Dear Surgeon General...

My thoughts on his new parent advisory

I’m several weeks late on this and there have been tons of other takes already, but I want to share my thoughts today on the Surgeon General’s recent advisory on parental mental health and well-being, which highlights the struggles today’s parents face and what we should do about them.

I first got wind of the advisory while I was on vacation a few weeks ago and received an email from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services inviting me to a confidential briefing on its release. I thought about canceling my beach day in order to tune in, but then considered the irony — I probably shouldn’t give up a much-needed parental self-care day in order to learn more about the dangers of parental stress.

Plus, if I’m perfectly honest, I wondered what the advisory would tell me that I didn’t already know.

Earlier this week, I finally read through the whole thing. And I was right — it’s full of arguments and statistics I’m familiar with, many of which I’ve discussed here in this newsletter. Like that “the well-being of parents and caregivers is directly linked to the well-being of their children.” And that there “has been an intensifying culture of comparison — often propagated by influencers and online trends — with unrealistic expectations around the milestones, parenting strategies, achievements and status symbols that kids and parents must pursue. And, of course, that “it has become harder for parents to prepare children for a future that is difficult to understand or predict.” (This is, in fact, the premise and inspiration for my upcoming book.)

So I was nodding along to all of that. But when I read the advisory, I also bristled.