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.

Parenting standards have changed. My dad in the 50s was returned by the police once aged 2 (!) as he’d just been wandering about outside and had gone ages away crossing a busy road. This was semi normal. Parents didn’t take their children to soft play and outings and experiences every weekend. They just chucked them outdoors and let them get on with it. There were a fraction of the number of cars on the roads and fewer people, which helped it seem a bit safer. And fewer women worked so someone was usually around to keep an eye out and help.

A lot of that would basically be called neglect these days. And with TV and the internet, leaving children to get on with it doesn’t mean they’ll healthily go outside and play and interact, if that was still safe-ish to do! They’d just sit in front of screens all day. Now we work full time, have to escort our children everywhere, filling their every waking moment with something stimulating and educational, and are worried about paying our extortionate mortgage and energy bills as food costs sky rocket every day. It’s understandably more stressful.

Massive caveat to say not everyone had no worries back then and I personally absolutely love being a parent now! But as a generational generalisation.

Also, I’m not looking back saying it was better or worse for kids necessarily, just different. I think they got some benefits and some stuff you hear about sounds so risky it makes my hair stand on end! And parents (mothers) had other things to spend time on - we had fewer helps like convenience food and technology.

But I think in general that generation didn’t stress about it all nearly so much. No internet or social media to put the pressure on! My mother is constantly saying she’s glad she only had access to one baby ‘how to’ book when she had us and not the whole internet telling her she was doing it wrong and all the ways she ought to do more / try harder / was failing! they just got on with it and didn’t over-think it.

About the playing outside/by themselves thing: this is something outside the control of parents. More people live in cities/urban areas nowadays, and cities are bigger and less safe for children. So there's been a trade off: safety for freedom, I guess.
In my experience, I don't know a single parent around me who doesn't think that how they grew up (regarding playing and roaming outside) was better than their children's structured play dates/social activities. But it's the way society has evolved.

Another side of two working parents is the number of hours spent with the kids. A parent who goes back to work full time at 6 months vs a parent who has a year-long maternity and then goes back to work 3 days a week. The second parent has spent more time hands on in the trenches so to speak and those additional hours make a different to feelings of competence. Compare those two with a third parent who never went back to work and generally speaking there will be another level of ease from having had longer to spend around the kids (whether child-focussed attention or not). Plus how many of us have any direct hands-on experience of small children before we are landed with our own? These days it's a largely unacquainted skillset which has to be learned on the hop with conflicting advice from social media/books/professionals/every rando within a 30 mile radius. We don't approach learning to drive in this manner, or doing any other skilled job.

You've nailed it in your title tbh OP. "Parenting" as a verb.

Alongside working 80 hours a week between you as a couple, and STILL not having enough money to pay a cleaner to take the edge off.

I often boil it down to "when is my turn to choose what's on TV?" As a kid, it was dad or sometimes mum - the Grand Prix and Coronation Street respectively. Now, as an adult, it's the kids' choice...

I genuinely don't think anyone has ever shown me to compassion, respect, consideration and understanding I have to show my kids on a daily basis to achieve what is now considered "entry level parenting". And yet I had good parents. But, they just "had kids" they didn't "start a parenting journey".

People standards were lower in the past and there weren't as many rules

Aggressive consumerism wasn't making you think you need this that and the other and you couldn't view social media where you saw people you know displaying this that and the other depicting an idyllic family life.

Whilst it's good that women can have careers now, we have found ourselves in a situation where women (or men) HAVE to work rather than CHOOSE to work because of the cost of living and I think having both parents working so much can put a strain on the family sometimes

Women used to be able to take their kids to work! (E.g. seasonal fruit picking)

Communities were more tight knit and people helped each other out

Children were allowed to go out and play all day on their own unsupervised (or rather supervised by the community)

It's hard being a parent these days.

