What this Election Means for Parents and Parenting

Andrew Moss

(10/13) Parents face unprecedented levels of stress these days, so much so that the mental health challenges they experience constitute "a serious public health concern for our country." That’s the message the U.S. Surgeon General communicated to the nation last summer.

Today it’s a message with implications for the current presidential election, since the differences between candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will have profound consequences for how a public health issue like this is handled – and whether, in the foreseeable future, parents will see their stress levels rise or diminish.

In releasing the advisory, "Parents Under Pressure: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents," Dr. Vivek H. Murthy specifically addressed the needs of the 63 million caregivers (e.g., biological parents, adoptive parents, stepparents, other kin) who handle the day-to-day responsibilities of raising children up to the age of 18.

He noted that almost half of the parents (48 percent) surveyed in a recent study reported that on most days they experience a stress level that’s "completely overwhelming," a number almost twice that of other adults (26 percent). A slightly smaller number (41 percent) report that on most days their stress is so great they cannot even function.

Much of the stress is financial. Two out of three parents (66 percent) report "being consumed" by worries about money, as opposed to 39 percent of non-parents. One in four parents has experienced times in the previous year when they had difficulty meeting basic expenses: food, housing, healthcare, childcare. And childcare costs alone have risen by 26 percent in the last decade.

As great as these challenges are, they’re still a part of a bigger picture. Parents worry about their children’s safety, with gun violence now being the leading cause of death for children and adolescents (ages 1-19). They’re concerned about their children’s physical and emotional health, a concern heightened by a national crisis involving teens’ mental health, with adolescents showing rising rates of anxiety and depression.

Add to this mix the increased time demands parents are experiencing at work and at home – along with the sense of loneliness and isolation that many parents feel – and you can see the broader contours of stress and tension that define the lives of so many caregivers. The advisory also notes the huge additional pressures placed on single parents, on parents who live in poverty, and those who face racial discrimination in one form or another – as well as various combinations of these factors.

In the report, the Surgeon General calls for a cultural shift that directs greater support to parents and acknowledges the value of parenting to society at large. He proposes policies and other initiatives that would galvanize support on the part of stakeholders ranging from government leaders to educators, from health professionals to employers, neighbors and friends.

It's in this realm of policy that you see sharp contrasts between Harris and Trump, contrasts that suggest how they’d approach a national issue like parents’ mental health. The Surgeon General, for example, calls for ensuring that, "parents and caregivers have access to comprehensive and affordable high-quality mental health care."

For her part, Harris has advocated expanding access to healthcare coverage, including mental health care, under both the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid, the latter providing coverage to poor Americans. By contrast, Trump attempted to overturn the ACA in 2017 and replace it with a variety of other plans, a change that would have increased the number of uninsured Americans to 51 million. Though he says he’s no longer attempting to overturn the ACA, he called for repealing it as recently as a year ago and remains vague on any possible substitutions or improvements. Moreover, during his term as president, he supported cuts to Medicaid, which would have reduced access to mental health services.

In short, it appears that while the Surgeon General is attempting to move the nation in one direction on behalf of the mental health of parents and their children, Donald Trump has been moving in the opposite direction.

This reality gets clearer if you factor in the issue of improved access to affordable housing, one of the Surgeon General’s policy recommendations to help alleviate parents’ financial stress. Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, has argued that Americans would gain greater access to affordable homes through mass deportation, i.e. "kicking out illegal immigrants who are competing for those homes."

The argument is not only fallacious and racist, but it assumes an even more disturbing meaning when considered in the context of the mental health advisory. The Surgeon General emphasized the importance of fostering a "culture of connection among parents to combat loneliness and isolation." He stressed the need "to foster a culture that values, supports, and empowers parents and caregivers."

This work becomes impossible when leaders use inflammatory language and narratives to demonize, dehumanize, and divide communities. Such language leads to violence or threats of violence, as we have seen with the false narratives Vance and Trump promulgated about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Those narratives incited violent threats that terrorized children and adults in the entire community.

In describing his own experiences as a physician during a recent interview, Surgeon General Murthy described what it means to "bring people together on a care team around the interests of the patient, regardless of what their differences of opinion may be."

Consider, then, the challenge of bringing people together on behalf of the mental health of 63 million parents, the well-being of their children, and, for that matter, the well-being of an entire nation.

The advisory, therefore, merits careful reading, reflection, and discussion – all the more so when the stakes are so high in this election.

And, in view of these stakes, there’s at least one additional, essential step to take: vote.

Andrew Moss is an emeritus professor of English, Nonviolence Studies at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

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