk back from school, let yourself in and wait until your parents got home from work. No suggestion of neglect. So my mum had hours to herself everyday when she wasn't at our beck and call, wasn't expected to entertain us or care for us or earn money. She just did the housework and cooking and then had coffee with friends or practised piano or made clothes. These days any parents who let children roam free from dawn to dusk or walk to and from school alone aged 6 or habitually expected them to occupy themselves for a few hours between school and returning from work are treated as appalling, neglectful people. And if they do prioritise their children, they are treated as workforce slackers. Catch 22.

I don't know how people do it. DH and I have for most of DC's life, had freelance jobs where at least one of us was always working from home. It made life easier. But most women I know, especially single mums, are expected to be on hand 24/7 if their child falls ill or needs medication (school won't administer it) and on time for afterschool club collections, yet supposed to behave as if their children don't exist when they are at work, or treated as slackers if their children need care when they fall ill. It actually makes me feel physically angry that this totally illogical system is allowed to continue and not properly addressed by the government, by employment law and schools. It's unsustainable.

Because there is a lot of pressure to do everything right now and SM adds hugely to that. Plus, financial pressures are much greater than they were for our DPs/GPs generations, so instead of one parent being at home and it being fairly relaxed, often both DPs need to work, there's the stress of juggling work with nursery/school/long school holidays, the CoL is much higher, etc.

Ultimately, life is just a lot more stressful now, more fast-paced, more demands on everyone's time and I think of people feel more pressure to keep up with their friends or do things the way they see others doing them.

No village
higher cost of living
it’s ok to say you’re struggling now

and our expectations- we were told we could have it all and it turns out we can’t, and I think we’re the first gen actually worse off than our parents
men are expected to do more which is a shock to them, women were told it would be equal but it’s still not which is a shock to them

and more is expected of us. Helicopter, Child centred, gentle (ie requiring emotional intelligence and healed parents) parenting is fashionable now, whereas authoritarian parenting, cry it out, smacking, come home when the street lights come on parenting was fashionable when we were younger, and that’s clearly easier!

lots of reasons

‘Mothers Little Helper’ is what the used to call the drugs prescribed to women in the 50s.

it’s always been a struggle for some

Women are expected to do too much these days and this is where all the stress comes in.
A lot of women also think they’re not good enough or natural enough with their kids and have to follow specific methods and routines that don’t align with their personalities or they have to because of demands of work.

Agree with this.

No one has any time, and money is tight, and both work full time, and you have to make amazing fusion cuisine not just tea, and there's primary school homework now, and no dentist or doctor, and and and and and!

Because it's a myth that modern parents are 'lazy', they're working harder at everything - paid work, parenting, spending quality time with their children, clean and tidy house - than they ever did in the past.

I got up this morning at 6am and my house looked like a shit-tip because I was so tired after taking my kids out all day yesterday for 'enriching' family time that I fell asleep without doing the usual evening tidy.

I hung out the washing, emptied and filled the dishwasher, scrubbed some oven trays, wiped the kitchen surfaces, dealt with an ant invasion, emptied the rotten fruit bowl, tidied up yesterday's toy carnage, hoovered the downstairs and cleaned the loos, all before 7am.

Kids woke up, I got their breakfast, plonked them in front of the TV and then caught up with work emails, as my job is busy and stressful atm and so I need to do some overtime.

I then felt guilty for giving my kids too much screen time so we baked some scones. Kitchen a mess again.

Plonked kids in front of screens while I cleaned kitchen and made lunch. Toybox emptied.

Now we've headed out to the park for some lovely 'quality' family time, except my younger one has gotten too big for her boots and has decided to take on the big kids' climbing frame. So I've spent the last half hour hovering underneath her, ready to catch her if she falls.

Then we'll go home and I'll plonk the kids in front of screens again while I make dinner because I will literally combust if I don't get a little peace from 'Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!"

Have dinner, run bath, wash two kids, wrangle everyone into pyjamas, get younger one to sleep (takes a while).

Force older one to do usual nightly reading - he hates reading so it's a battle. Get him to sleep (takes a while). It'll be 9.30pm before they're both asleep.

Go downstairs, clean up dinner mess, clean up toy mess, hoover floors, wipe kitchen surfaces.

More work. I've had another email asking me to look at some stuff for Monday.

Fall asleep on the sofa in front of the TV and wake with a stiff neck at 3am.

It's totally beyond me why anyone wouldn't find this relaxing.

I'm 48. Both my parents were on tranquilisers long-term throughout my childhood. I remember the being very stressed about money and interest rates. My mum worked part time until I was about 9. We lived a long distance from grandparents, though they would come and stay to look after us in the summer holidays, probably stopped this when I was about 10.

I played out from age 4ish, and my parents pretty much demanded this. I was much happier being indoors reading.

We'd play cards regularly as a family, I think mostly because my dad really liked playing cards.

This.

Kids were just less work. They took themselves off to play with friends at weekends and holidays. Parents did not have to entertain them or organise their social lives. My parents would take me for an occasional bike ride and one day trip a year and that was it. No ferrying kids to endless activities after school either. Most kids would maybe go to cubs or brownies or Sunday school. If they went to anything.

Parents work full time now and are full time facilitators of their kids’ social/ leisure activities on top of that.

Oh, and no homework in junior school. So parents didn’t have to oversee that. And at secondary school, kids were responsible for remembering their own homework. No bloody school website parents were expected to check to oversee their kids homework and school life.

No bloody endless dressing up days at junior school or endless ‘theme’ days to remember and send kids in with xyz.

Kids were genuinely less work, more independent and much more self organized. Absolutely all the data shows they were happier too. I am saw there is causation there, not just correlation.

Having spent the weekend with a friend and her kids I have no goddamn idea how people do it. The kids are nice, good souls, but fuck it's relentless. Screaming and squealing from dawn til dusk.

I think maybe in our parents day they had to focus on kids less. Now everything is centred on them.

God they're so sticky and needy and toileting is so patchy:-/

Also obviously the squealing doesn't actually stop at dusk, dusk would be a luxury early finish

Two things that take up lots of my time but weren't relevant to my DP or DPIL are:

Child's SEN needs. My god they create monstrous amounts of paperwork. Now probably my DSis and DH and DBIL all had some additional needs but the school system flexed around them in a way it just doesn't seem to nowadays. Thank you Michael Gove.

DSis didn't even pass Maths GCSE (and DM's school refused to enter her for Maths O level) but this was no barrier to them continuing to 6th form and HE. Jolly well would be nowadays. Plus the less educated of the past could make a good living in the trades. My builder, who is severely dyslexic, has more work than he can do. He's in his 50s like me and has no succession plan.

Connected to this, primary and secondary schools expect a huge amount of input and support from parents. My parents value education but I don't remember my dad ever coming to school and neither of them got involved with our work at all till we reached GCSE/A-level and then only in practical ways (my parents kindly bought me a stereo to help with Music A-level listening and paid for music lessons; they bought my sister's art materials - that kind of thing).

They certainly weren't monitoring homework deadlines or making sure we had green pens!

Services are also not there. It's really worrying bringing up a child with the difficulties of accessing GPs and MIUs, and god forbid you need a paediatrician.

I feel a lot of pressure to earn well to pay for private SEN stuff like therapy and physio plus to be able to pay for care DH and I might need. I don't want either us to die on a waiting list, and as an older parent, of course I know people that has happened to.

I also think parent nowadays are over involved in their children’s lives and don’t take a break from ‘parenting’ .
This has been made worse by social media where one is able to look at the lives of others and make comparisons

I am saw [sure] there is causation there, not just correlation.

I agree. The explosion of anxiety in teens and young adults is partly due to social media, but also partly because they have never had the chance to develop an age-appropriate level of self-reliance, self-organisation, self-confidence, and self-esteem. The parent was always hovering.

Children NEED time away from adults, to work out life for themselves.

I’m a grandparent and have children in their thirties. I do think there’s a lot more pressures on parents these days. It’s a lot more competitive, lots more stuff children can do. More mums are working.
Life was simpler in the eighties. However I struggled with my mental health but I just didn’t talk about it to my friends. No one did. I had a lot of anxieties and lost my mum when my children were little. Basically suffered in silence.
Im glad its been ‘normalised’ now and people can talk about their mental health and there is so much more help available.

My sister is awesome. When other parents used to show off, she'd say with a big smile, "We don't believe in competitive parenting." Unanswerable!

Yep

My parents didn’t do much parenting. In the holidays, went out in the morning and came home for dinner. Even when there were issues at school, we were ignored and told to get on with it. My parents lived there life and we were just left to fit in (or not) on the whole.

I parented my children, played with them, listened to them etc so of course, it comes with more stress. It also comes with children who feel loved and have great relationships either each other and us now they’re older.