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?
I worked 3 days a week as a lone parent in the early 00s ( thanks tax credits) and was really skint but it gave me time to go to community groups/ toddler groups where I met a brilliant local network of mums.
I knew if I went to the park or the shops I’d always bump into someone. You could roll up to a neighbours house and pop in for a cup of tea. We’d have each others kids over to give each other a break. I once made a friend standing in the booze aisle in the supermarket with our toddlers 😁
I doubt Covid has helped any, as real life groups and later on real life holiday clubs etc seem to have diminished. And people seem far more anxious about other people’s children and other “ parenting styles”. I had friends who were hippies and gentle parenty, and friends who were very straight and routine led but we just sort of accepted each others differences.
Things seem so tribal now and so stressful.
Also, my parents and grandparents did all work so it’s a bit of a myth that pre 00s mothers didn’t, but my dads folks lived up the street and we’d be there a lot. It was accepted that grandparents would be looking after you sometimes and parents were grateful. Now I feel sorry for grandparents as they have to follow the parents strict rules at all times!
My mum helped me when mind were small and while sometimes I felt a bit wtf about her choices, I recognised the benefits of her endless patience and the fact that I could have a night out now and again!

First post nailed it completely. We need to get back to being able to afford a house on one income and build a lot more social housing. I can’t see that happening any time soon though.

I think the huge difference between me parenting and my children parenting is that I was a SAHP when the children were little and part time after that. I enjoyed the time a spent at home with my children. I do regret the sacrifice of a career but I suppose you can’t have everything.
None of my friends threw their children out on the street to play. ( that was 2 generations ago - I was thrown out on to the street.) We all interacted with our children and they went to many after school activities but I never felt rushed.
My own children have to work long hours and parent as well. We have tried to help our children out by looking after our grandchildren some of the time especially in the school holidays.

Because of the internet and the constant comparisons to other parents, the constant pressure to do the best by your kids be it healthy eating, education, extracurricular activities. When I was a kids I ate fish fingers and chips, I went to the local state school with no such things as SATs or OFSTED ratings. I did t do anything after schools and in the holidays I was left to my own devices. No one worried about the quality of my education or my mental health or keeping me entertained in the holidays.
Because now both parents are required to work due to col. and there are more single parents with single incomes and twice the stress. As people have said the so called village is ever decreasing for the above reasons and as people increasingly move away for work.

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Were there less cases or do you think because we have TV, the Internet, social media... that we see these cases more and hear others opinions about what you shouldn't do as a parent? (Like leave kids in hotel rooms etc, which I think was pretty common pre Maddie)

(Sorry for double post, I lost the previous comment)

I think it’s partly because Gen X were the latchkey generation and we were under protected. We look back on childhood now with some pride at our resilience but we can probably also remember times our parents were horrifyingly negligent. We decided we were going to do it differently for our kids and be more proactive and more protective. At the same time society started demanding more of us than our parents so we also had to follow higher and changing standards. This trend has continued with the current generation of parents, resulting in less resilience than Gen X (and brought up to talk about feelings or at least learning how to do it from the internet) and even more unrealistic standards, in line with the continuing trend of increasing societal over protection and ridiculous standards. This is all alongside finances that can’t possibly meet those standards and with the growth of the internet which is probably one of the biggest factors in declining mental health. We need to go back to more realistic expectations that life is bloody hard, we all do the best we can with what we have and we are going to get it wrong for our kids, but they will survive just like we did. And we need to ban social media for all children. That’s the main culprit for poor child mental health and a huge amount of stress for parents.

Because society's expectations of parents have become ridiculous.

It's the same here - we are in the middle of the city and the kids are very limited in where they can go outside but you still see a lot of them out at times. They make the best of it. My daughter has been going out on her own (albeit only within a certain distance and only with other kids) since just before she turned 5 and I think that probably feeds into her ability to entertain herself. Even so I still feel that momentary freeze when she says she's bored, and I have to remind myself to let her be bored and also to not overschedule her. All while trying to work, run a home, budget, limit screen time, ensure enough physical activity ensure enough mental stimulation, enough sleep, enough quality one on one time, enough family time, enough time with friends, travelling to maintain family relationships, good nutrition - it is A LOT. I frequently tell her we would never have dreamt of asking my mum to play with us 😅

Sunaquarius You're SO right about 'supervised by the community'. I lived in a large town, but in our area mum knew most people (church/ school) & we always knew where they all lived &, crucially, that eyes were on you so you stayed out of trouble ( ie not building a rope swing over the river, or going near the farmer's fields - not wild crime!).

Ifnot I was similar with the tax credits. Became a single parent after divorce in 2008, & was able to still pay my mortgage & continue to work 3 days due to tax credits & maintenance from the boys' dad. I was skint, but did it. I had very little affer all bills, but counted every penny & tutored when the boys were in bed to give myself any money.

I would have had to sell the house if it wasn't for tax credits. I'm still in the same house- which I love- and am so glad that I fought to keep it & had that help to do that.

I too was at free/ v low cost activities- library/ bounce & rhyme/ swimmimg (was free for wee one & £1 for me) /church toddler group - where I met my 4 brilliant mates & we were all each other's social network- they are still my excellent friends now.

I am quite blunt with mine and will happily tell them to go find something to do when I'm busy cooking or doing housework. I've always had the expectation that they will entertain themselves some of the time and they aren't too bad at it. I don't know if that's nature or nurture. Some of my friends have a terrible time with their kids demanding constant interaction or screens but I don't know how strict they are.

OP I think it’s always been hard, but our brains play this trick on us and when the older generations look back they look through a nostalgic lens and remember the good bits. My brain is already doing that with the baby stage even though I know it was fucking hard but my brain is saying noooo it was fine, do it again!

there are of course other factors like way more money and societal pressures to do it right. Way more judgement, more info and more ‘rules’ which can make parenting very overwhelming.

If your child was being a brat, being rude, inconsiderate or loud, and you (quite a lot of parents actually) just ignore it and expect strangers to just put up with the behaviour.

because there is an excuse for all behaviour, be it anxiety, or whatnot,
you cannot be annoyed at your irrational child because of some possible trauma you may subject them to

Both my parents worked FT throughout my childhood, but I've asked them what was different - they think modern parents do way too much running about after their kids and put themselves under immense pressure to provide the perfect childhood. So many extra curricular activities, over the top birthdays and Christmas and everything in between. These things take time - to plan and to execute, and money to pay for them. Also, parents want to smooth every tiny bump in the road for their kids, whether that's getting involved in minor friendship squabbles, or marching up to the school at the slightest little thing.

I've personally noticed (and you hear about it on here all the time) women who want their own little family unit and have little or no time for extended family, so I suppose it's not surprising the grandparents lose interest.

When I was a child in the 70s and 80s, random people (usually middle aged women) absolutely would tell you off for e.g. being loud on public transport, dropping litter, eating in the street etc. There was a strong sense they were in the Mature Lady League together!

I am an assertive person but the assumption nowadays that's it's okay to watch videos/play music/conduct loud phone conversations in public places really bothers me - but I rarely say anything because I don't want to get into an altercation and I'm not confident other members of the public would stand up for me.

I did intervene on a train when I heard a young man verbally abusing his girlfriend and it was amazing how all the other passengers were absolutely engrossed in their phones...

Even telling off a child behaving dangerously - I'd think twice (I would near my school if I recognised them or at least their uniform - they'd assume, correctly, I was a teacher).

there is probably too much comparison for All of us. parents and kids
far more than there ever was.

The main Difference between us and my parents is that they didn’t do much parenting (as we see it now), especially my mother. They both worked , but I was a latch key kid so no rushing back and forth for school runs , trying to organise/find after school childcare etc. I was fed, clean, clothed and that’s it.

The main Difference between my parents and my grandparents was that the kids , after a certain age actually helped out, cooking, cleaning, looking after the animals, laundry , working the land etc.

Just came on to say this.

Three under 5s in the late 1980s, both of us working full-time, no family nearby at all. Both with sometimes challenging jobs that necessitated regular travel. If we hadn’t been lucky enough to find an excellent nanny/mother’s help, we couldn’t have kept the show on the road.

But we definitely weren’t as stressed as some of the posts on MN suggest. No clubs and the like except swimming, football and scouts (not all at the same time!). Mostly just took them to the playground after school. Maybe the odd game of tennis. No gaming or X-box, though they did have some computer games. Simple family outings at the weekend. One short and one longer holiday a year, plus travelling to see grandparents at Christmas.

(Incidentally, back then there was no help with childcare costs. What’s more, not only did we have to pay the nanny out of taxed income, but we also had to pay her taxes and national insurance contributions.)

We work in two high pressured well paying roles. But, because of the cost of living, there is no way we could afford a nanny.
So I guess we don’t have that luxury so it’s not really comparable!
We are more stressed. Isn’t it evident why?