Surgeon General Agrees - We are Overloaded

Although parenting is a huge lift for all parents - especially women - single moms are disproportionately overloaded. 

Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash

In Claire Cain Miller’s recent article, Today’s Parents: ‘Exhausted, Burned Out and Perpetually Behind, she highlights the growing mental health crisis among parents, citing a rare advisory by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, who states that parenting has become “too hard and stressful.” The piece delves into the mounting pressures on parents today—especially the financial and time investments required to provide children with the opportunities they need to succeed in the modern world. While it rightly addresses the stress faced by two-parent households, it misses a critical point: What about single moms? If this burden is already overwhelming for two-parent families, how crushing must it be for single mothers?

Single moms face a unique and compounding set of challenges that this article overlooks. They often have to do the work of two people—balancing careers, child-rearing, and household management—without a partner to share the load. The article speaks to the increasing expectation that parents devote their time and money to ensure their children have every advantage possible. But for single moms, who often have fewer financial and time resources, this pressure becomes an impossible equation. How do they manage to give their children those same advantages when there’s only one of them to do the job?

The article also discusses how parents today feel compelled to enroll their children in extracurricular activities, sports, and tutoring, driven by fear that their kids will fall behind in college admissions or future careers. Colleges and employers are looking for well-rounded students—those with academic proficiency, athletic skills, leadership qualities, and unique life experiences. But all of these things come at a cost, and not just financially. Parents must take time off work, sacrificing income or job stability to shuttle kids from one activity to the next. This is particularly difficult for single mothers, who might not have the luxury of flexible work hours or extended family support.

The reality is that if parents, single or partnered, don’t provide these opportunities, their children may indeed miss out on advantages that are crucial in today’s competitive landscape. On the other hand, meeting these expectations can leave parents burned out and financially strained. So what’s the answer? The article doesn’t really offer a clear solution, other than suggesting a cultural shift where parenting is viewed as a societal responsibility rather than an individual one. But until that shift happens, parents—especially single moms—are left in an untenable position.

It’s not just about giving kids a leg up in college admissions. The constant juggling act of being both the primary caregiver and breadwinner can be mentally and physically exhausting, and that exhaustion is often invisible to the outside world.

SO - how do we raise successful, well-rounded children without sacrificing our mental health, financial stability, or personal well-being? It’s a complex problem with no easy answers, but one thing is clear: single moms are shouldering a disproportionately large load.