Why American Parents Feel So Unstable
Welcome to the age of tremors. Parenthood has always involved unpredictability : wake-ups at 2 a.m., calls from school, the dreaded words my stomach hurts . This daily variance frequently stems from a sick or scared child, and is part of the basic dynamic of family life. Yet todays parents in the U.S. also face rising external disruptions and a degradation of the institutions that are meant to provide stability. The result is that many families are regularly knocked off their feet by problems that are more than inconvenient but less than catastrophic. This breeds parental stress, insecurity, and exhaustion. Americans have entered, in short, an age of tremors. The nation has been on this course for the past half century. Starting in the 1970s, a series of economic- and social-policy decisions led to what the political scientist Jacob Hacker has termed the great risk shift from government and corporations onto households. Hackers idea mainly refers to economic changes, such as the private sectors shift from guaranteed pensions to stock-market-dependent 401(k)s. But this notion of a DIY society can extend to the numerous ways parentsespecially mothersare asked to hold it all together, the University of Wisconsin at Madison sociologist Jessica Calarco told me. For example, the rise of double-earner households was not met with policies like affordable child care or mandatory paid leave. Instead, families have been forced to navigate confusing and competitive marketplaces to acquire basic services such as day care and summer camp , and they are largely on their own to deal with any breakdowns. Read: The U.S. leaves parents on their own for a reason Whats new in the 2020s is that these breakdowns are occurring more frequently. Consider the series of challenges families have faced in recent years. There has been a terrible shortage of infant formula , as well as childrens medicines such as Tylenol , amoxicillin , and Adderall . Child care has become even scarcer and more expensive and, because of staffing shortages, programs regularly close or reduce hours with little notice . Extreme heat has forced school closures ; wildfire smoke from Canada has caused some U.S. summer camps to delay their start times. Some of this volatility is because of climate change, public-policy decisions, or corporate-profit maximizing. Some of it is the result of multiple factors. The infant-formula crisis was caused mainly by a single factory shutting down, a predicament foreshadowed by policy makers enabling a handful of companies to control nearly the entire market . Additionally, as the labor economist Aaron Sojourner told me, there has been a significant rise of just-in-time scheduling a model where businesses operate with the barest minimum of employees who can be called in or sent home on very short noticein low-wage industries including retail, food service, and call centers. This leads to instability in the lives of workers, especially parents , and increases the risk of something going awry for customers if a sole employee quits or cannot make their shift. Yet only one state and a few cities have laws limiting just-in-time scheduling. At the same time, decades of neglect are causing public systems to break down. A lack of adequate funding and modernized processes has led to decaying public services and hollowed-out government offices with poor responsiveness. Applications for child-care assistance can be a nightmare to complete , and even well-resourced states like New York and Illinois have recently had major problems getting timely payments to child-care providers . Parents of children with disabilities are facing down record-long application-processing times and extremely limited support staff. The age of tremors helps explain a seemingly odd disconnect between peoples perceptions of their personal lives and of the way the country is going. The Atlantic s Derek Thompson described this phenomenon as Everything is terrible, but Im fine, pointing to the tension between contemporary indicators such as healthy disposable income and a sense of economic gloom. For many parents, I might extend the description to Everything is terrible; Im holding on, but whats going to go wrong next? Psychologists are clear that a reasonable sense of control is a key component of mental health. Having to worry about Canadian wind directions or scouring a half dozen stores for medicine to bring down your childs fever are not only practical pain points; they foster a general atmosphere of instability. Some parents of young children still reported lingering fear and anxiety about formula supply after shelves were filled again. Such constant precarity takes an emotional toll regardless of ones bank account. Research shows significant declines in parents mental health since before the pandemic, and recent years have brought high levels of parental exhaustion and burnout , as well as loneliness . About three-quarters of parents are very or somewhat concerned that climate change will harm their children or other young children they know. This stress and insecurity can easily trickle down to the whole family. A simple rejoinder is that none of this is new. Parents a century ago could not count on antibiotics because they were not commercially available. But consider the more recent past: Todays parents have less predictability than those in the last quarter of the 20th century. As the Stanford sociologist Marianne Cooper wrote in Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times , the trends that began at the time of the great risk shift brought about substantial increases in income and job instability by the 2000s. Moreover, until the past few decades, social institutions and bonds have been better prepared to stand in the gap. Labor unions, fraternal associations, and especially faith communities provide not merely a sense of connectivity but also material support such as meals after a birth or trusted people who can watch the kids in a pinch. These networks have been experiencing a steady decline in membership. A permanent age of tremors is not, however, inevitable. Policy makers can both stabilize the ground and help families deal with the quakes. The first step is making healthy, predictable family life a policy priority. Laws that strengthen the child-care system, provide robust paid leave, reinvest in public services and lower their administrative burdens , and restrict just-in-time scheduling are all ways to shift risks from families back onto government and corporations. As a guiding principle, policy makers should reduce chaos, liberating parents and children to deepen their connections to one another and their community. Perhaps the saddest thing about the status quo is that this should be an age of wonders for families. We live in an era when modern medicine has eliminated many childhood diseases and is regularly developing new treatments . There has been a resurgence of interest in developing child-friendly communities that can withstand climate disruption by expanding and upgrading parks and creating more natural playgrounds . Technological tools make connecting with loved ones in far-flung parts of the country easier than ever. Parents could have so much to enjoy and look forward toif they werent constantly bracing for the next shake. When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic .